Let's Play Hockey Article - In defense of Minneapolis Hockey

[JSR]

JJ Watt on Hockey "I still love it to this day. Really, I had to quit. It was financial. I have two younger brothers and we were all playing on a travel team, and it was extremely expensive. My family is a middle class family. When I grew up and learned how much it actually cost for us to play hockey"

http://mmqb.si.com/2013/09/04/jj-watt-unplugged/

Nobody will deny that hockey is expensive, but this discussion is about staying active and how there are a lot of sports/activities out there that are very affordable and don't take a huge time commitment from the parents. On a side note, I don't think traveling Canada and Germany to play Hockey is very necessary. They could have taken the money spent on that and played a few more years.

The discussion started with recruiting more Mites to play hockey. I turned it on its head by commenting how difficult it is getting to recruit boys to get involved in sports. I used our local town baseball and football teams as an example and the almost 70% of boys in my son's 6th grade class that are not involved in any athletics at all. Things got sidetracked from there.

My original point was about hockey recruiting, since this a hockey forum. We can discuss the cost of hockey, the year round nature of it, the constant training, etc. as being reasons why the game doesn't grow (even if there are rec leagues, equipment rentals and everything else available to keep the costs down). My observation was how can we get kids to try hockey when we can't even get them to try anything? It becomes a very tough obstacle to overcome at that point.

That one is a conundrum because I think that it's probably town to town in that regard. As I mentioned, we live in a small town of roughly 9,000 and we get ALOT of participation in sports in our town. Our soccer club has 900 kids in it and they are 99% from our school district, I always joke we are the Roseau, MN of soccer in our town. But we also have a growing hockey organization with about 150 kids in it now, also ample kids in youth football, baseball and basketball...... I know our most successful campaigns for hockey have been our Learn To Play program which we offer for free, they get one hour per week on the ice with coaches for 20 weeks completely free of charge (even the equipment is "free", they have to put down a $50 deposite which they get back at the end of the season when they return the equipment), it targets at kids aged 3 to 6 yeas old for the most part. We put flyers in tthe schools and preschools and also hand out flyers to everyone on teh parade route of our summerfest parade so EVERYONE knows about it.... When we've done a good job of getting the word out we've had 80 to 100 kids in the LTP program in a single season, the years we fall flat in our recruiting efforts we are lucky to get 30 kids in it and those birth years "suffer" in our association and high school because of it

[SCBlueLiner]

JSR, how do transition those kids from free LTP hockey to paying association members? 20 Hours of free hockey is alot. Heck, that's a rec season. What incentive is there for the parents to take the next step if they are getting it for free right now?

Also, do you register those kids in LTP with USAH? There are costs associated with that. They need to be registered with USAH in order to ge the insurance coverage and to just plain CYA for the association.

Is LTP maybe a city operated function and there is no need for USAH registration or even certified coaches for that matter?

We've been kicking around the idea of a 6 week LTP program in order to help increase our numbers.

[JSR]

JSR, how do transition those kids from free LTP hockey to paying association members? 20 Hours of free hockey is alot. Heck, that's a rec season. What incentive is there for the parents to take the next step if they are getting it for free right now?

Also, do you register those kids in LTP with USAH? There are costs associated with that. They need to be registered with USAH in order to ge the insurance coverage and to just plain CYA for the association.

Is LTP maybe a city operated function and there is no need for USAH registration or even certified coaches for that matter?

We've been kicking around the idea of a 6 week LTP program in order to help increase our numbers.

To get them to take the next steps for one we only allow a skater to participate in LTP for ONE season, you cannot come back to it a second time, so at the end of the season we "graduate them" for the following season to our Cross Ice program. This program has two practices a week along with a handful of games against other associations. The cost is an incremental step up but still reasonable at only $200 for roughly 45 hours of ice time. After that they are encouraged in their third season to take the step to A/B/C travel teams which would be the regular pricing. (Of course we have dues reduction and scholarship opportunities for those in need who qualify).

Yes we have them register with USA Hockey, but last time I checked USA Hockey registration for kids 6 and under is/was free with USA Hockey as well, so we have our "CYA" and our insurance but with no additional costs to the families..... We are not run by the city as our rink is privately held, we don't have alot of city owned rinks in WI, it's probably our downfall compared to MN......

LTP is by far and away our biggest recruiting tool. Basically our Youth Association and our Hockey Booster club are the ones who "pay for it" so it can remain a free program for those who wish to participate. Also equipment can be gotten through the One Goal program still I think to offer as "rental" equipment, plus we have folks donate equipment as well that is "rented" for free, again jsut have to pay a refundable deposit. Hope that helps