Category: Board Minutes

2024-2025 MGHA Town Hall Summary

Tuesday, March 11th, 6:30-8pm (Virtual meeting)

This is a summary of the highlights. Click here for the full 2024-25 Town Hall Minutes!

6:30 – 7pm: League Updates and Announcements! 

  • Quick introduction of the MGHA organizing groups
  • Highlights from the 2024-2025 season so far
    • 18 teams this season!
    • Food trucks were a big hit! 
  • Financial update / Events / Sponsorships recap and announcements – Gene
    • Current financial status
      • Financially stable, operating budget 
      • Have an excess of funds (rule is to have always ⅓ operating cost budgeted carry over from year to year)
      • Excess funds can help reduce player fees
    • Tax status update
      • Tax paperwork issue, the State did not get some required paperwork due to a mixup with PO box.
      • Affects tax deductible status with donations.
      • Working with an accountant to get restored; will be retroactive once it gets re-approved.
      • IRS delay is expected to be about six months
    • Got sponsorship ideas? Send them our way!
  • Hockey Operations (HOps) Updates
    • Captains meetings updates – Christina Libs
      • Recruiting goalies! There will likely be a summer goalie curious clinic
      • Collecting “the MGHA way” examples from each level
      • Make it to your Team Social! You don’t have to be the captain to organize something. Off-ice connections build community!
      • Players Handbook (coming soon!)
    • Tim’s game scheduling updates
      • Championship schedule (March 30th) – coming out soon!
        • First game at 2:30PM!
        • All league photo on Rink A @ 7:30PM. Please be on time!
        • Q: Will there be a potluck? A: Alpha can help coordinate!
    • Score box
      • Low/no reported issues lately *knock wood*, if you notice issues, keep contacting hops@ and we’ll continue to swarm around the issue to get it resolved.
      • Keep working with captains to open/close the box
    • Recruiting next year’s HOPs
      • Want to get involved next year? Contact Tim, Christina, Greta, Alex, or Avery!
      • HOps are the brains behind season scheduling, preseason scrimmages and clinics, skill evaluations, team creation, and managing game logistics and scorebox assignments. They coordinate with the ice rink about schedule changes, find referees for games, and work with captains to assign coaches and plan practices. Email hockey-ops@madisongayhockey.org for more info!
  • Reminder about our annual Member Meeting in May – become an MGHA member! – Kriona
    • Player vs Member?
      • Members have a voice in decisions around running the league
      • Players aren’t necessarily members – minimum of 1 season of playing or volunteering before you can be a member
      • Want to be a member? Get someone to sponsor you! Fill out the application on the website
      • https://www.madisongayhockey.org/resources/membership/
    • Vote on Board in annual Membership meeting in May
    • There must be 10-60 days of notice for this meeting. – MGHA Bylaws
  • Summer Ice – Shiny/Avery
    • Summer Skills starting in late June – August, more info coming!
    • Summer scrimmages in June – August in Oregon (5:30-7:30PM)
    • Look for MGHA Skate Nights this summer!
  • Request from WI Historical Society for MGHA Objects – Sherry
    • Objects to donate from MGHA past
    • Suggestions or donations reach out to Sherry!
      • Print some essays from Our Lives, a 10y puck, david’s penguin suit!
      • Old T-shirts
      • 5, 10, 15 year pucks
      • 5 year jersey
      • Photos (Facebook Group), print out photo book, album, clips from old games on Youtube
      • Pre-season tournament dance-off winner hat

7 – 7:15pm: Tournament Jerseys

  • It’s been an ongoing topic, the creation of a “league” jersey that can be used when MGHA players form a team in an out-of-town tournament
    • These would not be regular season jerseys. Team jerseys would not be affected by this.
  • Details still being worked out: Option to purchase, or a checkout system for players, captains to pick up and keep track.
  • Q: If given the option to customize, will there be opportunity for new members to order? A: Yes, it would be an annual order. 
  • Q: Design submissions? A: Open to the idea. 

