Beyond the Scoresheet

Preseason Top 10s

I usually eschew preseason polls. I don’t know enough about individual players, who’s back from last season, and the like. I prefer to wait for the first two weeks of results to provide some data. And I used to feel bad about ranking without seeing games, but hey, I see about two games per year now, so I might as well go ahead.

I’m putting these out there for discussion and debate, not because I think they’re infallible or because I’m particularly attached to any comparisons. I’m also splitting public schools into their Public A and Public B classifications, as we will for the state tournament.

Without further ado, the njhockey.org Preseason Top 10s (educated guesses included):

Continue reading Preseason Top 10s…

Explaining the public tournament

Thanks to a frighteningly early deadline (before practices even begin), I’ve been working on my HNIB preview (including a Top 10, of which you might see a sneak peek soon) all week and talking to coaches.

This afternoon, I finally broke through and got hold of NJSIAA Assistant Director Jack DuBois, who confirmed the particulars of the public tournament split. I’ve heard a lot of information from a lot of people on this one, but nobody seemed really sure. So here’s what I’ve got:

According to DuBois, the 95 public schools playing varsity hockey (I’m not sure if that number includes East Side and Monroe – I’ll check when I get home to my personal computer tonight) will be classified before the season as either Public A or Public B (the terminology is not finalized, but that’s how DuBois referred to them.) Hamilton (10-12 enrollment 1,013) will be in Public A and Nottingham (enrollment 1,010) will be in Public B. DuBois iterated that the at-large process will remain the same, which seems to mean three private and three public, regardless of class size.

I’ll try to have more analysis of this later.

On a private school note, great to see New Jersey prep seniors representing in the DHI Cup – Mike Morreale had a quick recap at njice.8m.com.

RIP Brian Fleury

I’ve thought so many times about what I would feel and say when this happened, but I’m still at a loss for words. The best coach I ever had, yet never had, and the best man I knew, died today at age 40.

Brian Fleury

Here’s the Daily Record article from Saturday, along with a photo gallery, and Joe Hofmann’s Sunday column. In the photo gallery, check out the shot of Coach Fleury in high school. My mom always said he looked like Derek Jeter. Here’s the Star-Ledger‘s article.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

— W.H. Auden

Public tourney split approved

As first reported here in the summer and reported today in the Newark Star-Ledger, the NJSIAA Wednesday approved the split of the public ice hockey tournaments into two divisions.

I can only imagine what the NJSIAA will call it (hopefully not the Large School Championship Subdivision and the Small School Championship Subdivision), but I’m going with Division I (small) and Division II (large) for now. When I get to a computer with my full listing of teams and have some free time, I’ll try to finalize a breakdown of which teams will be which.

I also heard today that the Shore Conference is changing the way its schedule works (again.) I’m getting pretty tired of this, quite frankly. All the northern conferences had their schedules done in July, and we don’t even have preliminary Shore schedules here in September. Meanwhile, it’s non-hockey people making poor decisions about a sport that has very specific scheduling issues. I’ll let you know if and when we get a decision on this.

that’s awesome

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forgive me for a second, but that’s just awesome. I’ve known George since I was in the seventh grade and was completely awestruck when he was in the same conference block (think study hall) I was. To see pictures of him (‘stache and all) getting his day with the Stanley Cup and taking it home to our school was just awesome. Wish I could’ve been there.

This is also neat:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

East Side back in the game?

Keith Veltre contacted me today and let me know that East Side does intend to field a varsity ice hockey team in 2007-08 after not playing on the varsity level in 2006-07. Veltre has been the East Side coach for several years and has tried to build the program’s numbers through youth hockey. After merely practicing last year, Veltre said he expects the Red Raiders to play 10-15 games this year as an independent.

East Side was 3-13-1 while playing in the Northern Blue Division in 2005-06, beating Hackensack twice and St. Rose. Before that, the Red Raiders were 2-14-2 in 2004-05, 0-12 in 2003-04, 1-12 in 2002-03 and 2-10-2 in 2001-02. That’s as far back as my records go.

While never an on-ice power, you have to love East Side coming back. One of my great regrets on the hockey scene is that I have never been to Ironbound Rink or seen East Side play. I doubt I’ll get to break that streak in the short time I’m home this winter, but you never know. Besides, maybe they’ll play at The Rock.

Assuming Wallkill Valley and Monroe do compete on the varsity level this year (still unconfirmed), that makes 99 public schools. It also means Nutley is the school on the bubble between Division I and Division II if the public state tournament split is confirmed.

In other news that is completely unrelated to high school hockey, I’ve been promoted to sports editor at my newspaper group, which is a nice bump in responsibility (and, not that it’s saying much, salary).

my take on the Harvey Cohen situation

crazy that the hockey news keeps on coming. I’ve got schedules out for most of the NJIHL, as you may have noticed, and the NBIAL. A reminder that these are very, very preliminary and subject to change. I’ll keep checking various sites and various sources for updates. As always, please send schedule and coaching updates to jty [at] njhockey.org. … Slight realignment in the CVC, with Lawrence moving up to the Valley and Ewing dropping the Patriot. I believe that this is based on record in the last two years, which is why Ewing is dropping and not Hightstown. I could be mistaken about that. … If you’re bored, check out Delbarton‘s schedule. In addition to its by-now annual trip to Rhode Island, the Green Wave is heading to Minnesota for four days in January to face three mid-level Minnesota private schools. Ought to be interesting. Also, for the second straight year, Delbarton will face Lawrenceville in February, this time returning the prep power’s trip to Aspen from last year. Check out this stat: Lawrenceville has not beaten Delbarton since 2000.

There will be / have been a number of coaching changes around the state, including at some high profile schools. The most well known of these, of course, could come at Chatham High School, if this story on Harvey Cohen‘s situation holds up. I’m going to weigh in on this briefly. I haven’t talked to Harvey or to the Chatham school board about this, so take it with a grain of salt:

Harvey and I disagree about a lot of things in high school sports. Always have, always will. But we e-mail during the season and share opinions on rankings, seedings, scheduling, Morris County teams, private-public games and the like. We see eye-to-eye on some stuff but often have to agree to disagree. He was upset with me in 2006 when I criticized Chatham’s state tournament seeding and noted publicly that Cohen was on the seeding committee.
But although Harvey and I often disagree, I don’t think he got a fair deal on this one. Whatever you want to say about Harvey Cohen, he’s a dedicated coach who loves his players. Absolutely loves them, stands by them, tries to teach them, and looks out for them at all times. I have to like and respect a coach like that, and I like and respect Harvey.
We could argue all day about whether coaches should be athletic directors, both in general and in this specific instance, but that’s not really the point. Neither is the supposed point of contention concerning a $95/game fee for alternate site administrators necessitated by Cohen’s coaching duties.
To me, the most obvious thing is that the situation could have been handled more professionally by the School District of the Chathams Board of Education (hope I got that official name right). Harvey Cohen has been coaching Chatham hockey since 1973, and I, for one, will miss hearing his high-pitched cries of “Deep!” and “Body!” from the “Little Cougar” bench if the decision stands. As I understand it, there are a number of people in Chatham who feel the same way.

EDIT July 16: I’ve heard from several sources that after further consideration, Cohen will continue to be grandfathered on this rule and be eligible to remain coach and athletic director for several years.