Ringers...

[Machinehead2k5 32]

The Iceforum In Duluth (where the Thrashers practice) is notoriously known for having the worst subbing/ringers on the lower levels. I play in a CC division (2nd lowest div) some say I should play one/two division higher BUT I just like setting up the older guys on the team, they're fun to drink with, which is why I haven't moved up. We started off this season 4-1 with our legitimate guys we had from C league, when we got kicked out. Since then, they've (broke my ankle after the 5th game in a another league) lost like 6 or 7 straight because they bring in subs/ringers from other teams some from the same division but some from the higher divisions. Most of the teams in the CC division have teams in C, B, and BB leagues to pull from and they usually pull their higher players down than lower players up a level. We just have us in CC. It's frustrating to know that if you play against them and beat them only by a couple of goals, then lose by 10+ because they act like babies about it and bring in ringers. The lady who runs the league just cares about money, you don't get a refund if you get hurt in a game, job is transferred, etc. I'm glad that I broke my leg in the other league (AAHL) that has an insurance policy for players ($500 deductible) and refunds your season for injury, job (loss/transfer) etc.

[nexusrage21 1]

My buddy's team lost in the playoffs a few nights ago to a team that had 2 players play their first games of the season in the playoffs. I know the team they played and I know the guys, so I know they are normally on the team, but if they didn't play during the year they shouldn't play now.

[IniNew 51]

We were defeated in the league championship by a team who brought in a new goalie for the playoffs. The best part was, their normal goalie was in the stands watching the game and when they won he came down to the ice to lift "Stanley's Keg" over his head.

Real class.

[Scoobersti 0]

We were defeated in the league championship by a team who brought in a new goalie for the playoffs. The best part was, their normal goalie was in the stands watching the game and when they won he came down to the ice to lift "Stanley's Keg" over his head.

Real class.

was there goalie hurt or unable to play in anyway? I just can't imagine going out there and celebrating with the team if my team left me off of the roster for the playoffs just so they can put a better goalie in there (I'm not a goalie, so I guess if they took me off of the roster and added a better defensemen). I don't think I'd even feel like I'm part of the team and not even show up to watch the game. (I'm saying this assuming that IniNew plays in beer/adult leagues like me, if this is like a NHL/AHL/College/CHL or other pro/semi-pro/college league it would be different since they have extra guys who they don't dress and are healthy scratches, I'd still consider them part of the team)

[lurkndestroy 1]

I, too, wonder what a higher caliber player gets from playing in a lower division. I mean, I've only been playing for two years and I'm at the point where I want to move up a division because it's not as challenging as I would like. It's nice to score goals and all, but when you score off of what you know was a bad play or a bad shot, it's kind of hard to cheer when you didn't have to work for it.

I've been playing for just over 2 years as well. My first league was a d league and I went in thinking that I was going to get destroyed since I had never played organized hockey. The few years of pond hockey I played as a child was enough to put me ahead of most guys in the league in that division. I had a bunch of goals and was definitely a confidence booster but half way through the season it became boring. I moved up and actually had to hustle to make plays. I scored way less goals but felt more accomplished putting the puck in against good players than banging in junk and passing the puck to guys who act like its a hand grenade.

[tareatingrat 4]

I've been playing for just over 2 years as well. My first league was a d league and I went in thinking that I was going to get destroyed since I had never played organized hockey. The few years of pond hockey I played as a child was enough to put me ahead of most guys in the league in that division. I had a bunch of goals and was definitely a confidence booster but half way through the season it became boring. I moved up and actually had to hustle to make plays. I scored way less goals but felt more accomplished putting the puck in against good players than banging in junk and passing the puck to guys who act like its a hand grenade.

Exactly where I am. When I signed up, I didn't know exactly where my skill level would be, so I put myself in the bottom. My first season wasn't anything special, but now I'm starting to light it up, but I also play a fair bit in the winter with practices on the team I help out with, shooting pucks in my basement, outdoor skating, pick-up games, and league games.

My buddy plays three or four levels up, and I found when I sub with that team, the games are so much faster, but I can definitely play at that level and still contribute, and it's much more challenging and, well, fun.

