Leslie Ann Oshust
In 2023 FSMH revamped the ice allocation policy to clearly define and communicate how ice will be managed, allocated and disturbed.
CLICK HERE FOR THE ICE ALLOCATION POLICY
U7 does not practice out of town - however, their ice times are back to back every week on Saturdays and Sundays first thing in the morning - which is the same model surrounding associations are using for their U7 division.
U9’s are rotating through the out-of-town practice spots and a lot of time and attention went into ensuring that every team goes out of town as equal amounts as possible in the 6 weeks that have been provided so far, and teams can be assured that any gaps or teams that had less out of town ice teams this set of practices will alternatively be flipped and given more out of town practices for the next six weeks than those who had more this set.
U11’s are skating what it referred to as a hybrid model this year where some teams have one practice they share with another u11 team and one full ice practice and some of those full ice practices are out of town - and again – a concerted effort has gone into and will continue to go into ensuring that the out of town times are balanced amongst all teams as much as possible.
U13's are also skating the hybrid model for one of their practices and full ice for the other. All of the teams at U13 who have one hybrid practice do not skate out of town. The one team that doesn’t have hybrid model, has two full ice practices but does skate out of town once a week.
U15 and U18 both have one in town practice and one out of town practice a week.
There are many other factors that went into which divisions go out of town and which do not as frequently as other divisions, such as the time of the night that we have ice and how many early ice times vs. late ice times we have available to us across all arenas per day of the week. Additionally, consideration was given to ensure that teams don’t practice two days in a row through the week.
Ranger and Fury Tiered teams will each receive 1-2 practices per week depending on ice availability. The goal is to get each tiered team to approximately 35 hours of practice. If a team chooses they can pick up any extra ice from the available ice list and the team will be billed at the end of the season from FSMH.
REP and RAC teams will receive 2-3 practices per week with the following hours per season goals
- U11 RAC - 48 hours
- U11 REP - 48 hours
- U13 REP - 48 hours
- U13/15/16 AA - 54 hours
- U15/17/18 AAA - 60 hours
Rep and RAC players pay an extra fee which covers the cost of extra ice to align those teams with an elite development program.
Each team can watch for available ice and pick up what they can at the team's expense. FSMH is only able to offer the tiered program 1-2 per week based on available ice and registration fees.
In Fort Saskatchewan, there are only 3 ice surfaces to rent and with a population of almost 30,000 and many ice users, there is not enough to go around. Within the City of Fort Saskatchewan, we have hockey, ringette, figure skating, Hawks, Jr. Fury, school programming, city programming, adult hockey, and non-sanctioned leagues, etc. all fighting for ice. The city of Fort Saskatchewan gives each minor sports team allocated ice based on standards of play calculation. Currently, FSMH is using every minute of our allocated ice with the city of Fort Saskatchewan and has now gone out to Bruderheim and Lamont to be able to acquire enough ice to run our programming.
We are given our contract Ice from the City of Fort Saskatchewan and must work within what we are given. When allocating Ice we looked at the overall time of day and day of week ice times we have available to us and I assigned times to the different divisions based on age. This year we have very limited 4:30 start times and have had some ice previously made available to us provided to other growing user groups in the city.
Being that the U9's play their games on weekends, they cannot be given practice their regular practice times on the weekend and must be skated in the limited, week day early ice times that I have been given to work with followed by the remaining teams who are in divisions U9 and above who also play on weekends and cannot be given regular practice times on Saturdays and Sundays.
Before assigning these times to U7, we did reach out to several other surrounding Minor Hockey Associations to ask about how they Ice U7, all of them replied back with the same set up - earliest ice time, two times a week, Saturday and Sundays.
Our contract ice with the city does not begin until Oct 1 of each season. Ice in September is not consistent every season.
The Ice allocator will email the managers of each team their schedule and the managers will update Teamsnap.
Games will be on your league website.
Each week the iced allocator will send out an available ice sheet for teams to pick up ice if they choose to. This ice is on a first come first serve basis. Ice requested is not guaranteed until the ice allocator has confirmed the booking.
CLICK HERE TO PICK UP AN EXTRA ICE SLOT LISTED ON THE AVAILABLE ICE SHEET
In cases where ice has been assigned to teams and not used, FSMH will invoice the team for the cost of the ice. To avoid this fee, teams must provide a written notice, via email to FSMH at least 21 days before the ice time they are unable to use. When teams are unable to use short-notice practice ice (given to them with less than 21 notice), they will not be charged a no-show fee if they provide written notice to the FSMH Ice Allocator within 72 hours of the ice time being allotted.
Yes! Absolutely this is the preferred method of moving ice around the association. Managers can use the manager teamsnap chat to trade ice with other teams. Once you have confirmed and agreed on a trade please fill out the trade form.
Not currently allocated to teams.... but can you request it??? Yes, absolutely!! and if your team would like to trade one of your allocated slots for early morning before school ice please let the ice allocator know.