Fargo Hockey: Observations, Praise, Concerns, THE PLAN

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1 Fargo Hockey: Observations, Praise, Concerns, THE PLAN By Matt Noah The FYHA board is asking for ideas to help grow and revitalize hockey in our area. Here are some of my observations, praise, concerns and ideas. I grew up in Fargo. My family has been here since I moved away in 1980 to pursue a career and moved back in 2006 with my wife and six sons. My family has been involved in hockey for decades. My father grew up in Crookston, played hockey for the Sioux, was the first All-American for the Sioux and was part of the 1952 Olympic team that brought home a silver medal. My dad and uncle, Fr. Tim Noah, brought hockey to Fargo Shanley in time for me to have a chance to play high school hockey. My six brothers all played at Shanley. Before that, we all played for my father s squirt, peewee and bantam teams that he and my mom ran out of our home on 11 th Avenue South for about 15 years. Most seasons he was coaching 3 teams. He started this before there were Flyers, Raiders or Angels. At that time registration fees were the same as the uniform fee which was the same as the ice rental fee which was the same as the coaching fee: nothing. My dad would help a kid find a used pair of shin guards or breezers if the parents couldn t afford them. Scheels sponsored the jerseys. Practices were outside and most games were road games. Home games cost money. There was no board of directors. If you didn t like the program, you were welcome to start your own. Most sought out my dad and wanted their son to play on one of his teams. There was no shortage of players and no one was turned down. Dad would arrange games by picking up the phone and calling a friend in some Minnesota town. We could have played every weekend. There were no shortages of friends in every town that fielded a hockey team. Warroad, Roseau, Crookston, Alexandria, Fergus Falls, Thief River Falls, Grand Forks, etc. were all places we played most every year. Most games were day trips. Hotels cost money. In Warroad, we stayed with friends or player s families from the Warroad team. We toured Christian Brothers hockey stick plant. Most every kid ended up playing for one of the Fargo high school teams. Hockey was fun. There was balance in life. Fast forward to today s hockey situation in Fargo. Kids rarely play outdoors anymore. Outdoor ice is free. Indoor ice is expensive. Associations with boards run everything local. USA Hockey controls the national scene. Their designated state association, the North Dakota Amateur Hockey Association (NDAHA) controls the North Dakota scene. NDAHA controls who gets to run local programs. One model fits all for squirt, peewee and bantam hockey (4 th grade through 9 th grade). That model is expensive and political. There is very little

2 difference between what the Flyers, Raiders and Angels do for youth hockey. There are no other options for competitive hockey. Here is what I think needs to change to make youth hockey in Fargo flourish. THE PLAN 1. Eliminate waivers and make clubs compete for players. 2. Reduce travel. 3. Allow and enable more hockey clubs with different models. 4. Share indoor ice and utilize outdoor ice. 5. Organize and run city leagues with West Fargo, Fargo and Moorhead. Eliminate Waivers The holy grail of control exercised by local associations (Raiders, Flyers, Angels, West Fargo) is the waiver. With rare exception, the school a child attends dictates which association controls their hockey experience. If you are unhappy with a program, coach, or the costs you have few options. Your child belongs to the association assigned to him by virtue of the school he attends. You can apply for a waiver so he can play elsewhere, but be prepared to be turned down. A board s waiver decision take weeks or months, extending the turmoil of a player and parent who want to move to a different association. Your recourse is to move to Moorhead, move to West Fargo, enroll at a different school or move to a different part of Fargo where your son s new school is part of a different association. People actually move to change hockey associations. Houses are sold and new ones purchased. School moves happen regularly. The various hockey boards will tell you that you can effect change by running for the board or making suggestions. Usually, a suggestion is your indication to the board that you want your son to play on a B team for the rest of his playing career. There is only one solution to the waiver problem; do away with waivers. Let the local associations compete for players based on the quality of their program. Hockey is the only local sport where associations own the rights to players. Soccer players are free to choose which club to play for. Basketball players form travel teams independent of any association because no associations exist. Somehow, the local high schools find enough soccer and basketball players without the waiver controlling where they play prior to playing in high school. The waiver system is all about controlling parents and players; not developing players or creating parity at high school. Here s an analogy: Imagine being assigned one grocery store, one gas station, one electronics store or one restaurant based on some geographical

