President’s Message – October 12^th, 2023 - Post U11/U13/U15 Tryouts

As we have reached the end of Competitive Tryouts for most divisions for the 23-24 Season, I would like to thank all the members of the Tryout Committee, Evaluators, Executive Members, and parent volunteers who helped make this happen.  As the President, I monitored the process very closely and I am happy to say there is great improvement from last year! Well done everyone!

The reason I am sending this message out is to be as transparent as possible with some of the decisions that were made during competitive tryouts. I understand that not everyone will agree with decisions that were made, but please know, all decisions that were made the last couple weeks had two main themes that I will go into in further detail.

Theme #1 – 520 – That is the number of players we have within our Association this year.  All competitive decisions were made with the committee considering the impact that those decisions would have on the recreation level.  We used our VP of Recreation, Shawn Birt, as a guide to support the configuration of competitive teams to ultimately support the configuration of recreation teams too.  This is not a practice that was done previously, as the recreation level was used as a dumping ground, and they were left to “figure it out” in piecing their teams together.  That is not fair.  As an Association, we felt we could do better, so we did just that.

For membership that attended our annual AGM in the Spring and read my President’s report, this should not come as a surprise.  This is a philosophically different approach for team configuration, which I understand not everyone is happy with, but these decisions were made because as an Executive we moved in this direction to support all players within our Association.

One example of this is within U13, where we have a total of 7 goalies to service 6 teams.  We knew going into tryouts, if we didn’t add any out of area goalies, we would have 5 of 6 teams at the U13 level with one goalie, regardless of if the teams were competitive or recreation.  We also know you can not bring goalies down to play when there is a goalie absent, but you can bring goalies up to play.  We used the evaluation process to determine goaltender placement. 

Another example is within U15, where we have some bigger rosters at the AA and A level.  This was done to spread the players out a bit more evenly so that all teams had manageable numbers.

Theme #2 – Icing Competitive Teams at All Levels – As communicated in my opening message when I became President in the Spring of 2022, one of my goals was to “Foster a love for the game with our players. Icing competitive teams that put an emphasis on fair play and having fun are going to be vital components to achieving this.  This doesn’t necessarily mean winning, what is does mean is icing teams that can be competitive in most of their games.” 

This is an area we fell short on last year, particularly at the U11 level, and we are not trying to commit the same mistake again. Previously, the Tryout Committee would base configuration on teams solely based on the number of players trying out.  That created an expectation that if your player tried out for competitive, they would most likely make a team. 

Looking at things differently this year, at each age level, we evaluated all players to determine the number of competitive teams we would have, and what configuration they would be.  We used the exhibition games to support our decisions and in the case of U13, we added more exhibition games to really make sure we had as much information as possible prior to making the final decision.  Again, I understand not everyone is happy with all the decisions that were made, but please know this is not something we took lightly as we wanted to make sure we were making the best decision for our players.

At U11, we decided on three competitive teams and three recreation teams.  While we still have some concerns as to how competitive our A and B teams will be at the competitive level, we decided this was the best way to go. 

At U13, this was a more difficult decision.  That was the reason for extending tryouts and adding more exhibition games.  We selected our U13AAA and U13AA teams and were confident with those selections.  At the U13A and B levels we had a concern as to whether we would have competitive teams at both levels and we worried they would be playing “over their heads”.  That has been the case for a number of these players during their years in U11 and we had some players leave the game because of this.  We were very careful with our decisions around U13 as we did not want to repeat mistakes of the past, that is the reason for the decision to go with two B teams, as opposed to an A and a B team.

At U15 it was much of the same.  We were confident with our U15AA an U15A teams, but we determined that we would be spreading our talent too thin to consider two U15A teams and those teams would struggle to be competitive.  That was the reason for 4 competitive teams at the U15 level (AA/A/B/B).

Time will tell if these were the right decisions, but please know that our tryout committee worked under the direction of our Executive, and my leadership, to make sure we were listening to the feedback of families to try to make the best possible decisions for all our players this year.

I would also like to comment on player placement.  This is NOT a perfect science.  I can assure you the tryout committee followed the Guidelines within the Policy and the process for placing players was fair.  Committee members, including myself and the VP of competitive, removed themselves from conversations where their children were involved.  I monitored that closely during the process. 

Looking at the big picture, the majority of players within our Association are very comparable skill wise at every age group that no matter how the teams are formulated, there are going to be 3-4 players at every level that could be interchangeable.  My own kids have been “bubble kids” for most of their playing time, sometimes it goes in your favor, sometimes it doesn’t. 

I understand the frustration as a parent when you see your child disappointed, I have been there many times, and have been there this tryout season myself.  I tell my own children that playing sports helps prepare us for life, and disappointment is a part of life.  How we respond to our children when they are disappointed plays a huge role in how they handle it in the moment and how they could potentially handle it as an adult.  Placing blame on Evaluators, Committee Members, “Politics”, or comparing your child to another child with “my child is better than _______, why did they make the team over my child?” is not helpful.  I understand the passion of a parent when wanting to support your children, I really do.  I am not adding this comment to be rude at all.  I am stating this to help people reflect on this process and look at the bigger picture.  This week, all our players will be on the ice with their new teams.  They will make new friendships and get to play a sport they love.  That is the most important thing.  No one will care years from now if you played AA or Rec during your U11/U13/U15 years of minor hockey.  As adults we need to put this into perspective as to why we signed our children up for hockey in the first place.

To close, I want to thank all the parents for your feedback, emails, and comments during the process, whether they were positive or negative.  As an Association, we are working to improve things each year, please know we appreciate hearing from you to try to improve even more for the following year!

Have a great start to the season!

GO CHEBUCTO GO!

Craig Myra

President, CMHA