7:15 – 7:45pm: League Expansion

  • Survey responses, present initial concepts/plan ideas for what an expansion might look like.
  • Expansion Document
    • Feedback:
      • MGHA is an “incubator” for hockey beginners.
      • Going to second rink is common among the hockey community
      • Continued expansion, how to maintain the social culture when split at two rinks. How to be open/creative about doing more things (food, gatherings).
    • Q&A:
      • Q: Why L20 in DeForest? A: That L20 owns is a convenience, but not the main reason. New facility, not much scheduled there yet. Can get in the schedule early before fills up.
      • Q: What does Championship night look like if split among rinks? A: Likely be held at L20 Middleton, on one rink.
      • Q: Is it only a Member vote? A: Yes, with the inclusion of participants who attended the Town Hall.
      • Q: Can a place to indicate whether the person voting is a Member be added? A: Would need a clarifying statement about what being a Member is (for brand new players).
  • Expansion vote (link will be sent out after the meeting)

7:45 – 7:55pm: Open discussion, the “ask us anything!” part of the evening!

  • Working on alternative platforms for communications, stay tuned!
    • Andrew Kohrs, interest in using FB or IG for communicating is losing interest. Other options, Discord, could use different threads to organize different communications/topics. Andrew has started a test site.
    • There is a Discord for the various LGBTQ+ leagues out there. Tim has a link to the old server. 
    • Server should be in control by Board to keep it running, moderating
    • Would need to make sure important communications are included.
    • Andrew taking the lead on setting this up. Contact Zombi and Bob to get info. Thanks!
  • Bring your questions, discussion suggestions, feedback, friendship, etc.
    • Q: Subbing algorithm, what is the priority for how subs are chosen for a game? A: Yes, cumulative number of times a player subbed, not the recency. Kriona will supply the logic: https://www.madisongayhockey.org/hockey/scorebox/. But, there is the human factor and sometimes can override the sub desk (ie Captain’s choice).
    • Q: Are we planning with expansion to shrink team size, stay at same size? A: Team size depends on many factors, evals, where players want to skate, etc. Players who are on the bubble of either being L1 or L2. Expanding could mean team size shrinks just a bit due to the need to cram as many players in.
    • Q: How to get new players involved in the various committees. There used to be a survey that went out to collect interest. Would bringing something like this have any interest? A: This time of year could be a powerful time to recruit, as the season winds down, interest to keep playing/be involved could still be high. Set up a table on Championship night? Email Paul Weber if interested!
  • Could we set up a monthly summary of events upcoming, what the league did over the past month.

7:55 – 8pm: Wrapping up.

2023-2024 MGHA Town Hall Notes

Monday, Feb. 26th: 6 – 7:30pm at Delta Beer Lab

6 – 6:30pm: Social time!

6:30 – 7pm: League updates and announcements!

  1. Quick introduction of the MGHA organizing groups
    • Board doesn’t do everything – this league is run by a bunch of other folks
    • HOps, scorebox leads, coaches, captains, recruiting, website, sponsorship, Classic tournament, crafters
  2. Highlights from the 2023-2024 season so far
    • Late games, scheduling issues with the rink. We don’t have much control about this
    • Folks are showing up to help as needed
  3. Events recap and announcements
  4. Financial update
    • Handouts!
    • Aim to have 1/3 of operating budget on hand in case of emergencies
    • Cap Ice is biggest expense, but we have really good rates with them
    • Gene isn’t planning on running for the board next year – will still be around, will be able to guide the next treasurer
      • Want to be the treasurer? Reach out to Gene
    • Got sponsorship ideas? Send them our way!
  5. Reminder about our annual meeting in May – become an MGHA member!
    • What’s the distinction between player vs member?
      • Members have a voice in decisions around running the league
      • Players aren’t necessarily members, though there is minimum of 1 season before you can be a member
      • Members don’t have to be playing in the current season
      • Members have additional responsibilities (we can call on membership for volunteers, for example)
      • Want to be a member? Get someone to sponsor you! Fill out the application
      • Lets you have some responsibility for the league without being on the board
      • Go recruit people to be members! Tell your teammates!
      • Membership and Bylaws
    • Vote on board in this meeting
    • There must be 10-60 days of notice for this meeting. – MGHA Bylaws

7 – 7:30pm: Open discussion, the “ask us anything!” part of the evening!