[eric42434224 1]

We won our semi finals game, and are in the finals. We are supposed to play against the winner of the other semi finals....and it turns out to be team A (identities concealed to protect the innocent). We played team A the game before the last game of the season. We notice it is a different goalie, and is stopping everything....we let it go. Team B loses to them in the semi's, and complains that it isnt the goalie they used in the regular season. Team B is actually a very nice bunch of guys and play a good brand of hockey....team A are a very aggressive, younger group. We would much rather play team B. Anyway, the league director says team A is disqualified fior using an inelibgible goalie!!!! The first game of the finals is tonight, and I heard that team A will be at the game to heckle team B! It is going to be fun. I dont think we personally would have complained to get in the finals, but you cant blame anyone else if you bring in a better goalie for the playoffs.

I like the way the league director handled it though....he gave the option for a replay of the game with the original goalie...but I guess they couldnt make it happen.

[IniNew 51]

We won our semi finals game, and are in the finals. We are supposed to play against the winner of the other semi finals....and it turns out to be team A (identities concealed to protect the innocent). We played team A the game before the last game of the season. We notice it is a different goalie, and is stopping everything....we let it go. Team B loses to them in the semi's, and complains that it isnt the goalie they used in the regular season. Team B is actually a very nice bunch of guys and play a good brand of hockey....team A are a very aggressive, younger group. We would much rather play team B. Anyway, the league director says team A is disqualified fior using an inelibgible goalie!!!! The first game of the finals is tonight, and I heard that team A will be at the game to heckle team B! It is going to be fun. I dont think we personally would have complained to get in the finals, but you cant blame anyone else if you bring in a better goalie for the playoffs.

I like the way the league director handled it though....he gave the option for a replay of the game with the original goalie...but I guess they couldnt make it happen.

We had a team bring in a goalie for the playoffs. Said their goalie was injured. Now, any other team and it wouldn't have been an issue, but this team is already leaps and bounds better than the rest of the league. For instance, our playoffs start on Saturday and with just 10 games played they've outscored everyone 58-18. A bit on the ridiculous side. Either way, when they eventually won the championship last session their goalie was health enough to come on the ice and put the Stanley Key over his head for a picture.

Stuff like that is what pisses me off.

[eric42434224 1]

Our league would have made them move up with a scoring differential like that. They have done so with teams that have dominated far less than your example.

[GuitarAwesome 1]

We as well have the same rule, must play minimum 6 games to play the playoffs. If your goalie goes down, the team can only pick one up of a list of goalies given, that are known to be in the same division, that are free agents. Our league also moves teams up and down into higher or lower divisions regularly if they are beating up on the opposition. It's a pretty good system, keeps the ringers out.

The only experience I have ever had like that was in a ball hockey league. We were the 2 seed(only lost once), facing the 7 seed(who we had beaten by 7 or more every time that season). We outshot them 70-something to 3. They won 1-0. That goalie was outstanding, it got to the point we had three guys in front of the net screening him for a point shot, and he still calmly gloved it. One of the best goalie performances I have ever seen, it was defintely NOT their normal goalie.

[eric42434224 1]

Funny thing is, our goalie (a 69 yr old) plays for another team in a different division, and is asked regulary to fill in for other teams.....even in out division...which he does. The funny part is that the team A asked him to fill in for the playoff re-play! he obviously said he couldnt as it was an obvious conflict of interest.

[Scotty 8]

Happens all the time at the rink I play at. They used to use a very detailed system to keep track of players and their points online, documenting exactly how many games you'd been signed in and detailing who got what goals and assisted by who. Same for penalty minutes, power play, or shorthanded goals. Now the rink owner ripped out one of the rinks and turned it into indoor soccer, so he doesn't care as much about hockey. He's trimmed the amount of games per season down without telling anyone (and still charging the same), rushes us through our warmups and games, and doesn't keep track of anything at all besides a win or loss.