3 characteristic of where you choose to live. I don t think that would go over to well. Reduce Travel At some point it was determined that the only way to compete and get better in hockey was to travel long distances at great cost in order to play quality competition. All this traveling places a huge burden on families in terms of time and money. It assumes that hockey is paramount and that a child would not want to do something else with their time. It assumes parents have virtually unlimited funds. It assumes families are small. It assumes that players cannot get better, i.e. develop, under a different model. As an example, I ve taken a son to a single game in Devils Lake in order to fulfill a league obligation. Do the math and add up the costs. Each player probably got 15 minutes of ice time and touched the puck a total of 90 seconds. They also got several hours of drive time, two fast food meals and about 9 hours of lost time that could have been spent doing something else. Had he stayed in Fargo, he could have had a 2 healthy meals, done an hour of homework, played three hours of hockey at a local outdoor and played a board game with his siblings and parents. He could also have had free time to do something else. We are told that unless we travel to far-flung cities in North Dakota, that hockey in remote corners of the State will not flourish. Even if true, I am not willing to sacrifice my child at the altar of hockey equity so that a child in a smaller town gets home games each year. Somehow, hockey flourished in the 1950s and 1960s in far-flung Roseau, Warroad and International Falls without insane travel schedules. We are told that travel to Canada, Minneapolis or points beyond will increase our competitiveness and is necessary for our kids playing development. Hogwash. The occasional trip to a tournament in those locations is fun and can be a family get-away as well as allowing parents/coaches to benchmark a child s/team s progress, but it is hardly required in order to develop. There is enough competition in a 100-mile radius to more than satisfy the development goals of most associations or most parents. As it stands now, some Fargo youth teams don t even play Moorhead or the other team in their association! The cost of excessive travel is a big factor in what drives families out of hockey. Hotels, gas, meals add to the thousands of dollars already spent on registration fees, sticks, skates, equipment, bags and camps. Not to mention that because of traveling long distances, often times some school needs to be missed. If some associations want to continue the insane travel schedules, let them. Parents should be able to choose what experience they want for their kids by choosing which association best fits their expectations. That is what the elimination of waivers can and will accomplish. But it will need one more key element; competing associations/clubs.

4 Competing Clubs Local associations have a stranglehold on the playing opportunities of our children. They also have nearly identical player development models. There is a huge need for a new club or two in Fargo. Under USA Hockey and the Amateur Sports Act, NDAHA has to be open to any amateur hockey organization in North Dakota. NDAHA is not authorized to award exclusive franchises to any organization based on geography and a host of other factors. To do otherwise would be to jeopardize the national governing body designation that USA Hockey enjoys with the US Olympic Committee. USA Hockey is the sole national youth hockey organization in the USA. It is both the national governing body and the national youth organization for hockey. Soccer is also governed by the Amateur Sports Act in the USA. The US Soccer Federation is the national governing body for soccer in the USA. There are at least 5 national youth soccer organizations under the Federation. There is nothing stopping the creation of a new national youth hockey organization. In fact, it is desperately needed. There is considerable attention being given to various new models for controlling hockey in Fargo. One involves the consolidation of existing Raiders, Flyers and Angels organizations in to one organization. Another involves the creation of a new youth club that would be associated with the new Davies high school. There are variations on these two models. None of these models address the need of an independent group of people wanting to start a new hockey club using a model of development and competition that is different than the models currently employed or being contemplated. NDAHA has to open up membership to new hockey clubs. Not doing so is wrong on several fronts. First and foremost, it is a violation of the Amateur Sports Act, USA Hockey bylaws and the US Olympic Committee s national governing body s designation of USA Hockey. The local associations will only improve or some may go away under a competitive environment. At present, there is only the facade of competition. Imagine a gas station or grocery store that had a captive customer base. What motivation would they have to improve service or lower prices? Outdoor Ice and Shared Ice Visit most Flyers, Raiders or Angels practices and you will see a vast majority of the ice underutilized. Indoor ice expense could be halved by sharing ice with another team. To their credit, the weekly squirt inhouse practices and scrimmages conducted by the Flyers is a step in the right direction for sharing ice. Any new rink construction should be put on hold until clubs can start utilizing indoor ice better.