  • Championship night
    • March 24th
  • The Classic Tournament
    • April 26th – 28th, always the last weekend in April
    • Moving to Verona this year (Verona opened a second sheet of ice)
    • Verona is meeting Cap Ice’s rate for the Classic tournament
    • Tournament committee runs the tournament and the board is typically hands-off
    • Turnabout show last Friday 2/23 (fundraiser for the Classic) was a huge success
    • Lots of people have signed up – will be closing registration soon
    • Beginner division will have 4 teams, advanced will also be 4 teams, intermediate is expected to be ~10 teams
    • We haven’t picked a charity to donate to for the Classic yet
    • Verona has a bar, will be running it for us, we should not bring in our own alcohol
    • If you want to help out with the tournament, reach out!
      • Score-keeping is covered
      • Need help wrangling social events for the tournament
    • T-shirt design for Classic – going with the cute cow / cheese logo
      • Make it a design competition next year?
  • Summer Ice
    • Reached out to Cap Ice about summer ice, response was “we’ll get back to you soon”
    • No firm details (e.g., what night of the week, what rink)
    • Likely doing at least 2 levels, skills for all levels, will find coaches
    • Do we allow non-MGHA skaters? Historically no for scrimmages, more flexible on skills clinics (so, yes)
    • Goalie curious clinic may happen this summer
    • Skating-only clinics – hard to get interest for, so we don’t tend to run these
      • Laura Stamm also runs some clinics
      • UW does skating lessons
  • Craft group
    • Getting organized – folks asked for them to return to the Classic 
  • HOps
    • Captains meetings updates
      • Minor corrections on behavior in the moment are really helpful, especially for L3 (folks coming in with prior hockey experience)
      • Also helpful to tell people when they’re doing well, remind them to be kind
      • Recruiting goalies! There will likely be a summer goalie curious clinic
      • Collecting “the MGHA way” examples from each level – what does good MGHA play look like in each division
      • Do your team social! You don’t have to be the captain to organize something. Off-ice connections build community!
      • Growing pains with league expansion – survey going out to captains to collect input. Will come up with written guidelines for upcoming seasons on expected behavior on the ice
    • Tim’s updates
      • We convey the updates from Cap Ice about our ice times getting moved as soon as we receive them – it feels late because we get them late
      • Cap Ice tends to work in silos (front office, eatery, Zamboni crew (and Tyler), folks who book ice, etc)
      • Internally, the folks booking ice don’t tell Tyler (our rep), so ice gets double booked
      • Tyler understands our frustration, is talking to folks at Cap Ice about it
      • Teams have 3-or-fewer late late ice times
      • When the Zamboni broke, we had to pay the refs who were scheduled that evening. We’re asking Cap Ice to pay for these unexpected expenses, they’ve generally been receptive to this
  • All The Way awards
    • Award given to a member of each team who well represents the MGHA
    • Survey coming out soon! Players can submit for their teammates (but not other teams)
  • Essays
    • What Gay Hockey Means To Me
    • Winner gets published in Our Lives Magazine, gets league fees covered for the next season
    • Is a powerful recruiting tool
    • Has gotten us sponsorship, interest from the NHL

7:30 – 7:45pm: Closing up.

June 24, 2020 Board Minutes

Date: June 24, 2020
Attendees: Amanda Thornton, Alan Silver, Halley Pucker, Gene Zadzilka, Ian Leach, Avery Cordingley
Absent:
Location: google meet

Action Items from Previous Meeting

  • Al to make a “goalie” product that goalies can pay
  • Al to review the lists from the survey and put them together for folks to start reaching out to these different committees
  • Avery to put together a survey to poll the league on interest with details listed
    • 75 responses
      • 45 said yes to Oregon
      • 43 said yes to Hartmeyer
    • Plan is to send out a survey to formally sign up and include people are signing up at their own risk and would need to organize their own carpools and that we’re planning on continuing the league in spite of cases
    • Avery to take a look at if they can refund or not and then put language if we don’t have to continue paying the ice we will/won’t refund them
    • Avery to talk through w/ K8 on the utility of masks
  • Avery to reach out to Tim for HOps
    • Send out a survey to all HOps people to see if they’re interested in staying in HOps
  • Gene to follow up on where the donations for Team Trans went
    • Gene to take a look at this!
  • Gene to reach out to peeps who haven’t paid dues this weekend
    • Amanda and Gene to follow up with reconciling the spreadsheet with Paypal
    • Ian to look at language from Gene
  • Halley and Ian to meet and discuss next steps in sponsorship
  • Ian to ask the question on who has the comms group 
  • Ian to wordsmith some language on the donation piece
    • Make sure to include it be a separate link

