August MGHA News, Part 2

Can you feel the cool, crispy air on your cheeks? That’s the feeling of seasonal change, anticipatory sweat, and a sweet full body exhaustion after your first, second, and third games of hockey this fall.

It’s time for more MGHA news:

  1. League Expansion
    • We hit a milestone of recruiting 210 players for this year! Because we have enough people on our waitlist AND were able to add a later ice slot at Cap Ice, we’re happy to share that we will expand to 220-240 players this season. Each team will only have a couple late games, and we imagine captains may recruit subs more easily with a larger pool of skaters. Big numbers mean an even bigger thanks to our recruiting team, led by Amanda Thornton, to process all new applications and shepherd this year’s hockey crew onto the ice.
    • If you are willing to be a goalie this season and haven’t already registered as one, please contact goalies@lists.madisongayhockey.org so we can get y’all wrangled. Note that goalies only pay the $100 deposit, they do not pay full dues.
  2. COVID update for the locker room
    • When the Dane county community level is High, we expect players to wear masks in the locker rooms and the lobby area. While we will not enforce this recommendation operationally (i.e. reporting to leadership and messaging to individuals who do not mask), we will make disposable masks available in the lobby and captains can bring a box into their locker room throughout the season. We ask that where possible, you use your own reusable mask. We hope everyone can acknowledge and respect each others’ space, decisions and body autonomy, as we’ve practiced in the locker room space for years. We are not requiring masks on ice this year, and we will continue to use our Covid reporting protocol to communicate known positive cases using covid@madisongayhockey.org when our players are exposed during MGHA sanctioned events.
  3. USA Hockey registration in your Account page
    • The Website team has made a new USA Hockey # field in your /account page to remove the manual email effort – so going forward, you do NOT have to email the registrar your number. You will not be allowed on the ice until you have your USA Hockey # added for the season.
  4. What’s Next?
    1. Required – Add your play level preference on your Account. We will use this to balance levels and estimate team number and roster size going into evaluations. Play-with and -without requests will be collected later.
    2. We will add September orientation, preseason skills and scrimmages to the website so you can sign up. Sept 11th and 18th are focused on new-to-hockey and new-to-MGHA folks, then we will have ice time for all players as we lead into evaluations and team formation in mid-October.
    3. Reminder – complete the volunteer form if you have skills to share or recommendations for us.
    4. Reminder – Use the locker room listserv locker-room@lists.madisongayhockey.org for any informal updates about mentor/mentee skating at the UW Shell or other local rinks, LGBTQ+ events/news, etc.
    1. Extra credit – watch our videos on the Skills and Drills website page to refresh your brain on what’s coming soon during the preseason!

<3 Thanks and see you soon! <3