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I managed to start playing hockey last spring, and it's been a big change from playing soccer for a long time. It's taken until about now to not feel completely slow and completely worthless on the ice. And until about a month ago for the muscle groups to get used to being used differently. About the best thing the Kraken have done so far is unify the adult leagues and run adult learn to play programs on a schedule. Also, they do take good care of their ice. Playing on a low tier team this winter with a bunch of other hockey parents, so it should be great fun. Also, very unsurprised to see a lot of the same names from the NHL thread.
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Sep 15, 2022 21:47
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RC Cola posted:Hey! I'm glad there is another noobie in the thread! Yeah, my kid made me do it. He's still way better than me. It's super fun and I've been doing novice/beginner drop in this summer. I'm no longer completely out of place and can actually receive a pass and either turn up ice or pass it again. I'm also really good at hitting the edges of the shooter tutors when there's not a goalie. What I'm saying is I'm not great at scoring. Most everyone here is really understanding about skill levels as long as you're honest with yourself and are working to play the game. I'm sure regular season adult league will have some try hards, but so does beer league softball. But yay for fun and being bad. I'm almost down to my old pre-kids in the house weight when exercise was a thing that didn't have to be fit into a full schedule.
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Sep 15, 2022 23:09
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Kevlar v2.0 posted:5/3 Arena is run by the Blackhawks and they run a tight ship with actual decent online support. It's also by far the best ice in the city. The building was finished in 2017 and has 2 full sheets of ice. More importantly, it has a bar that's open until 2am every night. Yeah, the Kraken have the Member app, and it's cumbersome, but it also covers everything they offer in one place. They don't have a pro-shop in KCI yet, just a team store. It's some of the best ice in the city, and a few of the other rinks have some really good ice management. One of them just laid down fresh sand to level out the base and I'm looking forward to the upgrades they made at that rink when it opens again. They have stick and puck open for most of the day 4 of 5 days a week too. When we lived in Chicago still we were up in Evanston playing, but wish we'd gone with the youth program in Skokie instead. The ice was better over there. Evanston keeps it too warm for all the figure skaters. So it gets chewed up.
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Sep 16, 2022 00:06
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Kevlar v2.0 posted:They completely redid the rinks in Evanston during the pandemic. I haven't been there myself since they redid it, but people tell me it's much better now. Yeah, we were skating on them a little before our season got ended. They were really nice and then they raised the temp on both rinks because the figure skaters complained it was too cold. It was also very loud and completely impossible for anyone to communicate so I hope they hung some sound batting. I hope they balanced the temp better though because after they raised the temp it was too easy to take up a ton of ice and leave holes. And the Northwestern hockey teams play there too. It probably didn’t help that the project was many months behind schedule and over budget. The old rinks weren’t the worst I’ve been on, but they were the worst for crazy figure skaters during public free skates.
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Sep 16, 2022 02:28
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To be fair, one of the people at drop in this week turned the puck over at the blue line and was just like “eh gently caress it” and skated over for a change. No one really cared because it’s drop in. Although there were some try hards this week who decided to throw some hits and nearly start a fight. But defending is done by committee. It’s drop in, not a game. People are barely playing a position. I just assume it’ll be similar in actual games with a lot of missed passes and people skating after pucks. Maybe we’ll even have positions, generally speaking.
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Sep 16, 2022 22:22
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Duke Chin posted:If somebody is throwing hits at a low level drop in up here they need to be not invited back pretty much ever It was Thursday lunch at KCI. We're not playing no-contact, but it's Novice drop in, so the contact is bumping from not being super good and not hits. Except that this week. Mostly it's just a little bumping as people stop so they don't wipe each other out, but this guy had a burr in his breezers. The players who are better are usually good at making sure they're not destroying those of us who aren't as good too. I think the team I'm on is Div 8 (D level), so I'm sure it'll be plenty of fun.
