Author: Amanda Thornton

CANCELLED – Remainder of the 2019-2020 MGHA Season

Due to the Mayor and Dane county officials’ announcement today banning gatherings over 50 people due to COVID-19 and our wish for the safety of our hockey family, we are going to cancel the remainder of our season (3/22, 3/29, and 4/5). It’s a disappointing end to our season, for sure, and it is the best decision we can make to help keep folx healthy and safe.

We don’t want anyone to have to decide between their own health and their hockey team. Lots of us (including myself) view hockey as family and would do most anything to keep from feeling like we’re letting that family down. This cancellation is so you don’t have to make that call.

What we did manage to do this season!

6 weeks of clinics including a 4 week spirit tournament

2 weeks of team practices

2 challenge weeks

14 weeks of league games

(That’s a total 24 weeks of hockey we squeezed in!!)

14 fantastic teams and team names (and like a bazillion clever jersey names)

Taught over 40 people how to play hockey (whaaat?!?)

Grew to the largest gay hockey league IN THE WORLD with 196 players (take that, Toronto!)

Participated in Hockey is for Everyone events with the Capitols, Milwaukee Admirals, and Chicago Blackhawks

Raised a bunch of money for Vivent at our Blades Against Aids fundraiser

Three new league sponsors

Made new friends/connections/teammates

Countless actions big and small by a TON of people that made this season happen, thank you all

What’s coming up?

Essay entries and winner announcement soon (you might cry, sorrynotsorry)

More rainbow sweatshirts available soon (I hope, haven’t heard from the printer, but they were in process a week ago) – shipping options will be available

Lots of practice time at home (we’ll add a page of resources and your recommendations)

Maybe some virtual hangouts (researching now if folx have ideas?)

A super fun party/championship night at some point

Summer scrimmages (as soon as we get the all clear, we will get those scheduled)

What’s also delayed/on hold?

Classic Tournabout show will be postponed to a later date (TBD)

TeamTrans Friendship Series will also be postponed until a later date (TBD)

Classic Tournament is cancelled, hoping to reschedule. Refunds will be issued as soon as we can.

Other stuff

Membership applications are still open. We will discuss the logistics of the end of season member meeting (where the board gets voted on) at our upcoming virtual board meeting this week.

What we will be looking forward to, when the infection curve is sufficiently flattened and manageable for health care workers and facilities, is renting ice on an upcoming Sunday (TBD) and hopefully having our championship night complete with potluck and league picture. We realize the later into the year that we push, we will be bumping against other sports leagues, long awaited travel, and other fun things. Subbing and such will all still be in place.

To the health care and sanitation workers, medical researchers, daycare workers, Epic folx, and everyone else in our family that continues to work to keep things running, thank you for putting yourselves in harm’s way to help others. To the rest of us that can stay home, thank you for doing what you can to lower infection rates and keep the load on those other folx as manageable as possible.

With gratitude for a successful (yet somewhat abbreviated) season,

Amanda

on behalf of the Board

2019-2020 Essays: What Madison Gay Hockey Means to Me

As the season enters the home stretch and we’re all a little sad thinking about hockey ending and not see our teams and friends on the regular, it’s time to reflect on what hockey has meant to us as individuals. We all are changed in some way by being a part of this league and community. Writing and sharing our experiences helps others learn and grow and new players see a potential path for themselves. Our Lives Magazine runs an essay contest on this subject each season and the winner gets published in the magazine as well as their dues paid in full for next season.

All are encouraged to write an essay. All 2019-2020 league participants are eligible for this contest except previous winners.

More explanation of this as well as previous essays can be found here https://www.madisongayhockey.org/about/what-gay-hockey-means-to-me/

Please send your essay submission to president [at] madisongayhockey.org. Essays will be read and voted on by members of the current board and captains who do not enter this year’s contest.

Deadline is Tuesday March 3nd!

Milwaukee Admirals Pride Night Feb 5th 7pm in MKE

The Milwaukee Admirals are having a Pride night February 5th, 2020 and we’re going! Anyone interested can purchase tickets through the link below (send to your friends if they would like to go as well) and a portion of the proceeds come back to the MGHA.

