Heading to Glens Falls
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- March
- 5
I heard back from Queensbury athletic director Scott Stuart (also the Section 2 coordinator) about the quarterfinal game on Saturday. First of all, the tickets sold by Pelham will guarantee admission. If Pelham sells 100 tickets and capacity is 800, then Queensbury will only sell 700 to its fans (these aren’t the real numbers). So get your ticket from Pelham if you don’t want to get shut out. As you can see, he is also making provisions so that visitors will have a place to park. Here’s the rest of the information from Stuart:
The rink is not that big and not that nice but it is what we have to work with! I will have our ticket people there by 11:30 – we will have a full house but I believe we can accommodate everyone. Tickets are $6.00 for everyone (no special student pricing).
Parking will be a serious issue – there is limited parking at the facility but there is some parking in the City Park across the street. There is a YMCA next door and they are fiercely protective of their front lot. People should heed the No Parking signs! We will be having a
shuttle bus running from our school(approx. 1.5 miles away) and we are encouraging our students and parents to take the shuttle. It remains to be seen if they will. That bus will run beginning at 11:45 and it’s free if any of your people want to take it. Our school is just off of Exit 19 of the Northway. Take a left and the high school is the second building you come to – very easy to find.
Finally… if you go to the website: visitlakegeorge.com you will find all of the info for the area Hotels, eateries, directions and other things to do. One hotel that comes highly recommended is the Comfort Suites in Lake George – Michael Stark is the manager. Mention why you are coming. I believe they have pretty good rates.
Update, 3:20 p.m.: After hearing that bloggers were concerned about the Glens Falls Rec Center, this was coach Ed Witz’s response: ”The ice is great, the staff are nice people, and our hotel is 5 minutes away. Over the years we have played many games there and we play pretty well there. Its not as big as Massena or West Point (which was amazing) but its certainly comparable to most rinks we play in. I have not heard anyone complaining about the venue from our side, so I hope people understand we are not concerned at all about the venue. We are grateful to be able to represent the Division 2 teams in Section 1.”
This entry was posted
on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 11:03 am by Harold Gutmann. 
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Best of luck to both our champions – Mamaroneck and Pelham -in the states. I think both teams have a legit shot at winning the D1 and D2 state championships and bringing the titles, and much needed recognition, to Section 1.
this sounds like a mess… this place is going to be a madd house
Everyone is so worried about space but the last Regional game that Pelham played at this venue 5 years ago was attended by about 50-75 people from Pelham, parents included.
yea that was five years ago,,,this is now man
You are too negative. Back then Pelham crowd was different. Right now they are clearly the most rabid and loyal fans in the section. Saw the love at the point the other night. Good for at least a goal and a 1/2 a game!
I hope there are 800 Pelham people there.
Heed Mr Stuart’s recommendations to purchase your tickets from Pelham and suggestions for parking and the shuttle etc,. Their facility is what it is and he is telling you up front its not the best, so you need to make the best of it. You know what to expect, enjoy the game and root the boys to victory.
Pelham had sold 120 tickets by this afternoon and are getting more — should be a good crowd on Saturday.
If they’ve sold 120 tickets already they definitely should get a fan bus
lets go pelham i know u will make section 1 proud regardless win or lose. good luck to u guys and hopefully will see u in utica. sat will be the toughest test so far, but every1 in section 1 believes u guys have what it takes. goodluck and now go show queensbury y section 1 is no joke.
I like both Mamaroneck and Pelham this weekend. Mamaroneck can show depth and can play 4 lines if need be. Pelham has always been built for these close defensive battle games. With Pelham it seems the bigger the game the better they play
Pelham coach Ed Witz has delivered a response to those who are concerned about the location of the Pelham-Queensbury game. I added it to the original post.
