Announcement
Hello Hockey Players,
Our new registration website is now open for business. Please read the League and Registration Info, which was also emailed.
Here are a few words of clarification about the number of playing spots available. We have intentionally set the player limits to force some people to the wait lists. We did this to try to eliminate anyone signing up with USA Hockey and not having a spot to play in the league. If you receive a 'sold out' message, DO NOT register with USA Hockey, but please DO sign up on the wait list. We will add more teams when there are enough people on the wait list to fill another team. When that happens, we'll contact you to sign up with USA Hockey and submit your league payment.
Some changes you will notice from past seasons:
- Online registration, mentioned above, is mandatory. You will have the opportunity to pay online as well, via credit card, debit card or bank account. You may mail us a check if you prefer.
- The league fees are increasing from $420to $430 this season ($215 for A/B goalie) and we are eliminating the discount for signing up quickly. League fees have not changed since the 2009-10 season. Since that time we have been able to absorb all of our cost increases through the use of reserve funds that had been previously accumulated . We are adjusting the fees slightly this year to try to maintain a healthy reserve and eliminate a much larger increase in the future.
- The team formation for A/B is changing to the same process we have used in B/C for about eight years. Teams will be built from scratch each season, with players being assigned to rosters in a randomized manner. As in the past, A/B players will be able to request to play with one other player. Over the past few years, the number of players in A/B has continued to decrease and last year we were forced to delay the start of the season. Ultimately, we assembled rosters that were one or two players short on each team. Our attempts to balance the teams over the past five years have failed. The trend is not sustainable. We want to continue to provide a league for A and B level players, and to do so we need to do something different than what we have been doing. This model has worked extremely well for the B/C division, and the opportunity to play with new teammates each season has been popular. Our experience with B/C is that it will take us a few years to gain enough player knowledge to get the teams balanced, but we do expect to see immediate improvement.
- Last year we introduced a new policy of allowing only one “impact” level sub per B/C team. This year we will also be restricting B/C subs to playing eight games. The original concept of allowing subs was to let a friend or two who could not play full time be able to participate. Recently, the sub positions have been used as a way to strengthen a team’s roster during the regular season. Although each team qualifies for playoffs, with some subs playing 15 or 20 games, the efforts we make to balance the teams are compromised a bit.
If you are new to the league and want to play, you can find out a lot about the league by reading the information and downloads on this website, including last year's schedule. If you still have questions, send us an e-mail.
