New conferences
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- January
- 29
Here are the new geography-based conferences for Section 1 next year. It’s for all sports but football (which will continue to be based on school size). I took out all the non-hockey schools. Interestingly, Somers is in Conference III and North Salem is in Conference I, but I put them in III since Somers is the host school and it evens out the conferences.
Conference I (8 teams): Yorktown, Lakeland/Panas, Carmel, Mahopac, Kennedy/Putnam Valley, Pawling/Dover, Brewster, Ossining
Conference II (7 teams): White Plains, Scarsdale, Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, Sleepy Hollow/Irvington, Pelham, E/T/B
Conference III (8 teams): Greeley, Fox Lane, John Jay, Somers/North Salem, Byram Hills, Rye Town/Harrison, Rye, Mount Pleasant
Conference IV (6 teams): Clarkstown North, Clarkstown South, Nyack/Tappan Zee, North Rockland, Pearl River, Suffern
I spoke to Section 1 chairman John Orlando about this. First of all, he was as concerned as everyone else. He’s seen the section grow from 13 to 29 teams, and thought a big reason is that new teams could join a developmental league and not be afraid of getting blown out all the time.
He did recommend a few options to the ADs who will approve next year’s leagues. His initial suggestion was splitting up Conference III and creating a Northern league (with Greeley, Fox Lane, John Jay, Somers/NS and other schools who play out of Brewster), a Southern league (with schools like Rye and RTH moving down) and a Rockland league. That way, within the Northern and Southern leagues at least you could have an A league (like Mahopac, John Jay, Brewster, etc.) and a B league (Carmel, Kennedy/PV, Greeley, etc.). But he was told that scheduling “cross-conference” like that was not an option, so if I had to guess, I would say that the new conferences will act as the new leagues next season.
I think all the traditional matchups can still take place. If each team only had to play their league opponents once, then a team like Suffern will have five league games (yes, including Pearl River and Nyack/TZ) and then 15 non-league games, where it can schedule Mamaroneck, Pelham, Rye, go upstate, etc. But that would probably be up to each school district on how they can schedule non-league games.
In any case, if anyone is concerned I would start by talking to your athletic directors. They voted to approve the new alignments 59-16, and they will ultimately be responsible for creating the leagues for next year.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 10:56 pm by Harold Gutmann. 
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STACKED
agreed
conference 2 = strongest
wow 2 is a little stacked
WOW – Conference 2 is STACKED with great teams. That would be a very, very competitive league.
I was just going to say the same thing you guys said
suffern will not have a close game..
How does Rye get put into Conference III instead of Conference 2? Rye playing Greeley, Fox Lane, John Jay, Somers/North Salem, Byram Hills, Rye Town/Harrison, and Mount Pleasant?
Rye winds up traveling more than they currently do in Conference 3. Do they know where Rye is located? I think they believe Rye is located next to Brewster instead of next Mamaroneck.
I was under the impression that Rye would be in the grouping previously discussed – White Plains, Scarsdale, Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, Pelham and E/T/B. Move Sleepy Hollow to Conference 3 and all is forgiven. Might as well add Rye Town in also.
Please tell me this is some mistake or typo.
The League match-ups have little to do with playoffs as we saw this year. Allowing teams to play out of section games and have the games count toward playoff eligibility makes the league match ups less significant. Teams can play very weak out of section games simply to make the playoffs—which is happening this year. Though it allows for seasons to be extended, it does not lend itself to good competition and the plyoffs are not a real measure of who the quality teams are. Until the second or third round, just about anybody can make the playoffs. Hopefully they change the playoff rules along with chaning the leagues.
RYE and RTH going into a Brewster based Conference makes NO SENSE!!!!!! More travel, more costs, longer nights for those kids. Many Brewster ice slots or 8 or 9 at night in Brewster as opposed to 6:45 or 7:30 at Playland. This alignment is a joke.