This leads to the same thing you're talking about. We'll smash on a team two or three times in a season and then play them in the first game of the playoffs and really have to fight against them to keep it even. You'll see players with playing styles, gear, or skills that were never on the team before. Hell, the league doesn't even keep track of who is playing each game anymore. You can basically go grab anyone you want, have them wear a similar color as your team, and they're in. That didn't used to fly at all. Some of the teams in our league like to bring in some of the current college goalies from the area. Works against some teams, but myself and a couple of the guys on my team played college hockey as well. We've won the past three championships, but moved up a league this time and that means the ringers that are brought in are even better.

You can't always control them, but just do your best to contain their damage and play physical.

[twolinepass 0]

I just started playing ice and started in E and its only 4 from the the bottom level league. Four games in and I already want to move up and try and get better. Last game we played against someone who could have held his own in A league, whats the freaking point dude?

[nickerjones 8]

We had a team bring in a goalie for the playoffs. Said their goalie was injured. Now, any other team and it wouldn't have been an issue, but this team is already leaps and bounds better than the rest of the league. For instance, our playoffs start on Saturday and with just 10 games played they've outscored everyone 58-18. A bit on the ridiculous side. Either way, when they eventually won the championship last session their goalie was health enough to come on the ice and put the Stanley Key over his head for a picture.

Stuff like that is what pisses me off.

I started a beginners team and we dont have an instructional league here in OKC. SO we are playing against a lot better opponents. Its D league ( the lowest her in OKC) . The crappy thing is there is 2 good teams and the bottom 3 ( us included are pretty close) . The #1 team is a bunch of guys who work at the rink, they said they wanted to play down so it would be easier for them. Its a crock. In 5 games the have out scored their opponents 55- 3 . We scored 2 goals on them the first game of the season. Every week one team has a back to back double header. They always schedule themselves as the 2nd game of the teams doubleheader. When its their turn to play 2 games they get a 4 hr break. The rink manager who does schedules plays on their team. Its crazy!

The 2nd best team allows more goals and they only beat 4-3. They are sponsored by the Air force base and have a team in every division. This past week we played them again. They had 3 new guys from their division 2 team. They beat us 10-3 with their Ringers scroing 9 of the goals haha!!!

I think its funny people do this and then take pride in beating a bunch of guys who started skating in February!

[Deerok 3]

Interesting points all around.

I have to say that at chelsea piers here in nyc, ringers are a way of life. Even at the lowest levels.

Not to sound like a hippocrite, but I was asked to play on a lower level team precisely to help balance things out.

Only a handful of ringers on other teams are really being d'bags out there. The rest of us work on shutting down those hotshots and helping set up our players for goals.

Still have to agree that playing below your level is a good way to develop bad habits because of the slower pace of the game.

On the flip side, the guys I play with on a regular basis/sub (higher division or pick up) are way more skilled than I am but like having me there because I'll do what they tell me and I end up learning a lot and getting a few assists and the occasional garbage goal, because I don't need to be the "superstar dangler" all the time.

Bottom line... any extra ice time is good, but if you want to improve your skating and confidence, play a little bit above your comfort zone.

As long as it's fun

[brent 1]

I play in a D league Saturday nights with my uncle (45) and a bunch of his friends. Ringers were getting so out of hand (especially in the summer) that the league put in a two goal max rule.

[BenderHockey 127]

Had it happen last night. We played a team that had a young either high-school or college kid. REAL good. Just skated through everyone. We lost 8-6 and he scored like 4 or 5. :( How is that fun for anyone, to have no competition?

[SCUBASTEVE 0]

our leage has come a long way, same deal with the ringers coming in last minute for the playoffs bla bla. one thing our league does is you are only allowed to have one player that hase ever been paid to play on a team, an all players have to play in a minumum of 5 games an be on the roster before midway thru the season, now the goalies are a different story, a lot of the goalies i know are sick of taking shots an have move up to play forward or defense, so around here goalies are hradr to find, so it is allowed for us to use a different goalie everynight if we needed to, also because they are hard to find most teams pick up the cost for the goalie to play . that way you get a somewhat dedicated goalie, if we are playing mens league hockey unfortunatly is not our life anymore so we all miss games but when a goalie is missed then you cant play so they let it slide a little bit. also if you are in the a div you cannot play in the c or d div. but are allowed to play in b. i play in a and b an it is like night an day as far as the level of play.......

oh an putting in a 2 - 3 goal max on the good players is foolish. if we are allowed out to skate we should all be able to play to the best of our ablility no matter what... i mean are we going to put a max goal rule for the guy in the a leageu that score 4-5 a night with 4-5 assists. cause every a leage or b or c or d has that skater.. we all pay to play in theswe mens leagues. if i could score 50 i would........

but i certainly would not be in a league wherei should not belong........ that is completly up to the commishoner of the league to enforce the player status rule....

