I wanted to give our district an updated report on the spring and Summer meetings that Minnesota Hockey held.
I am completing my first year as your director and learning more with each meeting. I am now very comfortable at meetings and enjoy the discussions.
At our summer meeting this past weekend we finally decided on the new residency policy. Effective this season players are to participate where they attend school instead of where you live. An example would be in Brainerd if someone from Pequot Lakes wanted to play in Brainerd the only requirement would be for the Pequot Lakes player to go to school in Brainerd, he would not have to live in the Brainerd area.
It really shouldn’t effect us like it will in the cities.
Other items we covered were tournaments. This year Minnesota host cities that held a State or Regional ended up losing money with very few exceptions. Morris actually made some money but both Pequot and Park Rapids lost money. It was worse around the state. Minnesota hockey is very concerned about this. At the meeting we voted to discontinue banquets at State tourneys, banquets lost money at every tourney this year. We also decided to charge each team going to a state tourney $400. I voted against this but it was passed.
Last year we changed the team rest periods from 4 hours to 3 and only 10 hours rest required from one day to the next. We voted this weekend to include that in regional and state tourneys.
One concern Minnesota Hockey has is that in a study conducted by USA Hockey they found that 43% of all players between the ages of 4-8 quit hockey before they turn 9. In Minnesota that number is 41%. That is a very alarming figure and we need to address it. Retention is very important and we as a district have to work on making hockey a fun experience for our young players. We need good consistent coaching that are teaching fundamentals and keeping fun in the practices and games. We sometimes get so carried away on winning. The kids forget all about how they did as squirts after one season. The saying we should all adapt is “Kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”
Teaching players fundamentals and repeat-repeat-repeat is much more important then wasting ice time on power plays and systems. If you must do that, a parking lot or a gym would be as effective.
We will be hearing much more on retention in the next year.
Finally now that the residency policy is established we will focus on redistricting and regional tournaments. Some talk is to eliminate regionals and just send the district champ to State. As of now I am against that because Moorhead has been our district champ 9 out of 10 years. I would prefer to have regionals and allow more of our district teams a chance to advance to state. I like the idea of sending 2 or 3 teams to regions. One never knows what can happen then.
I will keep you informed on this and please send me your ideas.
All these decisions are tough to make. We debated the residency policy for days and hours. Trying to please everyone is impossible. When I cast my vote I think first and foremost how the vote will affect our district. I keep in mind our smallest association along with the larger ones.
I didn’t cover all the topics that came out at the meeting. Please check the Minnesota Hockey website as the minutes of the meeting will be posted.
If you have any questions please contact me. I will always listen and take your ideas with me to the meetings.
Yours in hockey
Denny Bushy
