Minor hockey dealt with year of changes
Medicine Hat News
Plenty of changes were in store for the Medicine Hat Minor Hockey Association this past winter. Changes, according to interim president Tammy Murshell, for the positive.
“We were very happy actually with the season. Changes have been slow, but they’ve been for the good. One of the things, we had Gay Debeau come and do power skating for Timbits to Atom and paid for all of that and it was received really well from the coaches and parents” said Murshell.
Another change involved implementing a tier system in novice and atom.
“It’s been controversial, however, Brad’s (Cobb, minor hockey general manager) view is the way the system works for development as it widens our talent pool. Before, we were cutting our pool in half at novice and a quarter in atom of the players we were picking to go onto rep. Where now, the pool has widened and it will take time to see any proof, but the parents are now starting to understand and there is a reason behind it - we’re not just doing it to mess with their kids,” added Murshell.
One focus from the minor hockey board was to improve play at the rep level.
“The AAA Midgets had a good year, the AAA Midget girls made the Mac’s tournament and did very well and made the playoffs. We also moved our Bantam and Pee Wee A teams into the Calgary league which is more competitive and we’re
hoping it will show that those players have developed more. We’ve seen some here and there, but it’s still a process,” said Murshell, who feels the executive has drawn a fair balance between the rep and house league programs.
“Absolutely. We really do want to focus on the house league program, because that will develop our rep program and we want to build it from the bottom,” said Murshell. “We are spending more money at the grassroots with the power skating program for example, skating is the most fundamental thing, so that’s where it starts.”
And while Medicine Hat Minor Hockey hasn’t felt the effects of the recession with their enrolment reaching 1,063 participants, just one hour west on Highway 1, Brooks Minor Hockey had a down year.
“We rely a lot on the oil patch and our economy wasn’t the best and had some families move away for that reason,” said Brooks president Dean Quinton. “We are hoping the economy picks up and we can get our numbers back to where they were.”
Brooks iced 19 teams this season and also tried new things.
“We’re always trying to improve skill development and one of the things was to go with two practices a week and bring in things like goalie clinics on Monday nights,” added Quinton.
Brooks has two ice surfaces including the opening of the new Centennial Regional Arena, which Quinton says was a
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BUSINESS FIRST TECHNOLOGY INCUBATOR
NEWS PHOTO EMMA BENNETT Medicine Hat Pee Wee AA Sports Connection Hounds' Carter Forsyth skates toward the puck during Sunday's game against Saint Albert in the tournament final.
thrilling thing for the community.
“It not only has been real exciting for our kids, but the adults as well.”
T I M E T O I N V E S T I N
REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA 2010 ■ Celebrating our Community — 71
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52246000•03/10/10
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