Message from HRI President
As we get ready to break for the summer, I wanted to provide an update on what is occurring within Hockey Regina since the last update at our AGM
Strategic planning: We are full steam ahead on this. Please watch your emails for a survey coming from Praxis that will guide Hockey Regina as we develop our plan. Participation will be incredibly important so please do your best to be involved.
Novice 1/2 Ice boards: At the meeting on Jun 28, the HRI board approved the purchase of 2 set of boards at a cost of approx. $10,000 per set. If you have a child in U9 hockey, please watch your email as we will need to form a training committee to ensure coaches and parents are trained in how to set them up and take them down. Only coaches will be allowed on the ice for this due to safety concerns (skates and helmets) but will need parent volunteers to hand the boards to them at the start and end of each session.
Anti-Bullying : HRI used to run an anti-bullying seminar for all our U13-U18 athletes, but through Covid, that stopped and the program has essentially gone by the way side. HRI is partnering with Inside The Box to create a personal Mental Health & Wellness course for the hockey community. Inside the Box is a non-profit organization based out of Regina. Athlete mental health is something they feel is strongly neglected because of sporting culture. Mental illnesses such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Depression, as well as emotional stresses like body dysmorphia, bullying, self-doubt, and coping with injury, all exist in our athletic communities and can be heightened by sport. Inside the box understands that our aim is to support our male and female youth athletes in these areas, and potentially our coaching staff.
HRI has approved the creation of a program specific to our athletes and will be implementing it this fall for all U13-U18 athletes. It will be mandatory for all athletes to attend.
Evaluations : This isn't new news, but I felt it was important to bring it up again. HRI has approved the additional hiring of more independent evaluators for all divisions. There will be a minimum of 6 independent evaluators for all divisions, except the lowest tier in a division. The coaches' grades will account for a maximum of 40% of a players score for all divisions, except the lowest tier in a division.
Further to this, there was a change made a few years ago that provides a check against evaluation scores. If a coach score deviates more than 1.5 from the average of the independents scores, it is red flagged and investigated.
It's important to HRI board and staff that there is strong belief in our evaluations being fair and unbiased. We believe these steps will continue to ensure that they are.
Referee Recruitment : Covid was not kind to the enrollment of officials in minor hockey across the country. HRI is developing a plan to recruit refs that left our program during covid and haven't returned as well as recruit younger officials into our program. More information will be forthcoming in August in time for ref clinics that run at the beginning of September.
Some other items that we will continue to work on include:
- Goalie Development -- We are looking to expand our goalie development session we ran last year
- Fair Play Policy
- Dressing room policy regarding phones
- Evaluation Skill Sessions will be redeveloped to ensure they are appropriate for division and tier
- Bylaw and regulation updates - board committee formed and reviewing
Look for more updates on these in August/September.
I committed at the AGM to be open and transparent and I'm absolutely willing to talk to anyone should you have a concern, or even better, a "kudo's"! Haha. Please email me and I'm happy to share my cell number to have a conversation. Anytime.
I want to take this time to thank all of our office staff for a job well done this past year as well as the HRI Board for all of their hard work. Here's looking forward to a continued return to "normal"!
Thats all for now. I hope you all have a fantastic summer and look forward to seeing everyone back on the ice starting in September.
Scott Tresek
President, Hockey Regina