[xrickyb86x 1]

I guess our league is cracking down on this for the new season. There were a ton of problems with teams getting ringers posing as someone else for the playoff games (I had no clue this was happening). I guess they're going to start checking people at the door more often and enforce numbers on jerseys. We'll see if it works.

[JoeyJ0506 191]

Last night the team we played was scrambling for players at the last minute. Apparently they picked players from the league tier two levels above us. We only lost 4-2, but their, "replacements," had 3 of their goals and controlled the play of the game nearly the entire night. (it would have been worse if the best of them was trying to score and not just doing his best to be the set-up man) Really was disheartening for my team to actually play a good, hard-fought game and lose because another team finds it necessary to bring in half their team from outside their roster. I think I may understand how their goal differential has gotten so high... <_<

[Axxion89 32]

I really don't see why its so hard to control ringers by just doing the following:

Keep a list of each team's rosters and come time to get on the ice, have a drivers license to prove who you are. If its too much of a hassle then just do it for the playoffs. Also, if the other team doesn't have enough players to field a team, then allow them to have outside players but they automatically lose.

[Apes44 7]

^^^ this is exactly what a league I played for did! It cut back on the whole ringer problem alot, checked your ID and if you tried to sneak someone on the ice and the other team called you on it, you automatically forefitted! It needs to be done so games like mine on friday (I play w JoeyJ) Most places have someone at the sign in desk so whats the big deal of having them check an ID!

[Harv 86]

So what's everyone thoughts on this?

My college roommate plays in the A league and it's usually pretty good games. Not lopsided scores and the games can go either way. It's usually D3 college guys or ex-college guys in pretty good shape with some older guy mixed in.

He sends me a text...

Him- ''Yeah, we played our 4th game tonight''

Me- ''How'd that go?''

Him- ''Well, a guy that signed up for the team finally showed tonight. He plays in the ECHL.''

Me- ''Whoa, how'd he do?''

Him- ''Well, he didn't show til midway through the 2nd pd. Ended up having 3g, 4a... we won 7-5''

Me- ''I guess he's alright then''

So what do you do? Tell him to cool it? The guy is 2 steps away from the NHL and wants to play hard, otherwise what's the point of him showing up if he just floats the whole game?

[Hradsky 1]

So what's everyone thoughts on this?

My college roommate plays in the A league and it's usually pretty good games. Not lopsided scores and the games can go either way. It's usually D3 college guys or ex-college guys in pretty good shape with some older guy mixed in.

He sends me a text...

Him- ''Yeah, we played our 4th game tonight''

Me- ''How'd that go?''

Him- ''Well, a guy that signed up for the team finally showed tonight. He plays in the ECHL.''

Me- ''Whoa, how'd he do?''

Him- ''Well, he didn't show til midway through the 2nd pd. Ended up having 3g, 4a... we won 7-5''

Me- ''I guess he's alright then''

So what do you do? Tell him to cool it? The guy is 2 steps away from the NHL and wants to play hard, otherwise what's the point of him showing up if he just floats the whole game?

In my opinion, this situation is understandable. Unless you know the guy and he is a total douche and you DON'T want him to succeed then you have to let him play hard. I mean this guy is trying to make it to the big leagues, how can you want to take that away from him?

[skyscrape 5]

I am on a team that is made up of b players and we recently picked up a 22 year old who would be an A player but has not played in four years. We recently had another team in our league complain about him playing in this league. This was the complaining teams first loss. 10-1! Even better though, thplayer on or team is averaging under 3 points per game. The team that wrote a letter asking for him to leave has three players averaging over 3 points per game and one more that is averaging two points a game! WTF! You lose one game and you bitch and moan and try to get someone thrown out of the league? WHAT Pussies!