Committee Updates

  • HOPS (Avery)
    • Spoke with Tim – got some updates and planning is underway
  • Recruiting (Halley and Al)
    • Halley learned how to use Trello! Woo!
    • Meeting on the 29th regarding recruiting
  • Apparel (Amanda)
    • Still have sweatshirts that we can sell! Will plan to sell them going forward
  • Gear (Avery)
    • No updates 
      • Avery to reach out to Simon to get additional info on gear.
  • Social  (Ian and Halley)
    • No updates
  • Communications
    • No updates
  • Treasurer (Gene)
    • Funds are ok for right now – currently financially solvent but will need to raise funds going forward since we ran negative last year
    • Reminder to send bills to Treasurer@MadisonGayHockey.org
  • Sponsor (Ian and Halley)
    • No updates
  • Website (Alan)
    • Meeting on Friday night to go over how to improve the website
  • Education
    • Halley to reach out to Grayson re: disability education
    • Amanda to do some investigation for finding someone to employ for racial justice education
    • Friendly plug to provide an asynchronous option for training!
    • Will also need to find a deaf interpreter/captioner
    • Alan to reach out to Black Girls Hockey to see if they do consulting work

Discussion Items

League-wide meetings?

  • Ian and Halley  to think through a social way to connect (potentially with Libs)

June 11, 2020 Board Minutes

Date: June 11, 2020
Attendees: Amanda Thornton, Alan Silver, Halley Pucker, Gene Zadzilka, Ian Leach, Avery Cordingley
Absent:
Location: google meet

Agenda and notes

Roles

  • Secretary?
    • Ian will take over the notetaking/distilling the info
    • Alan will publish on the web and email out
      • Ian nominated Alan to be official secretary
      • Seconded by Avery
      • Motion carries
  • Registrar
    • Halley will take over the registration piece for USA hockey

Website overview for Halley and Ian
Reviewed high level overview for how to add announcements to the website

Committee Updates

  • Recruiting – Halley and Al
    • Application
      • Removed question about “Do you identify as a woman?”
      • Are you a person of color
      • Hockey experience level
      • Are you LGBTQ
    • Call for volunteers/add volunteers from member meeting
      • Recruiting committees next steps is to put together a list of members and start understanding Trello (MGHA robot that moves people forward through the application process i.e. applicant → deposit paid → player → lifetime member[one day!]) 
    • Plan is one last email blast for previous applicants then purge lists?
    • We’ll need to identify a goalie specialist within recruiting
      • Make sure to reach out to Gene to get some additional context!
    • Plan is to start recruiting by July 1
  • HOps – Avery
    • Hasn’t gotten started with things yet!
    • Get a meeting together with Tim to figure out what next steps are
    • Avery to reach out to Tim!
  • Social – Halley and Ian
    • No updates, but plan to meet to discuss summer events during COVID.
  • Sponsorships
    • Got an e-mail from Maggie this morning on past sponsors
    • Halley and Ian to meet and discuss next steps in sponsorship
    • Halley to get together with her “strategic partnership officer” friend!
    • Donation of Services vs. money
      • Advertising and websites
    • Do we send thank you letters?
      • Have not done this, but we should do it going forward.
      • Have printed thank you cards already
      • Always a good reminder that there is no such thing as an insignificant donation
  • Gear – Avery
    • No updates
  • Apparel
    • Sweatshirts sitting and waiting
    • T-shirt color?
    • Lauren G will be helping out
    • We have a box of tshirts with a tester color
    • Plan is that we’re going to do one color next year 
  • Treasurer – most handoffs done, some paperwork left to do
    • Gene has volunteered to be treasurer for this year. 
      • Everyone votes in favor
    • Most details knocked out with Jake
    • Took a field trip to PO Box and cashed checks from there
    • Last item is to add to the UW Credit union account, which requires some paperwork
    • We ran negative last year due to increased ice fees, more financial aid and gear assistance
    • We need to talk to HOPs next year about shortening season and raising dues to $300
    • We should track on the Team Trans donations
      • There are donations for this
      • Gene to follow up on where the donations for Team Trans went
    • $7,500 in uncollected dues
      • We can change players to “alumni” if they have unpaid dues until we speak to them. Of course, first step is just to reach out and figure out the best approach
    • What does it take to run a whole season? 
      • Roughly $10k a month if you include financial assistance and gear assistance for all 7 months of hockey. We also don’t know what Cap Ice when they open is going to look like
    • Gene to reach out to peeps who haven’t paid dues this weekend
  • Registration
    • Should we bar registration for non-payment for 2019 dues?
    • How can we clearly list out that a donor is an option
      • $7,000 in donations!
      • Ian to wordsmith some language on the donation piece
    • Al to make a “goalie” product that goalies can pay
    • We’ll wait to send an e-mail out until Gene reaches out this weekend

