2024 Pre-Season News - Update 2, News (Lucan Minor Hockey)

Updates from LMH President Mark Millar 
 
We can’t believe that the summer is nearing an end with school and hockey just around the corner.  We have another update to keep our membership updated on our programming but please reach out to any Executive member to answer any questions you might have.

Development ice is for ALL players registered for U9 OWHA, and U9-U21 OMHA and is not limited to players trying out for rep/AE.  All development and tryout times are posted on the information page found on the website and the respective Rep/Tier1 calendar.

Please always refer to the calendar(s) as ice schedules may be adjusted at any point.

• General updates/requests
• Tryouts (and U9 Evaluations)
• Coaches / Team staff
• 2024/2025 Events
• Bonds/Volunteering
• Fundraising and Team Sponsorship
• OWHA teams
• OMHA teams

As we focus our attention on bringing all players back to the ice and specifically the higher stress of evaluations/tryouts, please remember the values of LMH that are built on a foundation of respect and devote of maltreatment for players, volunteers, and other parents.  Inappropriate behaviour at the rink, around the community, and through social media will not be tolerated.

General Updates/Requests

• Practice Jerseys: Please return practice jerseys ASAP as we are starting to prep for tryouts/evaluations – email [email protected] to arrange a drop-off
• Do NOT take any equipment (e.g. jerseys, kits, pucks, etc) without approval from [email protected] or [email protected]
• Refs: We had an abundance of applicants to become referees and unfortunately we cannot train all because that would result in too many new refs without enough opportunities to ref games.  We will continue to help onboard ~8 new refs per year in the hopes we can keep them until they reach more senior levels.  All applicants will be kept on our waiting list and should someone drop-out before the clinics we will extend the opportunities to the next on the list.
• Dressing rooms: Except for younger ages (U5-U7), parents are not permitted in the dressing rooms unless they are acting as approved dressing room monitor volunteers.
• Timekeepers: Thank you to everyone who applied to the timekeeper position – we had an incredible response.  Nikki, our timekeeper coordinator, will be reaching out in the near future to share more information and training.  The priority will be to offer up to older applicants first.
• Master Plan: LMH has provided a formal response to the draft master plan and a copy of this letter is available https://lucanminorhockey.net/Public/Documents/24-25 documents/LMH_-_Master_Plan_Feedback_-_2024-08-22.pdf

Tryouts (and Evaluations)
As a reminder, a general information page is available on our website related to our tryout/evaluation processes.  All tryout information is available on the U11-U21 information page along with information posted to both the U9 Boys and U9 Girls evaluation pages.

A few key points:

• All tryout fees must be paid in advance via Spordle (see the U11-U21 tryout page for instructions).  No player is permitted to step on the ice without this being paid.
• Players trying out for AE do not need to tryout for REP
• Parents should not be in any dressing rooms except for dressing room monitor volunteers.  Skates should be tied in the hallways
• Goalies will have two dedicated assessment sessions in addition to their age-specific tryouts (scoring will be weighted towards these sessions)
• Do NOT arrive earlier than 45 minutes before your ice time and be ready 5 minutes before
• All U13+ players must indicate a primary position for tryout purposes.  A survey link will be sent to all players who didn’t indicate this during registration.
• If you are unable to make a tryout/evaluation session please reach out to [email protected] to discuss the implications

If you have any specific questions please reach out to [email protected] and concerns can be raised to president@lucanminorhockey.net.

Volunteer Positions
Dressing room monitors will be required for all development and tryout ice times.  It is required to be the same gender as the players, have completed the Respect in Sport course, have completed Gender Identity course, and have a valid VSC.  These individuals are responsible to ensure a safe and respectful environment is maintained in the dressing rooms.

Sign-in volunteers will be required for development skates (1 per hour) and tryouts (2 per hour) with responsibilities to sign-in players, hand-out jerseys, and obtain jerseys post session.

Apply from the link on the Volunteer Opportunities page or https://volunteersignup.org/L9HT7

Open position - Tryout Volunteer Coordinator
The Tryout Coordinator is only responsible for ensuring the logistical aspects of tryouts are setup/prepared and has no involvement in the evaluation process.  The individual will coordinate between all of the executive positions.  Examples of responsibilities would be explaining the responsibilities with desk volunteers and communicating with the Director of Equipment to ensure they have set aside sufficient practice and game jerseys, etc.  If interested please email [email protected]

Coaching / Team Staff
Coaching assignments have been posted to the website and updates will be added as coaches are announced.  Please see the website for information on course, certification, and additional coaching aides.

As more information is shared on the structure of our teams, additional applicants can inquire with [email protected].  If you are interested in supporting a team (i.e. assistant coach, trainer, manager, sweater rep) then please reach out to the named coach to apply.

2024/2025 Events
We have an exciting line-up of events planned for the upcoming season including:

• 2nd Annual U7 Draft Night- October 3, 2024
• Photo Night- October 15 & 17th, 2024
• LMH Wing Night- October 18, 2024
• Lucan U7 Jamboree - January 2 & 3rd, 2025.  The two-day jamboree will allow us to host 32 teams and have centres split their teams across the two days so they don’t play their own teams. We’re excited to share more information about the title sponsor of this event soon!
• We also will be supporting the Lucan-Biddulph Santa Claus parade (December 7) with a float – more details to come on this.

Bonds/Volunteering
The Bond information page is available on our website and there is a submission form after you complete a volunteer engagement.  Please don’t submit for your team-related volunteering as this will be provided by the team manager in October.  A submission is required for each hockey player so for example if “Parent” volunteers 10 hours during tryouts they would submit 2 forms for “Kid 1” and “Kid 2”. https://lucanminorhockey.net/Forms/3096/2024_Volunteer_Hour_Submission/

Volunteer opportunities will be posted on our information page and check back regularly as new assignments will be constantly posted leading up to the events.  We expect to need a large number of volunteers for tryouts so this is a chance to complete your hours early.  https://lucanminorhockey.net/Pages/6534/Volunteer_Opportunities/

Fundraising and Team Sponsorship
LMH requires support from local businesses through either direct sponsorship and/or support for our numerous events.  Recently we also introduced the ability for team level sponsorship which is aimed at allowing companies (related to the players) to provide financial support of aspects such as extra ice, development, and apparel.  Information for corporate, event, and team sponsorship can be found on the website.  More information on our exciting events will be shared as details are finalized. Please contact Ashlynn Carr at fundraising@lucanminorhockey.net for more information.

OWHA Teams
The majority of our girls tryouts were completed in the spring and some of our girls teams are in tournaments this fall. Good luck to them! We are excited to be hosting 3 teams at our U9 level this coming season. We would like to encourage all those in the U9 age group to come out to all development ice times in September as there is no extra cost. It’ll be great to get everyone back on the ice.  Our regular season starts October 4 and we can’t wait to cheer on all the teams this season.

OMHA Teams
We have made the decision to host U11 and U13 AE teams given the benefit of exposing those kids to representative programming and supported by overwhelming feedback from those parent groups.  This means that U11 will have a representative team (rep), an alternative entry (AE) team, and two local league (LL) teams while U13 will have a rep, an AE, and one LL team.  We’ve been able to secure sufficient additional U18 players and will be offering 2 local league teams.