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2010-2011 Season Information

Hey MGHAers,

It's that time again. Preseason clinics for new players start in less than three weeks, and the beginning of the 2010-2011 MGHA season is drawing near. Your Hockey Operations committee has been hard at work all summer planning what is sure to be a fun and exciting season. A lot of you have heard there are going to be a few changes to the league this year, and we thought we should give you a heads-up on some key dates, let you know what is not changing, and finally, announce the changes we have cooked up for the 2010-2011 season.

Key Dates…

September 11th – New player/Mentors/Board of Directors "Meet and Greet".

September 12th – New player orientation and first skills clinic. New players will receive more information on this event from Hockey Operations soon.

September 25th – 2010-2011 season kick-off party for the entire league.

September 26th – First league clinic. We will include a short returning-player orientation before taking the ice. Details will be announced by Hockey Operations in early September.

October 3rd – Player evaluation scrimmages. Teams will be announced within a day or two of the evaluations.

October 10th – First team practices.

October 17th – First league games of the 2010-2011 season.

An official 2010-2011 MGHA schedule will be published soon.

What is not changing…

  1. We will be at Hartmeyer Ice Arena again, with three games every Sunday night at 6:40pm, 7:50pm and 9:00pm. We will not play on 12/26.
  2. All new players will have six basic-skills clinics this season. Any returning player who identifies as a beginner can request to attend these clinics by e-mailing the Hockey Operations committee at hockey-ops@madisongayhockey.org.
  3. We are planning two challenge games this year. To provide some explanation for new players, challenge games are just-for-fun games where we divide the league by experience/skill level and play a “beginner game”, an “intermediate game”, and an “advanced game”.
  4. All players must have the required equipment as outlined here, and must be registered with USA Hockey for the coming season. The Recruiting committee will soon be sending out a reminder and instructions on how to submit your USA Hockey Registration to the league.

What is changing…

  1. We will be doing away with the “coach” title and making captains the heads of their respective teams. MGHA captains will not necessarily be hockey experts, but they will be league members who will uphold the MGHA’s Code of Conduct and place sportsmanship, inclusion, and team spirit ahead of winning games. If a captain does not have much organized hockey experience, he or she will have an alternate captain who has considerable organized hockey experience to assist in player development.
  2. Goalies will be assigned to teams. They will be evaluated at the beginning of the season, which we do for all other players, and their ratings will be used to help Hockey Operations form teams.
  3. We are moving to an 8 team league. To keep our Sunday night games in three-hour blocks, two teams will have a bye each week. We struggled on this one, but we have a lot of new player interest, and we wanted to keep everyone together as best we could.
  4. We will be bringing back the playoffs. We received a lot of comments about how the season just “ended” last year, so this year each team will play each other twice; then, using the team rankings to determine seeds, all teams will enter a three week playoff tournament.
  5. We have new brand of uniforms (K1 – used in the MGHA tournament last spring), and thicker/heavier stripy socks (different patterns for each team) to match.
  6. We have a new special MGHA 5th Anniversary jersey decoration that will replace the lightning bolt decoration we have worn in previous years.
  7. Starting in November, Hockey Operations will organize and lead weekly MGHA clinic/practices instead of team practices. These sessions will be Wednesday night from 7:30pm – 8:30pm at Hartmeyer. We will also have a new web-based signup method for these practices. Details will be announced in late October.

There will be other changes like a new web-based player registration, rules and tools for substituting players, challenge game signups, and new resources for team leaders. More on all of this as we get closer to the season. In the meantime, we hope you are enjoying your summer and are eagerly anticipating the start of the 2010-2011 season. We certainly are.

Sincerely,
MGHA Hockey Operations
hockey-ops@madisongayhockey.org