How the hell does Rye end up in this conference. It is right next to Mamo. All their away games will be at Brewster against teams they will undeniably destroy. Someone needs to fix this. Are all the AD’s retarted for putting Rye in that league and Sleepy in the other. This just shows that the new alignments will ruin section 1 hockey.
Suffern will dominate the conference!
Did they even think when they made these, Suffern vs TZ? Who would want to play for their team when it’s 10-0 after 1 period? It is a nice idea in trying to save money, and they will at quite a few schools when they scrap the teams because no one wants to play because they are not only being dominated but in some cases humiliated.
add rye to conference 2 n u have a good conference. leave or take sleepy hallow or switch sleepy hallow for rye and rth, but regardless rye should go to conference two n that will be the strongest conference and mamaroneck could use its out of league games for better competition. suffern will want to schedule mamo pelham n rye.
Big mistake, taking Rye out of the same league of White Plains and Mamaroneck, these teams have history.
Harold I think the issue isn’t the approval of this realignment. That is easy to understand. The issue is why hockey wasn’t granted an exception. There are 2 very good reasons why it should be given an exception. 1) Hockey teams quality is dependent on youth hockey programs within the school district. Unlike baseball basketball and football there is a huge disparity for this in hockey which results in a huge disparity in the number of experienced players within a school district. This makes grouping the schools based on level of play far more important in hockey than in other sports. 2) They don’t play their games at or very near the actual school (unless the rink just happens to be close). They play at what 7 rinks in the area and for most schools even the home games need a bus to get too. There isn’t much savings to be had in travel.
So please if you write about please consider emphasizing that the issue is why hockey wasn’t granted an exception when it makes so much sense to do so and its not that they passed this realignment.
Just looking at the Rockland league I am seeing quite a bit of ice time for next year’s suffern bench during league play. schelling should be able to rotate 8 d and 4 lines and not have any problems. They should even be able to change the goalies on the fly.
Basically 1-2 very good teams in each conference…with the exception of conference 2 which has 7.
It seems that most people are not as upset since the new
aliment has been posted.Once you put Rye in conference 2
and SH/I in conference 3 this seems to be acceptable.
The only drawback is for Suffern but at least they can go out and schedule better competition.
There’s a very good reason why this happened, and it will get glossed over by most reading Harold’s intro to this topic, so I will point it out. The vote was 59-16. That means that 75 AD’s in the section voted on it. There are 29 hockey teams in Section 1. When you factor in mergers, there are 40 schools with a hockey program. Now, assuming all 40 of those AD’s showed up for this vote (which may be a strecth to assume), that means that you had 35 AD’s voting on this who don’t have hockey in their school and don’t give a flying you-know-what about it!!!!
Now the proposal on the floor was for this to happen with all sports except football. If they were not open to alternate proposals, then there was no way to get an exception for hockey because no one would listen. If they were open to alternate proposals, then I think the non-hockey schools being automatic no’s was the overriding factor in this getting shot down. A non-hockey school sees Proposal A with an exception for only football and Proposal B which is identical but also provides an exception for hockey and sees no difference, so why waste his time reviewing the alternative.
Unless the total number of votes between the yea’s and the nay’s adds up to 40 or less, then the vote was taken unfairly and should be re-done. Why should the AD for say Nanuet High School have a say in divisional alignments for hockey???? And even worse, remember Duchess County where they have club hockey (except for Pawling) is in Section 1. Those AD’s have a say in the matter, too, and they will undoubtedly look at it as “Our school doesn’t even sponsor the hockey program and it is doing just fine, so if you don’t like it, let your team go club like us.” So the world seems to be against us.
Plus, you have the issue (which has been brought up 10 times already on this topic alone), who the heck thought that Rye is near Fox Lane?? How could you claim these are divisional alignments and still put Rye in with FL, JJCR, & SNS??? Maybe it makes more sense when you see all the schools (not just the hockey ones) in each conference, but for hockey it certainly doesn’t make sense. Especially when you take into account that your school is not your home playing field like it is in every other sport. If they are going to go with this plan, they need to move SHI to Conference IV since they play at SOR, move Rye & RTH to Conference II to take their spot, then bump Ossining to Conference III so that the two teams that play out of WSA (Ossining & MtP) are together rather than both being in separate leagues where everyone else plays out of Brewster.