Probably don’t need to say this but I hope Mamo is focused and ready for a war. One thing about Massena is that they are Hockey Royalty in New York State. Their program along with WillyN, Salmon River, Aquinas are the elite programs and multiple State Crown winners in New York. If anyone doesn’t think that the stink of that 6-1 beatdown Mamo gave Massena 3 weeks ago isn’t still in their nostrils is dead wrong. They are a proud program and will come out with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. I would hope Mamo doesn’t believe their talent will just carry them through the playoffs. I’d love to see them come out with fire, some intensity and smack Massena in the mouth, so to speak, in the first few minutes. Take the fired up home crowd out of it early. Don’t go into the third tied at 2-2 or with a one goal lead. Jump on em early and often. Mamo has got to know that anything can happen in the next 3 games. Focus, lay it all out there, and bring Section 1 home a state champion.
I haven’t seen any posts….is the Mamo or Pel games being shown on VC this weekend??
Pelham and Mamo best of luck bring home 2 state championships.
Ed Witz,
In my opionon is the most respected coach in section 1. He not only cares about his own players but is very helpful to rival high school players. He really gets what high school sports is all about.
The bus rides home for both teams will be a whole lot more enjoyable if they play hard and win.
Harold, are you going to the pelham game or Mamo game or both?
Who really cares if Massena fans were turned away last year? Tough luck. Dont blame the hommocks… blame the fire dept for followin the law. Mamaroneck went over capacity last year…. maybe massena fans should have got there early.
Congrats to Ed Witz and Pelham…..Good luck to both section 1 champs !!!!!!
Harold it would be interesting if you gave us your predictions for both the Mamaroneck vs Massena and Pelham vs Queensbury games, also the other quarterfinal bracket games predictions? (Niagara-Wheatfield vs. Monroe-Woodbury and Burke Catholic vs. Salmon River)
hey,WHO STOLE MY NAME (flying v)—-second post
ARe you out of your mind????
I’ve had that name for years…get lost
Does anyone have any more info on the presumed geography leagues for next year? Harold, when will we hear the sections plans for these leagues?
Why isn’t it at some neutral site that isn’t 3 and a half hours away from pelham? I’m leaving pelham around 7:30 and don’t expect to be back until around 6:30 that night… blowing my whole saturday for this.
Anyway, I’ll be there hopefully it’ll be a great game, and hopefully pelham can find what it takes to pull off the win (or it’ll be a depressing 3 1/2 hours back down…
Hey 13th man, are you kidding me? Mamaroneck would love to drive a measly 3 hours to play. Mamaroneck has to go 7 friggin hours away to the Montreal border and they are playing at 7 pm. It will drive over 14 hours in 2 days to play less than 2 hours of hockey, squashing their entire weekend. I am guessing alot of parents will be taking a sick day on the following Monday if they can. So pelham should consider themselves lucky. How could you complain, would you rather be Rye and not playing at all?
There isn’t a fan bus because Pelham lost money when they got the two buses for West Point because not enough kids signed up. Harold, you might want to double check that 120 tickets sold by Pelham, that seems high.
Oh and the 13th man doesn’t speak for all Pelham students, we understand that Queensbury gets to host the game and those who are going to up are going to go.
I bought tickets 44-49 today at 9:30 Am. A lot more people bought them after I did.
And things have changed since 5 years ago. The fan base has developed and this time we come in ranked #3 in the state. I expect a good showing. I’m not saying 400 students will show, but I expect a solid group.
In the Valley,
We will not be broadcasting the games on Saturday.
Pelham hockey,
The 120 number came from Witz himself
Next year,
The new leagues will also be discussed at the all-section meeting on March 18. Right now the hockey people are advocating for arena-based leagues (Rockland, Brewster, Southern/Central Westchester) while the superintendents and ADs are firmly set on having leagues solely based on the four conferences (see my previous posts for those). That’s a significant difference and I would expect the discussions to drag on for another few months before something is decided. Either way I’ll be keeping the blog going through the spring so check here regularly for updates.