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Sep 17, 2022 18:16
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xzzy posted:My team is getting some pretty choice time slots and have been for the past year. Usually now is when the kid leagues fill back up and gobble up all the ice time but we're still getting 7-8pm starts so I guess youth hockey is dead in the Chicago region. The travel teams are going already here, and are travelling for their games to places like... Arizona? This is what happens when you let the parents vote. The other option was a tourney in Minnesota. The house teams won't start games for another couple week or two. I'd expect those nice time slots either disappear or you just get to keep them this year. For the rinks here 8:30pm start is when adult leagues tend to start playing. I'm looking forward to starting myself, Kraken training camp means there was no drop in this week, but games are starting and I'm looking forward to trying to play positionally? Going to be interesting because that's not a thing that I can really practice at drop in. I try, but mostly it's just just chaos.
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Sep 23, 2022 16:36
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I was no where near scoring in my first game (ever). But I was a +2 from the blue line (not that it gets tracked). Definitely some mistakes, but it’ll be a good challenge for me to defend people at this level. I will say my passing was getting real crisp by the end of the game and I was starting to play smarter, so an old dog can learn some new tricks. Now I just need to learn how to shoot the puck and I might qualify as “almost competent”. It was a ton of fun.
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Sep 26, 2022 07:02
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I guess I'm going to be happy about everything starting before 10pm so far then. Most have been around 8-9pm though and I'd expect that's where it stays. I even have a game scheduled for the end of the month at 5:15pm.
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Oct 14, 2022 22:03
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No one else is playing hockey this week in your town. Or they confused your team for an over 60 league.
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Oct 14, 2022 22:36
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calandryll posted:I've been playing in the league I'm in for almost 10 years now. This year is the first time they have the entire schedule posted. It's kinda scary. Yeah, our full season is supposedly done already as well. I won't look further ahead than 2 weeks, but at least there's no way they can be scheduling games the day before or have the ice disappear now that everything for the schedule is done.
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Oct 16, 2022 04:12
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calandryll posted:What's also difficult is making sure there is parity between teams in regards to number of times played. We have a 6 team league, never in the history of hockey has there been 6 times are one time. This makes it difficult to ensure all teams are played equally apparently. That’s true. It’s very difficult for a team to play each other team 4 times for 20 weeks. It’s only three games happening a week, so that must be what makes it so difficult.
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Oct 16, 2022 19:30
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Yep, regular season is about 22 games and playoffs. Summer is I think 8-10 with playoffs? I'm having a lot of fun with it. Glad I started playing sports again, and hockey has been great fun. Had a game with some actual penalties in it last night and some competitive contact too. I didn't score, but I discovered that I'm hard to move in front of the net? I kept putting my chances wide, but it's been a really good experience so far.
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Oct 17, 2022 19:55
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Yeah, about half my team is women and it’s all good and cool. Most of the other teams in the division also have at least a 3-4 from the ones I’ve seen so far. Seems like all sorts of variation in skill level is just part of it. They either avoid contact themselves or take it as part of the game and that’s just what happens. It helps that it’s a lower division and everyone seems to mostly buy into that level of contact.
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Oct 23, 2022 22:53
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prom candy posted:Yes it does! I can't believe I've been playing (and posting in this thread) for 8 years now. So glad I started playing. Absolutely. It's only been about 6 months of playing and it's an absolute blast. My skating keeps getting better and I can actually catch up to people (going forward) and I only managed to lose 3 faceoffs all night last night. This would be better if we could manage a breakout, but we're still having fun. I also need to figure out how much time I really do have to skate with the puck, because I find myself turning and passing very quickly instead of taking at least a couple strides when I do have time. I also bought a second stick so I could have a backup and holy wow is it much lighter and easier to use. I should have been more particular when I first picked one, but I don't know that I'd have known the difference then.
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Oct 24, 2022 19:30
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The other team had a sub goalie last night playing down to our level. He was pretty decent, but his chirping was A tier. Constant chatter and when I finally thought I was going to beat him I completely fanned on my shot. It was mistimed from such a great spot that even he felt that miss. I have begun to be capable of carrying the puck all the way up ice at nearly full speed, which makes zone exits easier and more fun. It was a great game and that made it a ton of fun.
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Nov 1, 2022 01:34
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Yeah, we have our game this weekend and our regular goalie is out of town on vacation. Supposedly we have a sub goalie who's going to play, but the game still starts at 10:30pm and we'll end up playing with a short bench anyway. Personally, I'm just happy that I'm making fewer bad decisions, taking more time and space when it's available, and starting to actually dial in a shot. Extra playing time doesn't hurt, at least not until the morning. There's definitely a reason why it's free for goalies to do so many of the extra things, they're a rare breed and always needed.
