2022 Orientation Week 1 - New-To-MGHA Clinics
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For liability reasons, all MGHA players must register with USA Hockey. Registration covers one year of play (September 1 to August 31).
IMPORTANT: You will NOT be allowed to step on the ice for skills clinic, practice, scrimmage, game, etc., without being registered with USA Hockey.
How to Register with USA Hockey
(Note: If you play in more than one league, you only need to register with USA Hockey once per season.)
Email board@madisongayhockey.org with questions or concerns!
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Here are your 2021-2022 MGHA All the Way Award Winners and the nice things their teams had to say about them.
End of the Rainbow: Sonny Graves
Watching Sonny’s debut as a goalie has been lots of fun and impressive. They always have an upbeat, positive attitude and their attitude is contagious. Sonny embodies what the MGHA is all about: the pure joy of playing the game of hockey in a friendly, positive, and supportive environment. They inspire me every week to be and do better. It’s a pleasure to be Sonny’s teammate this year!
The Necromancers: Mar Gosselar
Mar has been a phenomenal presence on the team, promoting team unity, compassion, and excitement. They’ve made our text chat a wholesome place and promoted a culture of caring for your teammates.
Skyfall: Peter Jones
Peter is our team cheerleader. He always makes everyone feel like they have done their best. Peter has a positive, teamwork attitude that just makes people feel good! Whether from his kind words in the locker room, his silly “Get ‘em!” yells from the bench, or his screams & giggles on the ice when he wipes out, he is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face! Peter makes hockey fun and the overall MGHA experience special and memorable!
Green Eggs and WHAM! Christy Churchill
Special message from Abby – I can’t think of anyone more well-suited for this award than my sibling, Christy. Their upbeat and positive attitude, even after a loss, was a critical fixture on our team. Throughout the season, they went out of their way to provide positive feedback to many members of our team after each game – they managed to observe individual players while in net AND make some wicked saves. In addition, their tremendous improvement over the season was inspiring to us all. Congrats, Christy, you deserve it!
Slippery When Wet: Bri “Fitzie” Fitzgerald
Fitzie always brings positive energy to games. From their willingness to play whatever position, to their friendliness to every teammate and sub who entered our locker room, to their attitude of “I feel like I have to sample the stick breaking in my next song” after a stick-breaking injury, Fitzie is the embodiment of positivity, and well deserving of the all-the-way award.
The Harvey Milks: Shiny!
Shiny is always a friendly and positive presence in the locker room and on the ice. He makes everyone feel welcomed on and off the ice. Shiny helped lead our practices and always has encouraging words for other players. He keeps a positive attitude on the ice and always looks for assists. He plays inclusively, supports his teammates, and always encourages folks to join him for post-game beverages!
The Fanta-Sticks! Sarah Johnson-Mehrkens
Sarah jumped in to play defense for the first time while learning new skills each week, and has continued to support the team from the bench!
Sarah has been an amazing asset to The Fanta-Sticks! showing flexibility, team spirit, and commitment to growth and learning. When she was injured and it was clear that her season was over, she put on a helmet and joined us on the bench, providing coaching, encouragement, and cheers. Even though she’s not physically with us on the ice, she’s still with us 100% and we couldn’t be happier. Sarah is totally MGHA All the Way!
The Abominable Snowpeeps: Alex Krajek
As a new player this year, Alex has fully immersed himself in the MGHA. He subs for multiple games, plays hard each week, and takes to heart any advice offered. His growth this year is absolutely amazing!
Caution! Trisha Adamus
Tricia exemplifies team spirit. She’s our team mom, always bringing snacks and making sure everyone feels comfortable. Trisha has an infectious enthusiasm for the game and for the league. She’s always inclusive, always modeling good sportsmanship, and she’s just a joy to play hockey with – exemplifying the MGHA way!
Sauce: Ames Barker
Ames has done an amazing job this season of leading by example, both on and off the ice.
Ames joined our team and immediately stepped into the role of mentor and took the time each week to help players learn. They are unselfish with the puck and have made it their goal of the season to try to be the supporting player and go for the assist first and foremost so as to get new players their first goal(s). Numerous times they have taken on tasks for the team and been an absolute support. They embody the league’s definition of the MGHA way. Our team is that much better whenever Ames is there to go All The Way!
The Red Flags: Gene Zadzilka
Gene is our team’s biggest cheerleader. He’s always willing to help, offering advice, and volunteering his time. His passion for the sport, the team, and this league is awesome!
Black Holes: Christina Libs
Captain Christina brought the encouragement, organization, and dance energy that made this season extra good—she went above and beyond to manage the challenges of balancing teams in L2, provided great feedback from the bench and recognized growth in teammates of all skill levels, and was calm and caring as we navigated the great unknowns of the pandemic (and deep space). Her organization of the super fun pond hockey tournament was top notch. She’s the holiest of the Black Holes!
Magic School Bus: Alanna Friscino
Alanna is always positive, promoting and accepting individuality. Alanna has been a wonderful teammate during her first season with MGHA. She is always excited to be on the ice and supports her teammates and captains with thoughtful advice and enthusiasm!
Violet Villains: Erica Fry
Erica has been an exemplary player on the Violet Villains all season. She always has wise and calming words for other players, both one on one and between periods to the team. She’s a smart player, level headed, and makes any line she’s on that much stronger.
