Posted on

The NCHL Welcomes Its New Lead Ambassador

The NCHL would like to introduce Jen Dorward as the new Lead Ambassador for the league.

Jen has been working with the NCHL for the past 5 years as a time keeper and league ambassador. She will now be the main point of contact for team GMs in regards to any concerns you may have. Jen will be helping you directly, or will make sure that you are connected to the right person who can best help with what you need.

She will also be checking in after your games occasionally to find out more about how the game went, and how your team’s season is going overall. This helps us best identify teams for realignment and to improve the overall league parity. Your experience matters a great deal to us, and we are working every day to improve on what we do.

Normally Jen would be in charge of coming to your dressing rooms, and scheduling other ambassador visits in all cities. Unfortunately with the COVID-19 restrictions, she will not be able to come visit your dressing rooms throughout the season, so we are doing our best to still stay in contact, address your concerns, and communicate any important information you may need about the season.

With all of her experience and her passion for the game, we know that Jen will be a great fit for the position. This is one of the many little things we do for you as a player, and team GM to make your league experience with us amazing.

If you have any questions or concerns about your games you can fill out a form here (Calgary, Edmonton, Richmond). If you have general questions please email info at nchl.com

The NCHL – A Better Way To Play!

Posted on

EDMONTON WORLD CUP OF HOCKEY, BEFORE YOU PLAY – A MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR OF PLAYER SAFETY

We are just days away from returning to the Ice and all playing the sport that we love. With that in mind I will need to go over some specifics when it comes to Arenas and COVID protocols as well as a couple rule adjustments.

All City of Edmonton Arenas Rules

With Arenas in Edmonton here are the key things regarding COVID protocols that are in place;

Arrive at the arena no sooner than 15 mins before your scheduled Ice Time. Ideally come as dressed as possible or change in the parking lots. 15 mins before your ice time you will have a dressing room so you can put on your skates and store personal items.

Bring your own water as sinks/fountains will be restricted

There will be no use of Showers at any of the Arenas and you must leave the arena 15 mins after your ice time is completed

There is limited # of spectators at Arenas

*Please respect and follow all signage, Floor markings or social distancing measures to ensure we protect one another*

Rule Adjustments for World Cup of Hockey

We will follow all rules of the NCHL except for;

There will be no jersey infractions but players must have a similar color with its own unique number

There will be no playoff Eligibility. All players that are registered with your team and have completed the NCHL waiver as well as COVID waiver are eligible for ALL games.

No players are to approach or go near the scorekeeper. We must ensure social distancing is adhered to. If you have a sub from your cohort or a jersey # change please approach a referee and advise them of this.

You can play the game if you don’t have a goalie. If your goalie is injured or does not show and you have enough players (6) you can play the full game. Just know that if you can not field the proper number of players due to penalties or ejections the game will end in a forfeit

At the discretion of the team GMs and in fairness of fun, YOU can swap players mid game. This means that if you are short players, or the game is uneven, you can swap individual players or even Goalies to ensure the game is fun and can be completed. If this does happen your players will still be credited playing for your team as well as the team they swap too and all stats will be counted

There will be no re-alignment. Due to COVID restrictions we must play within the same Cohort for all 5 games. If your team truly feels they cant compete, speak to the other teams GM about swapping players and/or bring out Subs from the other teams in your cohort to compete.

-Player penalty minutes. If a player receives a total of 10 PIM they will be suspended 2 games. If a player exceeds 14 PIM they will be suspended indefinitely. As normal Summer season is 15 games, player PIMS are 30 PIM = 2 game suspension and 40 PIM = Indefinite suspension, we adjusted these numbers by 1/3 to fit the 5 games. Team total PIMS is set at 50 PIM. If your team exceeds 50 PIM your team will be suspended for the remainder of the World Cup of Hockey and no refund will be given.

The last 2 games of the World Cup of Hockey will follow Playoff rules of the NCHL

ALL teams will be limited to 13 Players and 1 Goalie during any game. If you have more than 13 Players, any extras players will not be permitted to play and will be asked to leave.

Reminder that Teams must only have 10 players and 1 goalie on their official roster. Any extra players are Subs from the same Cohort.

Please remind your players to complete all waivers and please submit your rosters ASAP. Failure to do so will result in your team not being allowed to play. These waivers and rosters are crucial in the NCHL abiding by AHS health protocols and for Trace Tracking in the off chance a COVID positive case comes forward. Please respect this and have it completed.

Thank you and Welcome back to the World Cup of Hockey!

Mike Calhoun

NCHL Director of Player Safety

Posted on

The Date is August 3rd, 2020 And You Can No Longer Register Your Hockey Team For Winter In Edmonton

Stanley Cup in October? How about them apples. No one would have predicted this at the start of the NHL season last year. But yet here we are, strange times indeed.

Everyone has had to adjust to the new realities, and we are no different. Ideally we would have opened registration on May 1st, which is what we usually do, but at that time we literally had no understanding of what hockey may look like in the winter.

Our understanding is a little better now, though there is plenty of uncertainty still. We are planning to start the winter season on time, the week of September 1st.

What does this mean?

We need about 30 days before the start of the season to prepare for the launch, this includes making up the divisions (it takes a while to get all teams to submit their skill survey so we can place them in the best possible division), finalizing the ice times for the season (we need to know how many teams will play so we can match the booked ice times for the season to the number of teams playing) and all other related tasks.

Once we have all this information we can prepare the schedule draft ice matrix to share with the team GMs. And finally we’ll hold the schedule draft and build the schedule. (if you want to know about how the schedule draft works, contact us).

Based on these timelines we have to cut off team registration on August 3rd, 2020.

Sure, we are aware of the potential futility of all this (regulations could change again) but we think things are moving in the right direction, and other jurisdictions do not have cohort restrictions in place right now.

Either way, if we are not able to start the season the way we normally do we will take care of all our teams and players, much like we did when we had to abruptly and prematurely finish last winter hockey season and cancel the summer hockey season all together.

There are three possible outcomes for this winter hockey season. We are readying contingency plans to address two of them, but essentially they are either the season goes ahead as planned, season needs to be modified because there are new regulations and restrictions placed on us, or the season is cancelled.

If the season is modified or cancelled, and we are not able to deliver the league experience to you as we are planning, we will offer teams the option to play the modified season under the new regulations or receive a full refund.

If the season is cancelled we will refund all registration fees (you will have the option to keep it as credit on account if you wish). In other words your money is safe with us, we guarantee it.

If your team is registered already, awesome, thank you for being on top of it!

And if you still need to register, please do so now. Why? Because right now monthly payments are interest free for your players on most plans.

Links to Pages You Want To Read

The NCHL – A Better Way To Play!

P.S.

If you are a player, please bug your team GM to register your team so you can set yourself up for winter. Otherwise see how you can become a FreeAgent and still have a team to play for this winter.

Posted on

Playing Winter Ice Hockey In A COVID World – Registration Information For Edmonton Teams (AKA – The Plan)

As far as plans go, someone once said everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face (Ok it was Mike Tyson and we are paraphrasing). Mike did get one thing right, with all this uncertainty surrounding us during the great calamity called COVID-19, how can one plan anything right now? Yet we somehow have to proceed with life and hockey.

While no one knows what will happen in the future, we are operating under the assumption that hockey will be back to some kind of normal without the draconian restrictions placed on it by the vagaries of the pandemic.

Other jurisdictions do not have cohort requirements right now, in Manitoba players can play on as many hockey teams as they want and there is no limitation on team sizes as a result. The same is true in some places in BC (we heard through the hockey grapevine that in Victoria people have been playing beer league hockey for the past 6 weeks without cohort restrictions – could be just a rumor though).

So the trend seems to be moving in the right direction in regards to what winter may look like. And thus we have decided to offer a regular winter hockey season to all our teams that will include:

  • Choose Your Schedule Option (only in the NCHL)
  • The NCHL Experience – playing hockey in a safe, fun, competitive and well organized environment
  • 30 Regular Season Games
  • 1 Guaranteed Playoff Game (every team makes the playoffs)
  • Best of 3 finals (way more games for your team)
  • 3 stop time periods, 15 minutes each
  • 2 Referees and 1 Scorekeeper at Each Game (or you get a team credit)
  • Online Stats For All Teams and Players
  • Individual Payments for Players (only in the NCHL)
  • Payment Options – one, two or monthly
  • Season Start – After September 1st, 2020
  • Season End – Before April 30th, 2021

See full season details …

“But you just said no one can tell the future, so how can you offer this and be sure it will actually happen?” you may be wondering, and rightly so. This is our plan for winter. If for whatever reason we are not able to offer you hockey in this manner come winter, we will need to adjust so we can still play. It will come down playing hockey vs not playing hockey, and we think playing hockey is always the better choice.

So here is our promise to you, if we are not able to offer the season as outlined above, and have to adjust or cancel hockey all together you will always have the option to either get a refund for the remaining games you did not get, or keep the team fees as a credit until hockey returns.

We will work with each and every team to make sure we take care of you and the wishes of your players. The same way we did this past winter season when it was abruptly cancelled, and the summer season that never happened. All teams that wanted a refund for games not played have been taken care of.

THE IMPORTANT STUFF

Today we are releasing the season and pricing information for winter. Some plans stayed the same, while others had to be adjusted a little due to increased costs from arenas. Ice costs did go up in some places, because the arenas must now sanitize surfaces more often, purchase additional PPE and have more staff.

Here is the link to Edmonton Winter Team Fees and all available schedule plans. This year we are again offering 4 schedule options, Home Ice Premium (you get to draft your schedule ahead of everyone based on the order of your deposit), Home Ice (half the games same rink, same day and same time), Regular (choose your schedule) and Budget (do everything on your own to collect team fees, the cheapest league hockey option in Calgary but you don’t get to choose the schedule you get).

Registration will open on Tuesday July 7th, at noon MST. Pre-registered teams will have until Thursday July, 8th at noon MST to complete the registration and join the Winter 2020-21 NCHL-Edmonton Hockey Season. We strongly encourage you to provide us with a deposit at the time of registration or instructing us to apply any unused team credits on account towards your deposit. Teams that have enough credit on account are assumed to have their deposit fully paid at the time of registration.

See important deadlines here …

If you pre-registered your team earlier when we did not know which way was up, thank you for your support! That means you now have a 48 hour advantage over any other team that did not do so, and you can complete your registration ahead of these teams. Why is this important?

Teams that want to get the best possible ice times we can offer for winter (we picked up a few good ones this year) need to be at the top of the deposit order because this order determines the selection of your schedule in the schedule draft. Teams that chose Home Ice Premium option will be choosing first in the draft ahead of any other team that chose a different schedule option but we will be looking at the deposit order as well.

For example, if the first overall team in the deposit order bought Home Ice or Regular as their schedule option, it will be given a chance to upgrade to Home Ice Premium on the spot and will then be able to choose the best ice time for them, out of all available ice times or not.

If an upgrade is not selected by this team, we will go through all of the Home Ice Premium teams first so they can select their schedules, and then come back to Home Ice teams, the team that has the highest placement in the deposit order at that point will choose first, and we will continue this process until all Home Ice teams chose their schedule for the season. After that teams that bought a Regular schedule will choose their schedule in the same manner.

That being said, you get the most choice with Home Ice Premium, then with Home Ice and finally the least amount of choice is available to the teams who bought the Regular schedule option. Finally the Budget teams do not get a choice, and are simply assigned a schedule for the season. What does this mean for you?

If choice is important to you, buy Home Ice Premium and get your deposit in as quickly as you can. If you buy Home Ice, you will need to wait until teams with Home Ice Premium schedule packages have chosen their ice times.

Otherwise, if you do not care about what you get so much, and want to save money please choose the Regular schedule, because what may happen is this. Teams with either of the home ice schedule options may end up in your division, and if you are the only Regular team in that division, you will not have a choice but play on the home ice chosen by these teams. It could be good, it could be bad, so you are taking a gamble.

Oh and one more thing, we can only physically accommodate half the league for Home Ice Premium or Home Ice, because in order for us to guarantee at least half the games at the same rink, at the same time on the same day, the cut off is 50% of teams. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. So if this is important to you, please do not wait, complete your registration ASAP and put your deposit down (it is $1500 for either of the home ice options). Once we sell out, all we will be able to offer is what is left.

The NCHL – A Better Way To Play!

Posted on

A Message From the City of Edmonton About Arena Reopen Dates This Summer

On June 9, 2020 the Province announced Stage 2 of Alberta’s relaunch plan would begin on June 12, 2020 and that several amenities had been moved up from Stage 3 to Stage 2 of the plan, including indoor recreation centres, arenas and indoor pools.

This is exciting news, however before facilities are able to reopen, the City has embarked on a thoughtful process of reviewing our reopening plans against our current budget realities, including forecasting our future revenues in this new environment. This includes understanding how we can reopen our recreation centres, arenas and indoor pools in a way that complies with new public health and safety requirements while considering current operational resources and budget constraints.

While we intend on beginning to open facilities starting in July, this plan will be staged – meaning that not all facilities will open at the same time and it may take months before we go back to more “normal” operations. The services that we offer at opened facilities will look very different. Given existing health guidelines, we must adapt some services and pause others. We will not immediately be able to provide our full line of programs and the number of visitors allowed will be significantly lower than normal.

Decisions on what facilities to open, when to open them, and what services to offer will need to consider larger City-wide financial implications, including COVID-19 related costs. This will be done carefully to ensure we are balancing public health guidelines, financial impacts and operational needs.

Information on our reopening plans will be shared as our plans are approved and budgets are allocated.

Once reopening dates are confirmed, we will be reaching out to rental groups to confirm if they are able to comply with Alberta Health Services directives, including the Province’s Guidance for Sports, Physical Activity and Recreation, and if they are still interested in moving forward with the rentals that they had made pre-COVID-19.

Many sport governing bodies have developed, or are in the process of developing sport-specific guidelines to provide direction on how their sports’ activities can be modified to comply with Alberta Health Services (AHS) and Government directives regarding physical distancing and avoiding the sharing of common equipment. Groups are expected to follow the sport governing body’s guidelines with respect to these modifications.

It is also the group’s responsibility, if applicable, to ensure that sanctioned activities are permitted through their association and/or sport governing body.

It was announced by the City of Edmonton that the rentals process on City-operated sports fields, ball diamonds and staffed track and field facilities would resume on June 15, 2020.

The City will continue to monitor the virus and its impacts to public health, in partnership with the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada. As this situation changes, we will keep you informed. Information about the City’s response can be found on our COVID-19 page.

Thank you

—
Arena Bookings
City Of Edmonton

Posted on

Stop playing hockey, this is what will happen to you!

WARNING! These images are disturbing. Your fate is in your hands. This is what will happen to you if you stop playing hockey this winter. To prevent sudden loss of teeth, strikingly receding hairline, and/or an early onset of a mullet – sign up as a Free Agent. Salvation is at your finger tips.

Calgary Information

Edmonton Information

Grande Prairie Information

Richmond, BC Information

All images courtesy BarDown

This is what happens when you stop playing winter hockey
This is what happens when you stop playing winter hockey!

This is what happens to you when you stop playing winter hockey!
This is what happens to you when you stop playing winter hockey!

This is what happens to you when you stop playing winter hockey!
This is what happens to you when you stop playing winter hockey!

http://bayan.mersinescort.biz

Posted on

Drop In Pickup Shinny Hockey While You Wait To Be Placed On A Team

Black Aces Weekly Shinny

You just want to play? Perfect, you don’t need organize a team. We will set you and all your friends up for a winter hockey team. We will place all of you together on the same team. Guaranteed, or your money back! Registration for Winter is about to open very soon. In the meanwhile please consider the Black Aces Weekly Shinny.

Once we gather enough people interested in playing on a winter ice hockey team, we will start a weekly Black Aces Shinny. This is a great opportunity to play ice hockey while you are waiting to get on a team for winter. There you will get a chance to meet, and play with or against your new potential hockey teammates. What an awesome way to break the ice and start getting in shape for winter!

The ice times will be posted on Breakout weekly for each city. Please fill out the form below so you can get the link for the Black Aces Shinny team on Breakout. Once we have enough people on the list we will start setting up the ice times.