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Nov 10, 2022 00:09
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YeehawMcKickass posted:Those 10:30 weeknight games suck even as the sub goalie. I keep having to turn them down because it’s always at a place that either sucks rear end or is an hour drive one way well past rush hour. Hell, I’ve been asked to sub 10:20 starts for leagues in the north suburbs of Chicago at 8pm. I’m south of Interstate 80. Yikes that’s a bit more than an hour not late at night too, I couldn’t imagine wanting to play on the other side of Chicago at all. Especially on super short notice. It was bad enough getting to the rink in Evanston and we really weren’t that far away. It would just take traffic time. I’m lucky now where all the rinks are mostly under an hour away. There’s more past an hour. I don’t see us getting games in Tacoma, but we do have a few north of Seattle still. Only games I would drive for would be some fun weekend tourney away.
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Nov 10, 2022 05:02
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Verman posted:If you play in the kraken league you won't get Tacoma games unless you request them. We're in a north div, but end up playing in Kent anyway. It's close enough, and it's still only about 40 minutes of a drive. As long as I'm not driving to Snoqualmie on a weekly basis I'm happy enough. Andy's a nice enough guy, but he did our L2Play and I've since relearned a whole bunch of what he taught especially with regards to stick positioning and shooting. He does a great job organizing the league though. Good to know we won't end up in Tacoma randomly. I don't really want to be driving an hour home after midnight on a Sunday night and a bunch of the team has kids too, so it would be extra hard to even ice a team.
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Nov 10, 2022 21:54
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OVA is in instead of Lynnwood this year? Or in addition maybe. I haven't had anything at LIC but I know they redid the playing surface entirely and I do want to go try it out. Pretty much everything is 20-40 minutes for me anyway, and it's just as bad if you're north and have a game in Kent/Renton. We do more driving for youth hockey than I do for my games.
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Nov 10, 2022 22:54
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Verman posted:Ova and Lynnwood are both part of the khl. I think one of them was closed for a bit to repair their ice. Lynnwood got the new sand laid down and ceiling insulated and I hear it’s doing much nicer. OVA is decent but it’s kept a bit soft for the figure skaters and the AAA kids tear it up a lot. KCI is of varying quality again due to temp and figure skaters. The Virginia Mason rink is always the worst. The other two are usually pretty good. Middle one (Smartsheet) is usually where stick and puck is and drop in is usually there too. Sometimes we got stuck in the nice Starbucks rink with the stands over the summer and the ice was the best. I’m often there for lunch drop in and it’s pretty good and it’s been really helpful for improving my game. The only ice I’ve been on that’s been really terrible was Highland  and the Sno-King rink in a grocery store in Kirkland.
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Nov 11, 2022 04:03
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Verman posted:I'll never forgive bradford for stealing a championship away from my team. Ngl, it is a reason that we stopped looking at living on an island. Well that and having to spend a ton of time on the ferry.
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Nov 18, 2022 00:59
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xzzy posted:When we started talking about moving next year the first thing I did for every potential destination was check google maps for drive times to the nearest rink. Yeah, when we moved back we looked for the normal things like where the hockey programs were located and which one we thought looked like it would be the best for the kid. I think we ended up with a good program. Oh, and schools I guess. And then the Kraken built three sheets even closer. Drop in is very useful, but so much of it is scheduled at absolutely terrible times. It's been great for watching videos and then trying things out. The repetition in a game like situation and having to constantly make decisions has made it a lot more fun to learn and improve.