Al to review the lists from the survey and put them together for folks to start reaching out to these different committees

Discussion Items


Ice options for Summer

  • Avery putting together documents regarding USA Hockey recommendations
    • We obviously will need to limit the amount of players on the ice at any given time
    • Should we require a mask
    • Avery to put together a survey to poll the league on interest with details listed
    • Get the options together of what it will cost and where and when
    • “6 week session at x amount with x number of players” or “4 week sessions at x amount with x drill” 


Communications

  • Fb, twitter, instagram….
  • Who is doing this? Haha
  • Ian to ask the question on who has the comms group

September 11, 2019 Board Minutes

Date: September 11, 2019

Attendees: Amanda Thornton, Tim Tender, Alan Silver, Amanda “Simon” Steimle, Maggie Augustin, Jake Wagner

Absent: Katy Werginz

Squads

Recruiting

  • Currently sitting at ~ 116 players for L1  (14-15/team) 
  • Currently sitting at ~ 80 players for  L2 (13-14/team)
    • Looking to get a few more L2 if possible

HOPS

  • Working on schedule
    • Times for ice set. Need to move games and such around in slots
  • Preseason
    • Waiting for goalie evals to be conducted
    • Goalies 
  • Lost a goalie, so need a 14th goalie
  • Possibly split with Suzanne + another
    • Maybe Ames
  • Have an outside person (Badger goalie coach) to evaluate all our goalies to help decide which goalie gets put into which league.
  • This evaluation will take place on 9/29 at 7:20 
  • Email will be sent to goalies very soon about his arrangement.
  • Tournament jerseys? MGHA will provide light and dark. Schedule will dictate which team is which. 
  • Season start button on website
    • Need to back up db before we hit the big button
    • Will start the season as soon as that is done.
  • Refs for preseason 
    • Using internal folx as volunteers
    • One ref per game
  • Regular season refs
    • Need to be assigned 
    • Will get this information to Jane
  • Captains 
    • Almost set in stone

Apparel 

  • All ordered and sitting at printer.

Gear

  • Gear swap happened.
  • Lots of people attended. No number given. 
  • Simon will be the new keeper of any extra gear
  • Will we have a fundraiser / donation drive for more gear
    • Put on back burner. Not needed right now. 
  • Issues with used gear collected
    • Old helmets might be an issue, depending on the date and we don’t know if the helmet was involved in any incidents making them unsafe. Will defer not to take used helmets. 
    • Old skates that were broken
    • Would like a bare bones criteria of what we accept. Simon will draft a new policy

Social 

  • New player cookout is set for September 27th 

Treasurer

  • 78 people still need to pay the $200 final payment 
    • Jake will start poking people for their fees
  • Need to set up invoices for payment plans
  • Need to set up bank account. Alan will need to give Amanda these meeting notes in order to process the bank account. 

Sponsor

  • List and logo files sent to Amanda
  • Dexters and GNP not sponsoring us this year. 

Events

Wolves

  • Alan is working through the details with CGHA, CGHA has the ice, so figuring out how we can share.

La Bahn

  • Need to get back to Emily to see if we can use LaBahn during the year. She was a little busy right now. 

Blades update

  • We need to finalize the date. Would really love to get LaBahn. 
  • Will wait till 10/7 to hear from LaBahn before moving on to other options. 

League

Website

  • Info is getting lost on the website. It is hard to find some info.
  • Alan will be looking for peeps to help out and act as content manager and help with content design.   
  • Planning to send out a Nov 9 feedback form for new people to weigh in on the website. What is working, what is not? A new fresh set of eyes will be helpful. 
  • Nudge on Dec 15th for backend technical support of the site. This will involve Randi and a few others who were willing to help. 

