Pictured above: J.T. Miller and Vince Trocheck
Anyone looking to get their hockey fix in the offseason should head to the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex on Wednesday evenings.
They can watch current NHL stars like J.T. Miller and Vince Trocheck, and
a future one like Logan Cooley
, as part of the G.O.A.T. League. It consists of four teams made up of the best professional players and prospects in the region - with many of them being DICK'S Sporting Goods Penguins Elite alumni - playing two games of 4-on-4 hockey on a weekly basis.
Pittsburgh's G.O.A.T. League Providing High-End Summer Hockey
It's similar to Minnesota's Da Beauty League, which Jake Guentzel and Teddy Blueger participate in.
"We wanted to kind of celebrate the hockey culture here in Pittsburgh," said Dan Mayes, head coach for the Penguins Elite 18U Prep team, who helps run the league. "We wanted something a little bit more competitive than your typical senior league. We also think it's great for the young people here to come and watch our high-level players that are continuing to come through."
Miller is one of those players, as he and his wife Nicole recently moved their family to Cranberry after living in Moon for a long time so that they could be closer to the practice facility, where he does his summer workouts.
After completing a career year with Vancouver, his third with the Canucks - where he recorded a personal-best 32 goals and 67 points in 80 games - Miller has skated in the G.O.A.T. League a few times now, and plans to continue all summer.
"All hockey players love the competition, and it's good camaraderie, too," Miller said. "All those (junior and college players) are a little closer in age, and obviously with a couple local pros, we know each other and work out together. So it's fun for the camaraderie. It's good to get to know the kids. There's a lot of good talent in Pittsburgh, which is awesome."
Right now, Miller holds the distinction of being the highest-drafted Pittsburgh-area player in NHL history, after being taken 15th overall by the New York Rangers in 2011.
"Not for long," he said with a smile.
That's because Cooley, who is listed as the No. 2 North American skater in the NHL Central Scouting Bureau's Final Rankings for the 2022 NHL Draft - set for July 7-8 at the Bell Centre in Montreal - will likely go in the top-10, or potentially the top-5.
"I hear he's going pretty early, so I'm happy for him," Miller said. "I hear he's a heck of a player and I'm excited to be watching him. It's good to see all the talent still continually coming out of Pittsburgh."
Cooley, who got his start with Sidney Crosby's Little Penguins Learn to Play, remembers watching the Pittsburgh kids who were part of that 2011 draft class, the best in the area's history. After Miller went in the first round, All-Star goaltender John Gibson was drafted by Anaheim in the second round (39th overall) before two-time Stanley Cup champion Brandon Saad was taken by Chicago a few picks later at 43rd; and four-time 20-goal scorer Trocheck was selected by Florida in the third round (64th overall).
Back when they were first coming up, those guys played for different youth organizations in the area, most notably the Pittsburgh Hornets. They did a tremendous job of putting that association on the map, which ended up partnering with the Penguins and DICK'S Sporting Goods to create the Penguins Elite in 2012.
Miller and the rest of that group take a lot of pride in seeing how hockey in Pittsburgh has exploded because of the Penguins Elite and the comprehensive program for player development it has in place, spearheaded by the world-class training facilities at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. Cooley, for example, played five seasons with the Penguins Elite before joining the U.S. National Team Development Program.
"Vince, Gibby and all those guys, like we really enjoy coming back home. And the reason we come back here, we got to see this place kind of get built from the ground up a little bit," Miller said. "We've been skating here five, six, seven years now, and it's probably the main reason we came up this way. Makes it easy for us and obviously it's a fantastic facility, so we're lucky."
Mayes said that having those players around speaks to the hockey tradition and market that has been established in Pittsburgh, and only continues to grow with initiatives like the G.O.A.T. League. It's been a team effort between the staff - including Kevin Muller, who coaches the Penguins Elite 16U Boys, and Kaley Mooney, who coaches the Penguins Elite 14U and 16U Girls - and even some of the players.
Jackson Morehouse, son of former longtime Penguins president and CEO David Morehouse, has taken the lead on social media. The G.O.A.T. League has a very active presence on Instagram and TikTok (username @goat4v4), and some of the guys even do a podcast.
It's a good way to generate some excitement for a league featuring Pittsburgh's greatest of all time.
"It's a plethora of really good players, and the one thing about hockey is you never know who you're watching here, where they're going to end up when they're 23-24 years old," Mayes said. "So I think the volume of talent that we have here is just a great thing for people to come and watch."