Anyone who has ever meat and spoken to an AD will understand why this is what it is.
The pressure has to come from the School District offices to NY State .
A presentation must be made by everycoach within theses programs to the School District who would have some power in the process as a collective body. The AD’s are just going to cover their backs and move paper.
If the coaches of HS varisty with permission of their AD’s reach out collectively or independantly with a unified voice and unified message they might affect change other than that the AD’s will just protect their backsides and you will have 5 minute drives to your home rink to play visiting games too.
I don’t see any savings in travel with this idea. However if they want to geographic, here’s my suggestion and it is supplemented by a power league to preserve the high quality of section 1 hockey.
My power league is based on who I believe will haev the strongest teams neaxt year.
Power League (6 teams): White Plains, Pelham, Mamaroneck, Suffern, Rye, E/T/B
My Geographic leagues are mostly rink based. I try to keep all the BIA teamns together in Conf I and II
Conference I (6 teams): Yorktown, Pawling/Dover, Mahopac, John Jay, Fox Lane, Brewster
Conference II (6 teams): Carmel, Kennedy/Putnam Valley, Lakeland/Panas, Greeley, Somers/North Salem, Byram Hills,
Conference II (6 teams): Scarsdale, New Rochelle, Sleepy Hollow/Irvington, Rye Town/Harrison, Mount Pleasant, Ossining.
Conference IV (5 teams): Clarkstown North, Clarkstown South, Nyack/Tappan Zee, North Rockland, Pearl River.
SH/I could move to the Rockland league since they play out of Sport-o.
Conference 2 = The Chuck Norris of Section 1
It’s really up to the traditional power programs to get this done. I’d think that the Suffern, Mamo, Pelham and Rye AD’s could deliver a message that you are debasing our product with this new alignment.
For most of the remaining schools, hockey is the red headed step child of the sports program. In looking over the list of schools with hockey programs there is no doubt that for most, they are football, basketball, baseball schools first.
Delvechio doing something, HAHA!
Magnotta doing something, even funnier!
Rye is going from a schedule where they play traditional rivals at away rinks that you could ride a bike to from Rye, to playing non traditional rivals all at an away rink where you have to drive 35+ miles on 684 to get to. That is saving money???
Harold,
How are the playoffs going to work because in this years league setup all Conference 2 teams would make the playoffs but then what happens with next year because all of those teams in Conf 2 are very good and all deserve to make the playoffs, but wont next year?
Just some very quick back of the envelope calculations. If you take Rye’s current schedule and compare it to the proposed schedule it would come out to a 48% INCREASE in milage traveled. 293 miles r/t v. 197mi for league games only. So the argument of $ savings by reducing travel doesnt exist. Like most others, I believe the same safety issues exist in hockey that also exists in football. With a AAA middle school student in the wings it certainly doesnt make Public hockey attractive. I would be interested in hearing from the group what everyone pays in subsidies to play public hockey?
How is this possible? This will kill high school hockey! Why did non hockey schools have a vote in this! Want to save money let the kids carpool like they do when they play travel hockey. Look at what happened in Mahopac when they had a pay to play program, They ended up with a surplus because they over charged to play. This is just total crap and another way the non hockey AD’s can get rid of hockey.
where is the money from the lottery that is supposed to help the schools? When this goes into effect will my taxes drop? I think not, what bull!
sorry to ramble on
Realistic..
You are being very realistic. Do the military terms SNAFU and FUBAR apply here?
this is an awful idea, these leagues are impossible.
This will totally ruin Section 1 hockey and make most if not all the games espesially in rockland a joke to watch,remember CN will be as bad if not worse than last yr after this season and NR is losing their 2 main guys. How is a Suffern/Pearl River game look at playoffs.
Then you have to go upstate and play teams that are much tougher overall.
VERY BIG MISTAKE, DONT DO IT.