New membership 

  • A few membership entries were lost in last go around. Make sure to ask those few people to resubmit their membership. 
  • New member nominations Ends 9/15
  • Open voting to members on 9/16
  • Will have 2 weeks to vote on new members.

Registrar

  • 110 USA hockey numbers have been entered/submitted. 
  • 40 players still waiting for data entry
  • Meaning, we are still missing people. We will send targeted emails to those that are missing. 

Orientation recap & Make-up session

  • Orientation for new players went dandy. Will  do another one this week after beginner clinics
  • John Stephany will acquaint us with an “the MGHA way” crash course in the locker rooms during the first week of spirit tournament 

Ride share program

  • Thank you David Hafner for making this a thing! 
  • Can we improve on the spreadsheet and make it dynamic

MGE Sponsorship

  • No conversations yet, but some to come……

Donate button

  • Need a button on the website for people to be able to donate.
  • No discussions  yet.

Volunteerism

  • Figure out what we need in terms of volunteer efforts
  • And a way to ask for help
  • Bring back next time to board for discussion. 

Skills and drills

  • Huge kudos Libs and Chuck for the time, and recording of drills and skills that we can use for the upcoming season (and longer)  
  • Need to figure out where and how to publish it (most likely on the website)

Vote

Board Vote!

The board voted on switching our finances to UW Credit Union

  • Yea – 6 
  • No – 0 

Motion has been adopted and funds will be moved to UWCU as Alan gets a signed copy to Amanda. 

Next Board Meeting 

  • October 3, 2019

August 22, 2019 Board Minutes

Date: August 22, 2019

Attendees: Amanda Thornton, Tim Tender, Alan Silver, Amanda “Simon” Steimle, Maggie Augustin

Absent: Katy Werginz, Jake Wagner

Squads

Recruiting

  • Looking to fill spots in L2. Recruiting is taking LGBT peeps as well as straight people that can be vouched for by other MGHA peeps.
  • Mentor mailing list needs to get updated (Amanda and Alan)

HOPS

  • Next meeting is last week of August
  • Schedule, almost not 100% finalized
  • 3 tracks
    • Clinics, 1 intro scrimmage 
    • Couple of clinics, couple scrimmages 
    • Libs is running a spirit “tournament
  • Need signup sheet (Tim)
  • Captains update 
    • Almost have all

Apparel

  • Colors have been chosen and will be kept secret

Gear

  • Simon will figure out a date tomorrow for the gear swap
  • Should we do a fundraiser – to donate for assistance for gear
    • And where to put the fundraiser – do it on MGHA  public fb page ?

Social

  • Group has met
  • New player party TBD – Libs’ house
  • Other events in pipelines 
  • Planning to schedule once a month . through December for now

Treasurer

  • Money is dandy
  • Dues due date – unknown?

Sponsor

  • 2 new sponsor
    • Delta beerlab 
    • Rose pest control
  • Rraine will reach out to some as well

Registrar

  • People can register with USA Hockey , but they are having issues with their processing system. 
  • I’m sure they will get that figured out soon since it affects ALL US  hockey players

Events

Chicago Wolves

  • 18 people signed up 
  • 17 skaters 
  • Need to email them and ask if Chicago Gay Hockey Legaue and see if they will be joining us and plan how we will do this together

LaBahn

  • Reach out to Libs Emily Engel 
  • Maybe for Blades Against AIDS.
  • Maybe league games as well

Blades

  • Still waiting to touch base with LaBahn

Pride 

  • It Happened and was amazing
  • It generated interest 
  • We received one new applicant directly
  • We met one person wanting to donate gear
  • And one person possibly donating money

League 

Membership

  • Create announcement to add new members 
  • Do that now

Orientation

  • Looking to HOPS for some guidance. WIll be discussed at next HOPS meeting

Ride Share signup?

  • Hafner suggestion
  • Get Hafner to run with the idea 
  • Possible exemption from scoreboard duty if you are driving others. 

MG&E Sponsorship proposal for next season

  • Amanda and Patrick will be finessing this relationship 
  • Sounds like a good idea

Donate button on website

  • Need to do this. 
  • Ask Randi… Should have Gene do possibly. 

