Hockey Meetings will continue

Coaches look on as former city councillor Peter Handley
leads one of four sessions during Monday night's hockey town hall meeting at Widdifield S.S. Photo by Chris Dawson.

Some of North Bay’s greatest hockey minds gathered at Widdifield S.S. for the second time to discuss what’s wrong with the game of hockey in North Bay.

“It’s our second meeting, more people attended tonight hopefully there will be another meeting and maybe more meetings so yeah, I’m very confident,” said Dan Selin of West Ferris Minor Hockey.

The mood seemed positive as coaches from different levels of hockey along with hockey parents broke up into four groups to discuss issues like image, communication, mission statement and skill development with their goal to bridge some of the gaps that exist between the various hockey bodies here in North Bay.

“If we were trying to reach utopia it would be West Ferris Minor Hockey working closely with the Trappers, the Trappers working closely with the Skyhawks and all three bodies maybe working with the high school groups, with all of them working together grow the base of hockey, increase the registration here in North Bay,” Selin said.

A Governing Body?

One of the key points of this meeting was the idea of creating a hockey governing body in the city that would watch over all levels of hockey, from high school and the Midget AAA Trappers, all the way down to Tyke.

“Everybody has to work together, “said Algonquin Barons high school coach Dale Hewitt.

“I think you have to have everybody working together and I mean that’s one of the goals of the meeting tonight is to get everybody trying to get on the same page, and try to find solutions to working it.”

Skyhawks G.M, Guy Blanchard believes in the governing body idea. But the former minor hockey coach feels it has can be done by using teamwork.

“It has to be some type of group that’s recommending on a regular basis the governing body, people that have the authority to make a decision in the right places and I think those people can’t be left alone hanging there hoping that the decisions are put on their backs, they need some help and as long as they allow the people to help, take the recommendations and implement them, then everybody that’s doing it has to be on the same page and not everybody is going to agree with it not everybody is going to turn around and support it, but at least they are there for them and as long as its somewhat implemented in their own way but the direction from the top has to be there and I think in the long run its not going to do any harm so hopefully 3, 4, 5 years from now you’ll see the results from it and that’s what you’re hoping to get out of all of this.”

Starting from the bottom

Hewitt and Blanchard both believe hockey needs to be improved starting at the initiation level.

“I think maybe change the role, start from the bottom up and start promoting, a lot of guys have good ideas what to do with the tyke program, maybe tier it, so you get the stronger kids playing against each other in the 2nd half and the ones that aren’t so strong or younger they enjoy the game more because they are touching the puck a little bit more,” Hewitt said.

“I think if you improve the tykes and the novice and you continue to improve throughout with the proper direction from the coaches and the association you aren’t going to end up with the Bantams and the midgets, they are going to take care of themselves in their own way,” Blanchard said.

A High school connection?

But connecting minor hockey with the high school programs concerns the longtime Barons coach who thinks his players would be playing too many games if those two programs were intertwined.

“How can they be playing both, it would be insane, so there’s got to be some working agreement so they can work together and I don’t know what to do there,”

Obviously there is still more issues that need to be resolved, and that’s why more meetings are expected to take place in hopes of getting hockey in North Bay back on track.