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Nov 18, 2022 01:27
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^ Our youth hockey goalie coach played into the minors and was subbing last weekend waaaay down into Div8. He was nice about it and even got bored enough to let one in. calandryll posted:Teammate brought his motorhome on Sunday since it was cold out. It was nice sitting in it and drinking beers. He also brought some drumsticks ala Shoresy, which I will say is pretty loving good after a game. Also had someone bring drumsticks on Sunday (no RV though) so it’s clearly popular this week. Jhet fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Nov 23, 2022 |
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Nov 23, 2022 18:02
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RC Cola posted:We lost 3-6 to the team that beat us 3-12. Legit night and day. Now my tuesday team plays that same team on thursday because they are signed up for both leagues. I'm excited to see how my better Tuesday team does compared to my Sunday team. It's only a minor penalty/penalty shot (if it occurs in the defensive zone of the penalized player) if you throw your stick. You only get one. Unless you throw it outside the playing surface when it also becomes misconduct. It's stupid bush league poo poo though and the player should be embarrassed to be on skates. Doing it again would get them a misconduct. Spearing only occurs when they're still holding their stick.
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Nov 28, 2022 21:00
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calandryll posted:Throwing a stick should be an instant toss. It’s considered a stick infraction and is under 637. If it’s considered to be especially dangerous it would be a match penalty under 602 Attempt to Injure. That’ll get you an extra suspension as well. Timeouts are for people who work extra hard and break the rules anyway. There’s some great unreliability inside competitive contact when it comes to how the game gets called because it can be really subjective to the level of play the ref is comfortable with and how they see the teams playing. That part gets extra annoying when you end up with refs who will call contact differently due to size or perception of gender.
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Nov 28, 2022 23:26
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sellouts posted:you can just say women get calls sometimes, it’s what you mean anyways They do. Though I was including it in the larger issue of calling penalties due to a size mismatch and not a lack of playing the puck. And the bigger the skater is, the more likely they're getting called for a body check or not getting one called in their favor and it's lovely.
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Nov 29, 2022 00:24
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sellouts posted:anyways it’s a really stupid and unfounded position and it’s the type of poo poo that infuriates women I do play with. I think you think I’m on the other side of this when I’m not. There’s a ton of really awesome women I play with and against. The refs we get on the other hand are less awesome and consistent. It’s not even the only sport I’ve been annoyed by this. Women are absolutely capable players, but there are still refs who call the game thinking they are not and it’s complete bullshit.
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Nov 29, 2022 04:26
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sellouts posted:bad officiating making bad calls on individual plays against hockey players? That is legit what I'm trying to say, but I'm clearly not saying it well.
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Nov 29, 2022 16:25
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Verman posted:Next day my back was pretty tight and hurt a bit. Not the sharp excruciating pain but my hamstrings were really tight and I could feel that pulling on my lower back. I just kept stretching but a week later I can still feel the tightness. Hoping that continuing to work out and stretch will help it get better because I don't think I'll continue to play if it always feels this tight. This is what it was like when I started playing from just light skating this year. It took about a month before my back muscles stopped being annoyed, but my legs still get tired regularly as they get stronger and I'm skating faster and tighter. It's just awesome that you're back on the ice anyway. Take care of the hamstrings though, there was a ref that blew theirs out in Winthrop last weekend and it's not fun rehab. Lots of stretching in the mornings and after skating where I feel like I'm always stretching. Personally, we had a 10:55pm this last weekend and only had 7 skaters, but that was enough to have a whole single sub for F and D. We managed to only lose 4-0 to a team with 2 full lines for every position. Played a good first while trading some chances, but by halfway through the 2nd the legs didn't want to move as well anymore. They only managed to score on breakaways though, so that's good.
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Dec 6, 2022 20:26
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That’s really cool. No reason to not start early and help coach your kid’s team either. It’s a ton of fun and not really a bunch of extra effort unless they get really good. Even just stick and puck can be a ton of fun time with the kids. We had our last game of the year on Sunday too. We managed to score again finally. I think not having a 10pm or later start helped. We had more than one full line. That probably helped more.
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Dec 21, 2022 02:01
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Yeah, my squirt is very much the better skater, but I can at least pass and shoot better for maybe another 6 months. His passing vision and anticipation is getting solid for his age group but he’s very young for the age group and can’t dominate himself yet. Next year will be interesting. It’s so much fun getting to be on the ice 3x a week with him. He’s into YouTube and video games too, but hockey is an easy sell.
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Dec 21, 2022 02:49
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That sounds like so much fun. We had a coaches game today for the youth association and it was so much fun. There’s a mix of skill sets including some former D1 and AHL players and it’s just a blast playing. They do a good job of making everyone out there better and being positive about people working on skill sets. Brought out a handful of kid refs from the teams/coach’s kids and they did a good job and had fun too.
