Hello and welcome to the 2024/25 hockey season

Please read and review the following as it provides an overview of the season start-up process for all divisions.  As previously communicated, our rep tryout process is scheduled to begin on August 24th.

The recreational program officially begins the week of Monday, September the 2nd.  Some age groups will have practice that afternoon, so please keep an eye on the schedule section of our website.  There will be some optional ice over the long weekend at Oak Bay – this information will be communicated separately.

Our coaching director and recreational governors have already begun the process of reaching out to potential head coaches for our various teams.

Initial groupings for recreational teams will be posted on our website over the next week.  Please check your grouping assignment and cross reference with the schedule for the first few weeks (also to be posted later this month) to determine your ice times.  Groupings and the ice schedule will be posted here: https://www.victoriaminorhockey.ca/schedule/ when they become available.  As we work through the first few weeks, changes can happen, so please review often!  Also it is very helpful to ensure you download the Teamsnap App as you will see your team and schedule once you are moved into your team/group.

Please note that we will be hosting an information session for parents of new players only, on Aug 19 from 630-800pm in the Lam Room at Pearkes.

Please see below for further information regarding your divisions:

U7 & U9 will be sorted into their teams shortly – depending on registration/coaching requirements these will be fairly close to the final teams but some movement may occur in the first few weeks.

U11 will be sorted into 3 initial groups and will have 4 practices over the first two weeks.  The players will then be divided into 6 assessment teams and will have a total of 4 assessment sessions (1 skills based and 3 scrimmage based) to determine our development A and B teams – after those teams are formed, the remaining players will then be placed into evenly balanced C/house teams, based on assessment scores.  This process will be complete during week 3 and teams will begin practicing that week.

U13 through U21 (recreational stream) will all be placed into initial groups that will mimic the number of recreational teams we will be rostering this season (5, 5, 8 & 3).  They will each have 2 practices in those groups in week 1 before moving into assessment games in week 2 (each team will get 2 assessment games).  From there, we want to hold a coaches draft for each age group early in week 3.  Once complete, we will hold balancing games over the next week and a half (through the end of week 4), to ensure that our teams are as evenly balanced as is reasonable.  This will allow us to have everyone up and running as fast as possible.  Players who are released from rep tryouts (U13, U15 and U18) will be assigned to these initial groups as cuts occur.

*Please note, however, that our recreational governors will not be able to keep this timeline intact without division coordinators to assist with this process for U15 and U18 – both of these roles are currently vacant. Please consider volunteering – contact Ryan recu13-u21@victoriaminorhockey.ca ** 

Please consider volunteering your time during the assessment process for your division – there will be many opportunities to do so.  The more volunteer help we have, the better this process will be for everyone.

A few other housekeeping items:

1 – All fees must be paid in full before September 1st (unless alternate arrangements have been made with our bookkeeper) before players can be rostered to a team.  We do accept ETFs.

2 – There will be additional fees for players who make representative teams at U13, U15 and U18, as well as the U11 development teams. ($800 for rep and $400 for U11 development).

3 – Please keep in mind that until rosters are finalized on TeamSnap, our registration system only sends emails to the address of the parent who registered the child.

Questions?

Posted in Uncategorized