Nepean Girls Hockey Association

2009-2010 Board Meeting Minutes

DATE:Wednesday, October 14, 2009

TIME:7:00 p.m.

PLACE:Walter Baker Sports Centre – Variety West Boardroom

PRESENT:Phil Clarke, Pat Walsh, Cathy Devenny, Mike Doiron,Lynne Carroll, Alex Kincaid, Pat Coady, Mary Lou Zywicki, Joanne Erbach, Trish Calof, Trina Lepine and Tracy Lafreniere

ABSENT:Jason Corrigan, Paul Brennan, Heather McEwen and Judy Ramm

1.0Call to Order

-Meeting called to order at 7:09 p.m. – chaired by Phil Clarke

-Phil thanked everyone for attending

-Phil introduced new Board Member – Tracy Lafreniere

2.0Previous Meeting Minutes

-Motion was made by Mary Lou Zywicki to approve the minutes of the August 12, 2009 meeting.

  • 2nd – Joanne Erbach
  • Unanimous

3.0Reports

  1. President – Phil Clarke
  2. MOGHL
  3. The season will begin October 13
  4. It will be a 20 game season
  5. The regular season will finish the end of February
  6. Championship day is still to be finalized
  7. Christmas break will begin Dec 22 and end Jan 2/10. Teams can expect to play Sunday Jan 3rd.
  8. Games will be scheduled the 2nd weekend of the March break
  9. Novice will no longer be tiered
  10. The exam week for Midget will continue to be blacked out but games on the weekend can be expected
  11. MOGHL will continue with the two conferences like last year
  12. 60% of games will be scheduled before Christmas
  13. MOGHL is switching from League GM to Goaline
  14. MOGHL mandatory coach / manager meetings took place the first week of October
  1. ODWHA
  2. In the Midget Tier 1 category, OHA (Ontario Hockey Association) will have a team that will play everyone twice but will not be part of the league. The games will count towards your standings
  3. Kingston was not present but asked if they could enter only their Atom AA and Peewee AA teams into the ODWHA. It was not approved
  4. Hawkesbury is asking to add a team at the Peewee C level. This is a 90 minute drive from Nepean and was not well received by the other associations with teams at this level
  5. March 27th will be Championship day and will be played at the North Grenville Complex. Games could be scheduled as late as March 24 to get all games in
  6. The season will start October 1 with a 20 game schedule for all divisions
  7. The season will end February 14
  8. Christmas break will start December 21 and end Jan 2
  9. March break is 15 – 19. Games can be scheduled the last weekend
  10. Teams can expect to play 12/13 games by Christmas
  11. Ice submissions are due September 8th
  12. Teams playing against Outaouais need to apply for a sanction to play out of province and it is recommended that teams do this as soon as possible. This will apply to our Midget A team and Bantam BB
  13. It looks like they will be combining Midget Tier 1 and intermediate Tier 1
  14. ATOM Tier 1 – currently has 3 teams (Nepean A, Kanata AA, Gloucester A). Ottawa has a BB team in Tier 2 that may move up to help out this division
  15. It looks like Peewee Tier 2 and 3 might get combined. This would see our BB and B teams play in the same tier
  16. Penalty minutes - @ 20 minutes a warning, new threshold is 36 minutes from 30 and then 48minutes
  17. OWHA permission required for players with carry over suspensions to participate in try outs
  18. Rates for referees have gone up by approx. $0.50 per referee and the admin fee for scheduling will be $5.50 up from $4 last year. I have the schedule and can provide
  19. The registration fee per team is increasing $10 per team this year to help cover the Championship day costs and they will go up again next season $10.Fees are currently $150 per team and will rise to $160
  20. The mandatory ODWHA Coach and Manager meetings are going to be moved out a week. New dates were not provided.
  1. NGHA Tournament – Kelly Ford
  2. Sanction has been applied for and approved.
  3. Our tournament is posted on the OWHA website, NGHA Website and the Sensplex website.
  4. Hudson Travel Group, once again on board, as a Corporate Sponsor.
  5. Murray Cameron has once again agreed to be our house league registrar
  6. On-line registration commenced on July 1/09 for the competitive divisions. The link is posted on our website. On-line registration opened on September 1/09 for the house league divisions. This link is also on our website.
  7. Competitive registration was slow at the beginning but has significantly pick-up
  • 72 teams in the Competitive Divisions - we have a Peewee team from Summerside, PEI and a Bantam team from Cole Harbour, N.S. that have applied and have been formally accepted.
  • 50 teams in the House League side
  • We have set a firm registration closing date of November 1/08 for Competitive. This will allow us to accept teams into divisions that are classified as a lower level, cap some levels and expand others. Some levels may have to be collapsed due to lack of interest.
  • 1st tournament meeting has been scheduled for October 28/09 @ 7:00 pm. Splx Hall C.
  • We are looking for a replacement for Jen Cotter – Program. There is some training needed for this position; Jen is willing to mentor her replacement. If anyone knows of someone who may be interested, please have them contact me
  1. Photo’s – the 2nd photo session in Oct 18th and Estelle hopes to have a final schedule out tomorrow.
  2. Timekeeper Update
  3. We have a good number of timekeepers, 23 including Chantelle with a solid number of these timekeepers being at higher competitive levels.
  4. There is also a waiting list, so there won't be any shortages.
  5. The only thingI would ask if that there are any managers or convenors at the meeting, to please let them know they HAVE tocontact me when a game is cancelled. As winter kicks in, more games get cancelled due to bad weather, but officials are still scheduled for those games. If I am not notified of cancellations, the timekeeperwill still be going to the game and the association still pays for the timekeeper's time. It just works out for everyone if we stay on the same page andkeep each other informed.
  6. I will be sending out an e-mail once the snow starts to fall regarding this, but an early message would be nice!
  1. Registration – Joanne Erbach
  1. 2009/2010 Rule books arrived and to be distributed
  2. See Program Update
  1. Program Update
  2. Registration – Joanne Erbach
  3. Discussion occurred around teams formed, Vets vs. Non-Vets, Waiting List
  4. The following teams 39 teams have been formed:

- 2 FUNdamental

-5 Novice

-5 Atom

-5 Peewee

-4 Bantam

-5 Midget

-1 Novice B

-2 Atom A and B

-3 Peewee AA, BB, C

-3 Bantam AA, BB, B

-3 Midget AA, A, BB

- 1 Intermediate AA

  • Consideration of a 6th Novice house team just prior to sort-out process (10 players on waiting list). Based upon past registration experience – girls already moved on to other interests at late date and lack of ice it would have been a stretch to introduce another team.

House (Senior and Junior) – Heather McEwen; (Trish Calof absent):

  1. Sort-outs Process
  2. Novice / Atom / Peewee – balancing process worked well overall and a significant reduction in sort-out time needed
  3. More change rooms especially at the younger ages would be beneficial
  4. Possibility of a dual ice pad location may also help in the future
  5. Separation of a couple of days between the end of competitive sort-outs to that of house would be beneficial from the aspect of having times to rebalance teams on paper and to notify players that may have been on the waiting list
  6. Midget – few players left NGHA because consistent with our past practices player placement on specific team requests would not be accommodated
  7. Goalie issues
  8. It was noted that a few non-vets had registered as part-time goalies at the time of registration and that had been taken into consideration in the forming of teams, however these players didn’t want to play goalie when asked at sort-out. It became clear that the part-time goalie box had been ticked thinking that it would help them make a team. In no case did this result in the player getting on a team ahead of another player. In the future we believe it would be best to call these part-time goalies early on to confirm their intention well in advance.
  9. Goalie recruitment needed – While at the younger divisions the “passing of the goalie equipment bag” between players is typically how we have been able to cover the goalie position and in many cases goalies have taken to the position. At the older age groups (Peewee / Bantam and Midget) it is somewhat harder to pass the bag and some recruitment at these levels will be considered. It was noted that some associations have offered reduced registration fees for dedicated goalies. Phil Clarke undertook to contact Kingston to determine whether this policy had benefited them or not.
  10. FUNdamental program
  11. We have been unable to find additional dedicated ice that would start at a later date for the Thursday mini-games. Michael will continue to monitor City ice in this regard.

MOGHL Matters (Phil Clarke / Pat Coady)

League schedule has been delayed we believe as a result of a new volunteer being involved in scheduling, later start date (after Thanksgiving), and issues with the ice that was submitted by associations

Initially April 17th was to be Championship Day – now we are uncertain – stay tuned

Volunteers – Statisticians needed – receive game sheet by mail, ensure scores are entered correctly, file game sheet and monitor sheets that are delayed.

Competitive – Pat Walsh

Overall the try-out process went well. Special mention goes to Lynne, Judy and Paul as convenors who were involved in supervising the try-out process.

The few issues that did arise could be summarized as relating to:

-We received the normal volume of feedback from parents / players who believe they should not have been released from a team (normal volume being less than a dozen from the 250+ girls that attended tryouts). As per normal process each complaint was investigated to assess whether it had merit. One complaint was quite formal and required 5-6 hours of review to complete. In each case our review resulted in the conclusion that the decision made by the coach had followed the NGHA process and was appropriately supported. Note that this does not mean every player selected was 100% the correct choice, as there is no way to assess such an objective. What the reviews do ensure is that objectivity, fairness and independence applied in all decisions, and that coaches had supporting rationale / evidence for the decisions they made.

-Goalies – due to the shortage of goalies at several levels and some last minute external factors (family moving) we seemed to have faced a greater number of goalie issues.

As a result of the issues faced and input received from parents the Program Committee discussed a variety of items as summarized below:

-Training in Evaluation process – Our competitive coaches face a particularly difficult assignment of evaluating players to make up our competitive teams. We believe that all of our competitive coaches and their independent evaluators would benefit from some training prior to next year’s try-outs in designing on ice try-outs and documentation of the player evaluation results.

-Independent evaluators – It has been the NGHA’s practice that coaches are allowed to pick their teams based on input from independent evaluators that they have selected. It has been suggested that the NGHA have its own independent evaluator as part of the check and balance process. There are a number of pros and cons associated with the implementation of such a policy. Independent evaluators are already used to some extent by competitive coaches for the assessment of goalies. The Program Committee agreed that the concept of NGHA independent evaluators will be further examined prior to next season’s try-outs.

-Guidelines related to the number of goalies that will be considered for competitive will be developed for the NGHA. (Pat Walsh to develop initial draft)

A question was raised as to the level of coaching certification that our competitive coaches are required to have and Pat Walsh confirmed that these guidelines are NGHA policy only, and neither ODWHA or OWHA.

Several months ago Pat Walsh confirmed that he would not be returning to the NGHA as the Competitive Director next season. Pat Walsh, Phil Clarke and Pat Coady are to arrange a meeting to discuss the position with candidates.

ODWHA Matters – Pat Walsh / Phil Clarke / Pat Coady

We had a situation where one entire Tier of coaches (including an NGHA team) approached the ODWHA about reclassification of all teams in that tier to a higher age group. We want to emphasize to coaches that they should NOT approach ODWHA directly on such matters. Rather they should bring such matters up with the NGHA Competitive Director and the NGHA Executive.

-Ice Scheduling

  • The Midget AA division held an ice scheduling meeting to coordinate their league games, which generally went OK other than they attempted to shorten the season without consent of the ODWHA, thus causing additional work for the league.
  • Review of process used to be undertaken at Heather Mallette’s request
  • Consider scheduling MCAA and BCAA levels in August to take some of the pressure off of the ODWHA
  • Website / other tools for scheduling and submitting ice
  • Paid schedulers

-January meeting to be held to discuss this year’s issues and

-Volunteers sourced by NGHA

  • Treasurer – Kelly Wirvin (ex-KPMG; no NGHA connection; lives in Nepean)
  • 2 competitive schedulers provided
  • 1 statisticians provided

ICE – Michael Doiron

-Next summer’s ice application is due in early October (completed)

-Games scheduling from leagues – very delayed especially MOGHL

-Lack of electronic file from both associations – need for a bridge to pull this information from the leagues for upload into IMS

-The modification to IMS that were made over the summer have been completed and are currently being used (ex. Ice matrix)

-Novice scheduled for weekends only (MOGHL-wide)

-We need to consider (Michael to consider once MOGHL Championship date has been set):

  • Do we need to secure more hours for early April given late running schedule for House?
  • Do we need to secure late April / early May ice for competitive sort-outs?

No update has been received from the City concerning the ice allocation process that they plan to adopt for the 2010/11 season. (Pat Coady to follow-up with the City of Ottawa)

Development – Jason Corrigan

The Capital Sport Management (CSM) sessions have started and several of the competitive teams have been assigned times. A couple of Midget teams have been out and well attended. Overall we have received positive feedback on CSM to date.

Six goalie development sessions have been scheduled so far – each has been well attended.

Ron Graham has volunteered to instruct our house league coaches on ½ ice practices or other aspects – this will be coordinated with Michael when ice becomes available.

It was confirmed that those teams that have scheduled Dry-land Training (paid or otherwise) are to use ice assigned to them in priority to any off-ice activity.

  1. House League Update - Heather McEwen and Trish Calof
  2. Nothing new to report – see program update
  3. No issues
  1. Tournament Update – Pat Walsh
  2. Sanction has been applied for and approved
  3. Our tournament is posted on the OWHA, NGHA & Sensplex websites
  4. Murray Cameron has once again agreed to be our house league registrar
  5. On-line registration commenced on July 1/09 for the competitive divisions. The link is posted on our website. On-line registration is open on September 1/09 for the house league divisions. This link is also on our website
  6. Competitive registration was slow at the beginning but significantly picked up
  7. 72 teams in the competitive divisions – we have a peewee team from Summerside, PEI and a Bantam team from Cole Harbour, N.S. that have applied and been formally accepted.
  8. 50 teams in the house league side
  9. We have set a firm registration closing date of November 1/08 for Competitive. This will allow us to accept teams into divisions that are classified as a lower level, cap some levels and expand others. Some levels collapse due to lack of interest.
  10. 1st tournament meeting has been scheduled for October 28/09 at 7:00 p.m. Sportsplex Hall C.
  11. We are looking for a replacement for Jen Cotter – Program. There is some training needed for this position; Jen is willing to mentor her replacement. If anyone knows of someone who may be interested, pls have them contact
  12. Ontario Winter Games underway
  13. Held every two years
  14. Changed to be bantam
  15. 8 teams in total
  16. Try-outs held in September for Ottawa area
  17. Tournament in February
  1. Development Update – Jason Corrigan
  1. Development booked for Sundays and Wednesdays
  2. Can’t black out development for dryland
  3. See program update
  1. ICE – Mike Doiron
  1. 2009/2010 Ice scheduling
  2. Ice an issue for October
  3. No ice time available during the week
  4. With Merivale closing, other icetime will be taken up
  5. Parking Passes
  6. No passes needed on the weekend
  7. No reponse for request for new parking passes
  8. 2010/2011 Summer ice request – Submitted October 9th, 2009

ACTION: Mike to check if there is a consistent hour on Sundays for FUNdatmentals