?,
I’m going to be covering the Mamaroneck game and former hockey writer Jake Thomases will be covering the Pelham game. However, since it’s on the way I will be going to the Pelham game first — I just don’t think I can stay until the end. It probably depends on where I end up parking, whether the game starts on time, etc. It’s about four hours from Glens Falls to Massena so it’s going to be close.
And Harold what about your predictions?
Here are my predictions but they are more guesses I assume
Mamaroneck 5 Massena 4 OT old ghosts at Massna keep em alive till the very end.
Pelham 2 Queensbury 1 what else? a one goal win for Pelham. I will say down 1-0 then keep it there for a while, tie it, then grab the lead and lock it down
I am thinking that Pelham and Mamaroneck are not as heavy into the blog and posting. The posts have been slower and there arent as many since there are only Pelham and Mamaroneck left
I would say Suffern people blog the most by far. Then CN. That is until the got knocked out. Then everyone else after. YOu can tell who the Suffern and CN posters are… They are the ones campaigning for all section etc. and at the same time making snyde remarks about the hommocks, the players, who is over-rated etc. Basically just being jealous.
Now is when everyone should be a Section I fan and root for both Pelham and Mamaroneck to continue to represent Southern NY hockey.
Best of luck to both teams and I know you will represent us well. Play hard and good things will come.
I really doubt that Suffern people want to see Mamaroneck win a state title. It would certainly take away much of the suffern mystique and make their state championship look ancient and non-relevant.
Mamaroneck has a long hard way to go though, and they will need a little luck as does any champion.
Congratulations to all the section 1 players. Every team in the league proved that they can be worthy opponents. Mammo and Pelham Good luck to you both. Play as hard as you can take nothing for granted. Bring HOME State Championships to your schools and Section 1!!! You all deserve nothig less.
Actually Bojangles – go back and reread the old posts and see where alot of the nasty comments come from.
Back then Suffern was automaticlly awarded the Section 1 Div 1 cahmpionship as they were the only team in division 1 for like 10 straight years and never had to play 1 sectional playoff game. I find it funny that they have a banner hanging up in their rink listing all of these section 1 championships like they earned them.
Fact…sounds like someone is trying to “bait” the Suffern crowd into this old arguement
I’ll respond for them.
Any section school could have chosen to compete in Division 1 all those years.
Why did the most of the large schools stay in Division II and choose to compete with the small schools. (It’s the legit small schools who should complain against having to compete against legit large schools.)
Al Bundy is correct. As I remember it WP was the only team that would go up and challenge Suffern. Mamaroneck, NR, Scarsdale, etc would go play division 2. I remember reading recently that Pelham has played 18 of the last 22 sectional title games and they have won 4 or 5. Can you imagine as the a legit D2 team how many they would have won if the big schools played D1 like Suffern. It’s the same thing Monroe Woodbury did play D2 until a few years ago, it should have been state mandated, Imagine Mt. Vernon HS playing the equivalent D2 basketball or New Ro playing D2 football, Rye football would have a much different path out of the section.
Pelham was not that great in the 90’s, first of all. Second of all, that is the way the state was run, and still is run. Section 1 is one of the only sections that runs things on school size in hockey.
You can’t blame Suffern for representing D1, everyone had the choice, and back then all the other programs including Mamaroneck were afraid of Suffern. They figured they had a much better chance in D2.
How many Section 1 Championships has Suffern won where they actually had to play and win 3 rounds of playoffs ?
Fact-
How do you figure they didn’t earn those championships? True, they did not have a large playoff bracket to go through like the teams playing D2 did (or like the teams in the section do now), but they were going undefeated in the league year over year during that span and teams were able to declare whether they wanted to go D1 or D2. The other 15-20 teams that were around at that time all knew they had no shot at beating Suffern, and that Suffern was going D1, so they all went D2. If the Suffern teams during that era really wanted to appease you and make you feel like they earned & deserved the section championship, then they could have declared D2 like everyone else and been part of a tournament where they steamrolled everyone like they did in the regular season (assuming, that is, that everyone else didn’t then go D1 to avoid Suffern in D2).