Next Meeting

  • Doodle poll being sent out
  • Probably week of Sept 9

July 31, 2019 Board Meeting

Date: July 31, 2019

Attendees: Amanda Thornton, Tim Tender, Alan Silver, Amanda “Simon” Steimle, Maggie Augustin, Jake Wagner

Absent: Katy Werginz

Squads

Recruiting

  • Maggie and Alan assigning mentors. Need to finish up pairing. 

HOPS

  • Composed of 12 members including 3 board members
  • Potential schedule was presented to the board 
  • Evaluations
    • Looking at self-evaluation process for part of the assessment
    • Possible have a pre-season “tourney”
    • Evaluation takes place throughout the 4-6 weeks prior to team selection. Mostly an informal process until the end of pre-season.
    • We will need to have 2 weeks used for practices be back-to-back. This may be a practice and/or scrimmage. 
  • Subbing between leagues
    • This will be allowed. And will be watched closely for L2 players playing in L1. It will be on the captains to make sure their L2 captains are playing down. 
  • Everyone playing in L2 will have a goal cap
  • Subs playing down from L2 to L1 will be goal capped 
  • Defining each league
    • 17 safe and inclusive hockey games
    • Players skating in control of their body while handling the puck and avoiding collision with others. 
    • Skaters can self-select their league, but the Board and HOPs reserves the right to appeal self-selections on the basis of safety
    • Same gear requirement
    • L1 will provide 
      • developmental hockey game
      • Beginner-friendly atmosphere
    • L2 will provide 
      • competitive hockey game
      • An opportunity to improve advanced skating skills and practice advanced hockey strategy
      • Recommended skills to play safely; K8 has levels notes
      • Safety rules; same as previous years, no slapshots
  • L2 to be called Blue Square
  • L1 to be called Green Circle 
  • Season start plan
    • Choose your own path… There will be options during the preseason. These options will include
      • Clinics
      • Evaluations
      • Games
    • Then final selection of teams and practices to end preseason.
  • We have 25 people signed up to captain
  • Gear Requirements
    • Will be the same for both leagues, at least for first year

Apparel 

  • On hold till we know more.

Social

  • Planning a mid-August (8/19) meet up and planning
  • One of the first  items on their slate will be new player meetup (where and when)

Sponsors

  • Only heard back from Beer and Bottle. They WILL sponsor again this year

Treasurer

  • Jake needs to get back access to bank account.
  • Jake and Amanda need to close previous year account and open new one for this year.

Events

Chicago Wolves Pride Night. 

  • https://www.chicagowolves.com 
  • Looking to head to Chicago for a pre-game scrimmage
  • This would take place October 19. 
  • Emily Engel is going to help coordinate this effort 

Blades Against AIDS

  • Looking for a date and venue
  • Currently eyeing January 19th
  • Trying to see if LaBahn is an  option
  • Do they have any skate rental options?
  • Will wait to reach out to sponsors till we determine venue

Pridefest / Magic

  • Date: August 18
  • Have a 10×10 area to setup 
  • We have a banner
  • And we have a canopy
  • Simon will email shortly to league and will create a signup form to volunteer

Act ride follow up 

  • All went well
  • A couple of people backed out day of event though

League

LaBahn

  • Discussed the possibility of having one (or more league games at LaBahn
  • $250/hr for ice time
  • Does certificate of insurance meets UW needs
  • Additional costs for A/V?
  • Libs to find out more

Logistics

  • One more push for captains (Brian B)
  • 8 L1 teams (14 players per team) 
  • 6 L2 teams (14 players per team)
  • Why more L1 teams?
    • Prioritize
      • Inclusivity
      • Beginner opportunity
      • Equity of players per team
      • Suck it Toronto
    • Deprioritizing
      • Double rostering
      • Sibling teams
      • In order to mitigate concerns 
  • With 8 team in L1, we would be basically take up 4 time slots on one rink.
  • We are planning the first time slot will be 5:00 with the exception of the following dates 10/27, 11/3, 12/1, 2/16, 2/23, when we will need to start slightly later due to the Capitols playing. 
  • A conduct committee will be set up per league to handle any issues

Website 

  • IT patching and such will be scheduled after season starts

Registrar check-in

  • USA hockey is having problems with registrations. Assume it will get fixed soon since this affects so many people. 
  • At worse, we have a pile up and will need to process at a later date