Two ticket options available $20 and $30 (includes a beanie) https://fevo.me/mgha

We can buy more than 5 tickets but if you’d like to buy more the 5 AT ONCE, give Colton a call (contact info at the link). He set aside a few rows of 5 for us so we can sit together and if we need more, he’ll get it done.

If you plan to go, can you also please fill out this quick poll Hafner put together to see how many we’re sending, possible carpooling, and see if we can get anyone there for the high five tunnel as the players take the ice before the 7pm game (6:30pm-ish)?

If you’d like to go and need assistance with a ticket, email president [at] madisongayhockey [dot] org

Missing ice time? (Local info)

Of course you are!
We have a page on our website (#RandiIsMagic) that lists the open skates and open hockey around town that have an RSS feed. 

https://www.madisongayhockey.org/hockey/local-ice-rinks/

Sun Prairie also has some stick and puck times that don’t show up in their public skate calendar (and therefore don’t get picked up by our page) https://www.sunprairieice.com/page/show/1012411-calendar

The Shell has some as well: link

Wondering what to do when you get there? Check out our Skills and Drills page from Libs and Chuck https://www.madisongayhockey.org/hockey/ice-hockey-skills-and-drills/

Stick and Puck time usually requires helmet and gloves at minimum protection, full gear is also great. Most places require you bring your own puck as well. Please review the policies for the venue and session you plan to attend.

See you on the ice!

Scorebox subbing and scoresheets, oh my!

{this info was copied and pasted from an email Randi sent in a previous season. The info is still good, relevant, and necessary. I am not the author but I will accept your questions so Randi doesn’t have to! – amanda}

TL;DR: Check the website for your scorebox shifts and your game times BEFORE Sunday and sign up to sub where you can no matter your skill level! Links below.

Hi folks!

If you haven’t yet, take a quick look at the Teams & Schedule page on the website (make sure you’re logged in).  It’s got a list of all of the scheduled games, team practices, and challenge games for this season.  Last week’s info will be shown first (good for double-checking who won that game last week), with older stuff hidden behind a link.  I wanted to talk briefly about some things the website will be doing this year.
How To Report Absences
When you’re logged in, the website can tell what team you’re on.  It will show you a checkbox with “I am attending” beneath your team’s games.  If you’re going to miss a game, email your captain to let them know, and uncheck that checkbox.  That’ll let the website know it needs to find a sub for you.

Please do this before noon on the Sunday of your game!

How To Sub In A Game
If you want to sub for a game, you’ll tell the website this on the Teams & Schedule page. Pick which games you want to sub for and click the “I want to sub” checkbox underneath. The website will not let you sign up to sub in a game that overlaps with yours. That said, if a captain contacts you about subbing, please check/double check the game time and rink so you don’t accidentally double book!

Please do this by noon on the Sunday of the game you want to sub for!  Hockey Ops will email captains about missing players and potential subs shortly after noon, so if you’re late, you won’t be included in that email.  Captains will text/email you asking you to sub in their game.

The website will prioritize recommendations to captains.  You can read through all of the decisions it makes, but the most important one is skill level.  If your skill level is too different from the absent player, the website won’t recommend you to sub.  Everything else is just icing on the cake to make things nicer – the skill level filter is to make sure games are balanced.  You might sign up for a game… but if there aren’t any players of your skill level missing, you won’t get recommended to sub.

New folks – this means it’s OK for you to try to sub for games!!!  You will replace someone of the same skill level as you, so the games will remain fair.  🙂

How to do this has been summarized on the website, too, in case you’re ever curious in the future and don’t want to dig up this email.

Scorebox
If you’ve been poking around on the Teams & Schedule page, you’ll notice that you have scorebox assignments, too.  If you’ve never done the scorebox before, the scorebox documentation should help you out.

I created a utility that will help you track goalie saves on your phone, which some of you might prefer over paper.  You can get to it through the scorebox documentation linked above, or through the game off of the Teams & Schedule page (where it will be pre-populated with the appropriate teams).

Your Calendar
If you go to your team’s page, scroll down to the bottom (where upcoming games are displayed).  A link underneath will let you add all of the games to your calendar!

Your friendly hockey viking princess,
-Randi
Pronouns: she/her/hers