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Dec 24, 2022 21:01
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It gets better. Make sure you’re stretching your lower back way more than you expect you’d need to do. When I started really getting into playing it took about three months to get those muscles into shape where it was very sore often. Played on Sunday night after having the kid team playing an outdoor tourney in the mountains and had my best game yet. Getting shots in close and making opportunities. Had about 6 shots, but only two from good spots. It’s starting to click. Also decided I really like living at the rink so I started refereeing too. I stepped off the boards to give a guy the lane to clear up ice and he tagged me in the thigh anyway last night. The extra time on skates really helps with the skating fundamentals and I get to be yelled at by old people taking beer league really seriously once in a while.
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Jan 11, 2023 22:03
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sellouts posted:How long have you been skating? We had a clinic in the city. They have them all over the place, but the cycle is probably slowing down. You can see all the options on the USA hockey site. I’ve been hockey skating/playing for about a year, but casually since forever. Definitely get to a baseline of skating first for your own sake. It’ll be just be easier to manage the game if you show basic competency. No need to be skating like Crosby. Coaching clinics for CEP1 are online but refs are back in person.
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Jan 12, 2023 04:03
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sellouts posted:Ya I have skated like 25+ years and went to lvl 2 of USA hockey before the parents got to me I’ve over a thousand games in soccer from kids to pro development leagues. Parents don’t bother me any. We’re a little short some days, but the Kraken starting are driving participation really well. The Div 3 game I had the other night was the easiest so far, it’s the middle adult divs that get stupid chippy usually. I won’t be doing tier 1 for a while thankfully. But C/B kids up to 14s is pretty easy.
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Jan 12, 2023 04:13
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Verman posted:Even the GSHL/Kraken Hockey League here in seattle used to run eval sessions for new players coming into the league. You would run through drills, play a scrimmage and a variety of league captains would sit and evaluate players and assign them a skill level. Then a player draft would happen to divvy them up and try to ensure these people went to appropriate teams. They would pick numbers and draft players from a spreadsheet with their average skill level assigned, where they're from, and a brief description of their playing history that they filled out when they signed up ie: 36 years old, male, prefers defense but willing to play forward. Played highschool travel hockey, stopped after 16. Havent skated since. They still do evals, although it's changed a little with the Kraken feeding their L2P classes directly into teams. Supposedly they added another 3 teams in the middle of the season, but who knows because the schedule is only done up until Thursday this week. Divisions go down to 10 now, but around 3-4 is where I see that big jump in skill level. There's multiple groups in a bunch of the middle divisions too. I don't know if captains go and draft anymore though or if it's just down to those adult evals and being added to a team. There's a ton of players being added, but there are still nights where a team will only have 7-9 players, so still plenty of room. Love to see a town out of ice time, but also hate to see it. It's a good problem to have.
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Jan 17, 2023 22:59
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Duke Chin posted:lol Andy is still doing this poo poo eh? That's one of the big reasons I left GSHL. I would have thought they'd have gotten better about that with the KHL absorbing GSHL and him possibly having a boss over him but noooooooope Yeah, everyone was hopeful when we got the schedule through December in October. Guess it's back to regular. We got our game for Sunday at 9pm last night. And due to his inability to schedule with consistency, I'd been assigned to referee one of the other games in my playing division as well. Really hoping this doesn't continue. I don't mind losing 9-2 as much as not knowing what my weekend schedule is going to look like.
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Jan 19, 2023 16:28
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Vargatron posted:I just yell "GOALIE INTERFERENCE" every time I let in a goal even if nobody was around me. At least that’s funny.
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Jan 23, 2023 16:52
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Kevlar v2.0 posted:The number of icings called by the ref is inversely proportional to how late it is. We've got one that actively calls it the after 11pm rules. Icings will still occasionally be called, but only the really blatant ones. I don't get why both teams don't get cranky about it. One team loses an O-zone faceoff and has to skate back to regroup, the other doesn't get the change they were trying to get. It's not doing anyone a favor.
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Jan 23, 2023 20:20
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