The real fact of the matter is, that by destroying all of their local competition year after year, they DID earn those titles. If it makes you feel better to think otherwise, then go ahead, but you are completely wrong.
What in your eyes would have made them earn the section championship? A playoff tournament? And if so, how many teams would need to be in the playoff tournament in order to make it an “earned” title? Two? Four? Eight? What is the minimum number of opponents in your eyes to “earn” a title? And regardless of what your number is, what was Suffern supposed to do? They said “we’re here in the D1 tournament and anyone who wants to play us, we will face them.” Who’s fault is it when nobody else shows up to play? Is it Suffern’s or the schools with twice the enrollment numbers like NewRo, North Rockland, etc. who said “No thanks, we’ll play in the D2 tournament?”
The fact that nobody (other than White Plains) was willing to step up and play them for fear of losing and instead chose the easier route to Utica is proof enough that they were deserving of every one of those titles.
question-
Maybe 1, and that is because there was MAYBE one year where there were 16 teams in the D1 bracket, and Suffern is usually at the top or pretty close to the top of the standings, so they pretty much always have a bye in the first round.
off the post, I am not blaming Suffern, I am saying the large schools like Mamo, New Ro, Scars., etc were scared of Suffern. The point is all the large school teams took what they thought was the easier road. I really don’t know what kind of teams Pelham had in the 90’s but I am sure they would’ve won a few more league titles if it was run by school size as it is now. I’d venture a guess that Section 1 is probably the largest section in the state and thats why they do it that way now.
It’s kind of funny how some people are not happy when Suffern people blog or when they don’t blog. It seems that they get bored without the Suffern bloggers. They miss us. We got beat fair and square and got eliminated. So most of us thought the best thing to do was to wish the victors good luck upstate and then let the blogs be about Mamk and Pelham and not try to hog any attention. It would seem really desperate to me if I tried to bring up Suffern topics when great games were just played at West Point (and Suffern was not in those games) and Mamk and Pelham are going upstate to represent our section. Every team has their nasty bloggers. Most Suffern bloggers are respectful. Good luck to mamk and Pelham. You are both great teams.
You people are insane, I will tell you for a fact that every Suffern parent and player I have spoken to, which is most of them, would love to see and actually expect Mamoroneck to win the state championship. If you look back, almost every single post from Suffern fans has been positive, congratulating WP on their victory, then conrats to Mamoroneck and wishing them the best. As far as not having to play anyone to win the section all of those years, it has been spoken about a 1000x on here. Every other team CHOSE to play in D2. They were the teams that didn’t want to play suffern, not the other way around. If Michigan for example were the only team in D1 hockey and won every championship because every other college chose to play in D3, what would that say to you. Why would suffern choose to take a step down when they can play for the big title. You make it sound like Suffern was scared to play in a lower division. You people talk about being jealous, take a look at the comments. People also say on here how Suffern is always putting people down, there hasn’t really been a post from a Suffern person on here for a few days and people are still attacking them for no reason. I am pretty sure I know who the losers are and believe it or not it is not the suffern fans. And to answer “question”, more then any other team, end of story.
I only remember one time when Suffern was the Division 1 champion, but not the section’s best team.
That was against CN’s in 02-03 (or 01-02). CN ended up being the D2 champ, where the school chose to play, although they were better than Suffern that year.
That ended up not being beneficial to CN at all. They eventually met Salmon River in the state D2 final and got beat 10-0. Salmon was probably the best team in the state that year. CN would have had a better shot at a state title if they had played D1.
By the last 4-5 posts it shows that there are still Suffern fans hanging around but know it is not about them anymore. It is about Mamorneck and Pelham. But, we get attacked anyway. Best of luck to Mamo and Pel, GO SECTION 1!
People who question the merit of Suffern section title back when they were the only D1 team really need to speak to people who played during that time. The beatings CN put on league 2 teams this year was nothing to what Suffern did to EVERY team in the section back then. There may have been a team every couple of years that gave them a game but it wasn’t even funny. Now that was a long time ago and would have never brought it up if someone else didn’t. So don’t give me this living in the past stuff.
Hey Suffern people please get off the blogs already. Let Pelham and Mamaroneck have the stage for once. Get over yourselves. ENOUGH!!!!
Come on, it looks like you can’t read. Go back to 7:46 this morning and read all of the posts. and then make another comment.
Come on-
It is obviously not a Suffern person who brought up the topic. The Suffern people have been on here quietly reading since the loss to WP while the focus is on Mamk & Pelham, like it should be. When someone comes on making a silly comment like “Fact” did in regards to Suffern’s past league championships and their banner hanging at SOR or like “Off the Post” did in reference to the Suffern fanbase’s feelings on Mamk possibly winning a state title, those who are on here reading certainly have every right to post in an effort to defend themselves and their team. The Suffern fans/parents/players in no way shape or form came on here and steered the conversation in that direction.
Al – you are correct. In the 2001-2002 season, CN beat Mamaroneck in the D2 Section Championship, and it was a classic game, i believe it was 6-5 CN won in double overtime (coincidentally, the game was at Sport-O, where CN never fares well in Section Championship games). That year really marked the beginning and gave way to CN being a power team in the years following.
The following year in 2002-2003, CN moved to D1 and beat Suffern 7-1 in the D1 Section Championship.
it looks like “come on” is either still reading and is a little slow or just realized he is an A$$. So what is it “come on” are you stupid or an A$$? it has to be one or the other.
Mamaroneck is leaving tomorrow morning for the game? Drive 7-8 hours and then play a game? Owch.
ANyone know if Massena came up a day early last year.?
They are young and will be fine. As soon as they step onto the ice and hear the hundreds of fans the blood will start flowing again quickly. I also assume they will make regular stops to move around a little. Good luck Mamo, believe it or not Suffern is rooting for you.
Bottom line is this as I was there. All the D 1 teams dodged Suffern because they could not possibly challenge them. Many times the other teams were not even in games with Suffern in the regular season. Many blowouts. After a few seasons of being uncontested White Plaind figured winning an upset was easier than winning a bunch of games in D2. Pelham on the other hand had to fight through D1 teams like New Rochelle North Rockland and Mamaroneck. Pelham actually won a sectional title beating Mamaroneck and New Rochelle. True, if those teams were in D 1 Pelham would have gotten a few more and Suffern still would have won
At least 3 titles for Suffern having played 3 rounds. The last 6 D1 section titles have been won by Mamo and Suffern, 3 each.
Even tho the first round has been a bye round for the top ranked teams they entered into the playoff action in the quarter finals, thus 3 rounds.
Don’t know why other teams didn’t go D.1 back in the day. But it was different then, teams couldn’t consistantly challenge Suffern. Suffern hasn’t tailed off much, its just everyone has gotten much better. In the 80s and 90’s Rye and South would give Suffern a run but that was it. There were also a lot less teams and I remember Suffern playing all kinds of different teams like the Jersey teams, and the prep school teams, I thought, but maybe I’m wrong, they may have even played Armys JV team.
Now there is a rule that if you are over 1,000 kids in school you are in D. 1 and less than 1,000 its D2, I don’t know if thats a rule or just a guideline.
suffern past-true..clark south was pretty good in late 80’s as was rye(better than suffern for a few).I rememeber playing pretty much every school every season including harvey, st michaels and stepinac. I can’t even remember the league alignment….at wp we played them all…...and won a few….....a few!! There were only 5 rockland teams and about 10-15 westchester teams
Maybe it’s time to hear from Iona’s JV LOL
Anyone know if the Pelham game is on the net, Local radio stations around Albany carrying it??