TL;DR After March 13th games, mask policy update:
Watching cases drop and the county take its masks off, we want to carefully consider our policies with regards to masks. We want to protect our most vulnerable players, we want to watch what happens with cases over the next two weeks, and we want to give everyone a sense of what will happen moving forward while also considering our players who find it difficult to play with a mask on.
Starting after the March 13th games, we will update our mask requirement to masks recommended ON-ICE ONLY. This means one more game for each team with masks required on-ice (March 6th and March 13th are split due to ice availability). This is similar to the UW-Madison, MMSD, and MSCR timelines. If you need or want to keep your mask on-ice after March 13th, please do so.
We will keep masks on in the locker room and lobby areas and in the Eagle’s Nest when not eating or drinking. Locker rooms are enclosed and have 10-15 of us in close proximity. The lobby can get crowded and people have to move through it to enter and exit the building. Our most vulnerable players do not have a choice of avoiding the lobby like they do for the Eagle’s Nest.
We are all in different places regarding risk and masks, as demonstrated by the survey results below. Please respect everyone’s comfort level and follow our policies.
We will be carefully watching the PHMDC Covid dashboard and hopefully watching cases continue to decline. We will reconsider this policy if there is a steep increase in cases and cases go back over 100 per week (that is the line where PHMDC put the mask mandate in place last summer).
Further info:
Thank you to the 97 of you who responded to this question and to those who will complete the survey over the next few days https://forms.gle/5c3qsEL4hg1TpWA48. We will publish the full results next week.
Brief board introduction and our acting roles
Overview of other various league roles
Hops, hops on duty, captains, mentors, members
Logistics (Tim): https://www.madisongayhockey.org/teams-schedule/
MGHA Classic Tournament (Parter): https://www.madisongayhockey.org/tournament/
Presidential Address – Avery
COVID
Refs:
Open topics:
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Games! We will be holding regularly scheduled games this week!
If you are unable to attend this week or are uncomfortable attending, please mark yourself absent on the website, or tell your captain so they can mark you absent on the website. We do have a number of absences this week for various reasons, so be sure to sign up to sub if you are able! Login to the website and go to Teams and Schedules to see the games and the checkboxes for subbing and absences https://www.madisongayhockey.org/teams-schedule/ The potential sub list and contact info email goes out to captains at noon on Sunday.
While you’re on the website volunteering to sub, please verify your contact info so Captains can reach you on Sunday afternoon. https://www.madisongayhockey.org/account/
Conduct and Inclusive Play – the MGHA Way
This is a quick mid-season reminder that in the MGHA, safety and inclusivity are our highest priorities. We are no-checking, but we are not no-contact. We also want everyone to be as safe as possible on and off the ice, so plays like intentional tripping, boarding, headshots, and slap shots are unnecessary and potentially dangerous. We are here to have fun and play hockey with our friends! We will be asking captains to reinforce this message in the locker rooms.
COVID REMINDERS
Please stay home if you test positive (even if you feel fine) or are experiencing cold-like symptoms. If you weren’t already marked absent, let your captains know asap.
Submit your booster information or Ian will chase you down!
If you have not had the opportunity to get a booster, contact the board and we can help you get transportation to a vaccination clinic. If you are not yet eligible for a booster, let us know. We would like this info by the 22nd, we will extend a grace period until Jan 29th.
Google form submission: You can submit your vaccination card or state registry information in the google form https://forms.gle/ZrDnfKZLsH2k4WMo9. We will delete the information in the google form at the end of the season. This is the preferred method of submission (although we understand if you are uncomfortable with submitting this information in our google form. Please see options below).
E-mail/Text: Alternatively, you can email your booster vaccination proof to Ian Leach at Ian_Leach_18@icloud.com or text it to 734-775-4581. Please include your full name (as it appears in the MGHA website) in your message. While Ian will make every effort to delete these messages from his personal email and text chains, he cannot guarantee they will be removed by a specific date or they will not appear in deleted or archived folders.
In person: We will be offering in-person validation of vaccination information from 6:30-8:00 on Sunday 1/23 (permitting we have games or scrimmages on this day). If this time does not work for you, please reach out to Board@MadisonGayHockey.org for alternative arrangements.
Thank you for protecting one another, for protecting yourselves, and for making our league as safe as possible in these challenging times.
Concussions are serious, cumulative and a risk in hockey. Here’s what to watch out for in your teammates after any impact, particularly involving the head:
USA Hockey – Concussion Signs https://www.usahockey.com/safety-concussions:
What happens when signs are noticed
Captains and HOps will bench skaters after a concerning impact out of an abundance of caution.
If you lose consciousness as a result of an impact, we will call your emergency contact and/or the ambulance.
Concussions alter a person’s perception temporarily and can compromise their judgment of the situation – thus the person involved is not a reliable witness. We encourage teammates to speak up on behalf of each other.
We will not require a doctor’s note to return, but we encourage you to get evaluated by a medical professional if possible and take all the time you need to return.
For more info, read the CDC website https://www.cdc.gov/headsup/index.html
These next two weeks are going to be focused on practices. It’s the perfect time to bond with your team and get to know the fine people you’ll be playing hockey with for the next several months! After these two weeks, we’ll have one week of challenge games on Thanksgiving weekend (more to come on that later) then we’ll start our season games on December 5th.
Here’s the practice schedule (pay attention to L1 and L2 and remember that L1 is the lower level and L2 is the upper level):
November 14:
Rink A:
Rink B:
November 21:
Rink A:
Rink B: