P4
Welcome to SDIA Oilers PeeWee 4 Spring/Summer 2013
Greetings, SDIA Oilers PeeWee 4 Parents, and players Luc, Kenneth, Kyle, Alex, Maxime, Callum, Timothy, Isabelle, Vance, Ben, Jack, Gavin, Rylie, Gregory, Tai, Cooper and Jack M.
Welcome to our team, your team, and most of all your kids team. Coach Garry, Coach Eric, Coach Sand (When available) and myself are looking forward to being your child’s coaches this 2013 Spring/Summer season. Your child has been selected through an arduous process that involved, scouting reports, back room payoffs, flying dart throwing monkeys, and several future draft pick trades to finally arrive on our team. With the upcoming NHL playoffs and injury reports it is a possibility that some or all of our kids may be asked to play NHL until the injured players return. We will leave this up to the parents to decide, but from a coaching staff point of view we will do our best to prepare our players should they be called on for the task.
Our first practice as a team will be on Thursday April 11th at 5:30PM. This will be our permanent practice time through the 2013 Spring/Summer Season. The Metro League schedule will not be out until late April early May time frame. Most of our games this year will be against nameless-faceless-enemies and will occur on either Saturday or Sunday.
What are the PeeWee 4 team goals and coaching philosophy?
Our goals as a team and coaching philosophy boil down to 4 simple concepts. Player safety, player development, knowing all about Canada and enjoying the hockey experience.
- Player safety – We want to return your player to you after every practice and game the same way you left them with us, except with a bigger smile.
- Player Development – To improve your player’s overall skill, athleticism, their sense of teamwork and their character. We expect a lot from all members of the team, not in terms of production, but in terms of effort, attitude and respect for the game, each other, parents, officials and the coaches. We consider the season as an on going process with player development at its core.
- “O Canada” – We expect all players to know all about Canada, specifically the province of Quebec, and even more specifically the Montreal Canadiens(Coach Gary) All players will be required to sing the Canadian National Anthem by the end of the seaosn. All veteran returning players will now be expected to sing the Canadian National Anthem in French when called upon. Coach Garrrrrrrrrrrrrry has a misguided allegiance to the Toronto Maple Leafs please forgive his ignorance! His team has been in a playoff drought since before any of the kids on this team were even born! 😉
- Enjoying the hockey experience – Our final goal is to have all players and their families enjoy the great game of hockey even more at the end of the season, then they did at the beginning of the season.
Here is what we need from you at this point(Please only respond if any of the information below has changed):
- Send us a quick email confirmation that you received this message so we know we have your correct email address.
- Send us your names and a contact phone number to reach you. Who to contact in case of an emergency.
- Let us know if your child is allergic to anything or has special needs, i.e. requires an inhaler to be present.
- Send me a few sentences about your child’s hockey history. Please let us know how long they have been playing, what position(s) they like to play.. Also let us know if they have a nickname…
- Let us know when your child’s “Hockey” birthday is. If it occurs during the season we like to perform a little “Hockey” birthday ceremony to celebrate this great event.
- What number is on the back of your child’s SDIA Oilers jersey!
- Please nothing but water on the bench during practices and games! Thank You in advance for this.
- Your child will need a HECC approved helmet to play in controlled games. Coaches will be checking. Mouth guards ARE NOW REQUIRED at the PeeWee level games. Referees will be checking.
- Let us also know if you would like to help out the team in anyway, we’ll need a videographer(we post our games to youtube), snack coordinator(arranges who brings snacks to every game), first aid coordinator(We don’t plan on kids getting hurt, but it can happen,and it is really nice to have someone near the bench who has this training), maybe be a team mom or dad, how about getting your coaching CEP?
How to contact us:
The best way to contact either Coach Garrrrrrrrrry, Eric or myself is through email, we receive email on our phones and and will answer as soon as possible:
Coach Garrrrrry:
Coach Garrrrrry Cell Phone:
Coach Garrrrrry’s Cell Phone: Please call Coach Garrrrrry for all disgruntled complaints, name calling and bad coaching decisions.
Coach Eric:
Coach Gary
Coach Gary phone –
Please call Call Coach Gary for all accolades, at-a-boys and kudos. All other calls will be forwarded to Coach Garrrrrry. 🙂
Playing PeeWee:
A word about playing PeeWees over the Summer season. After seeing what the competitive level at Squirts was during placements and then seeing what the competitive level of play was at PeeWee it became very clear to both Coach Garrrrrrrry and myself that the Squirt B team would be better placed in the PeeWee house division. We should be significantly challenged and at the same time be tested against better, faster, stronger teams. This will not be a stroll in the park like the Squirt House League 2012-13 Fall/Winter season. We strongly believe it will be a great experience for the kids to be challenged at a higher level of play. Also remember that this is only House League and we will Coach for that level.
Coaching Duties:
Coach Garrrrrrry & I will be splitting coaching duties equally over the Summer. The only thing we differ on is which is the better NHL team, and I still believe and know he is wrong!!!! I will also be Coaching a Mite team and at times may have a conflicting game time at another rink because of that and may miss a game or two during the Summer because of that.
Summer Vacations:
We also expect families, players and coaches to be on vacations sometime during the Summer, if you plan on an extended vacation please have a safe and fun trip and do let us know when you’ll be leaving and returning.
Skate Sharpening:
From time-to-time we get questions about skate sharpening below is sort of an FAQ about skate sharpening, let us know if you have any questions about it or even if you think you need your player(s) skates sharpened!
On average skates should really be sharpened every 3 – 5 sessions. What really dulls the skates is walking around on them around the rink more than anything. Of course like any sharp edge it can be damaged/dulled by anything that it comes in contact with. This is a quick test the edge of your blades that you can do yourself. You basically run your thumb up and down the blade and feeling the edge carefully trying not to cut your thumb. It should feel like an edge and if it feels noticeably rounded or un-sharp in some areas then it probably needs to be sharpened. Sometimes there is just a small portion of the blade that gets nicked and sometimes it can be a much longer stretch of blade that is dull. Sometimes it may even be on just one skate. A typical symptom may be that the player is falling more frequently on one side then the other.
The other thing you can do to mitigate in between sharpening’s to get yourself a honing stone and run it on the side of the skate blades. This action pushes the edges back to where they need to be or at least get the edge to feel somewhat sharp. Here are a couple of videos and an FAQ…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7vrqTRFkvQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAnrgbqQHIg
From: http://gourmetskates.com/sharpening.php
Q – How often should I have my skates sharpened?
A – “When they need it”. It depends on how much you skate and how hard you skate. If your edges are damaged or no longer feel secure, then it’s certainly time. I try to remember that nice feel of freshly sharpened skates, and when they don’t feel that way, it’s time.
If you examine the bottom of the blade right after sharpening, the bottom of the blade will have a uniformly satin sheen. With more skating, the blade bottom near the edge will begin to appear dull. As these dull bands get wider, you might want to think about resharpening your blade.
When I sharpen, I use the fact that a sharp edge does not reflect light. If you view the edge under a strong light, the degree that it reflects is a gauge of its dullness.
Also note: SDIA Pro Shop will sharpen your player(s) skates to a 9/16” hollow which is normal, they will also do a 9’ radius cut too, which you may have to pay extra for! Need to know what was just said, read the FAQ above!
Sincerely,
Coach Garrrrrry, Coach Eric and Coach Gary