5 Outdoor ice rinks are largely underutilized throughout Fargo. It is time to correct that problem. The Park District should be a more willing partner in allowing outdoor rinks to be used by hockey clubs. It may mean building a few more outdoor rinks that are designated for use by the clubs. Consider opening up 3 or 4 outdoor rinks by the Southwest Arena or the Urban Plains arena. Share the zamboni or buy a new one so that the outdoor ice can be maintained properly. Everyone wants indoor ice just for their team at precisely the time that is convenient for their schedule. The price of utopia is too high. It is time to use our current resources more wisely and look at common sense, lower cost alternatives. City Leagues This season my son s squirt team will play Jamestown and Valley City 6 times. They had no games scheduled with Moorhead, the Angels (Fargo) or either of the 2 squirt B teams in their own association. They had one game scheduled with the Raiders (Fargo) and six scheduled with 3 West Fargo teams. This seems like a fairly typical game schedule for Fargo teams. A count of squirt B teams in the FMWF area shows 3 Flyers teams, 1 Angels team, 1 Raiders team, 3 West Fargo teams and 3 Moorhead teams. Eleven teams in a local squirt B league playing home and away would give each team 20 games. Add in 3-5 tournaments with a little bit of travel and one has a game schedule, good competition, reduced travel, reduced expense and a (more) normal life. Even adding games with teams from Valley City, Jamestown and Grand Forks would be tolerable insofar as travel expense. Play 2 games in Grand Forks on a Saturday against 2 different teams. Same for Valley City/Jamestown. There are good tournaments within a 100-mile radius. Make a trip to a Twin Cities or Winnipeg tournament a big treat. The absence of a city league for mites, squirts, peewees and bantams is a huge blunder for the local clubs. Each club should have autonomy to decide what is in its best interests but parental pressure should be brought to bear to create and maintain a local city league for the kids. To its credit, Moorhead conducts an inhouse 8-team squirt league. This is in addition to its 4 squirt travel teams. Praise & Concerns The history of youth hockey in Fargo is replete with outstanding men and women who have contributed time, talent and money to make youth hockey an enjoyable sport. I have had the privilege to work as a coach alongside many great volunteer coaches and team managers, and have encountered many great parents. Unfortunately, there are those who have stood by and watched hockey turn in to an expensive, territorial game that forces families to give up on a great sport. It doesn t take more than one misguided or abusive parent or coach to make a

6 team s season miserable. Not a season has gone by without bad language or bad behavior from a parent, coach or board member. Hockey boards wield power that is often abused and never check by higher hockey authorities. Common courtesy often takes a back seat to what can I get away with attitudes. Thirty-six years ago, Fargo Forum sports columnist Curt Monson penned a column entitled Overemphasis Takes Fun Out Of Youth Hockey. It is attached to this essay. One of the points of his article was that a good blend of recreation and competition should be enough for kids and that the value of playing out of town competition is cloudy indeed. Monson observed, The time and effort by both parent and child would be far better expended on an outdoor rink during the weekend where unlimited ice time is the answer and pressure is far diminished. After thirty-six years, I think this is still true. The main things that have changed is that hockey has been become much more expensive and many more indoor rinks have been built. Affordability and Accessibility Without significant change, the opportunity is ripe for a new national and local association which will make the game more affordable and accessible to a wider demographic of kids. Affordability is the key. The current local hockey organizations are wringing their hands about how to increase the participation numbers in hockey. The answers, in my opinion, are clear. This parent is considering a revitalization of the Fargo Patriots Hockey Club which will address all of the above issues. However, the creation of local city leagues depends on the cooperation of the local clubs in order to be viable. Local clubs must be willing to better utilize indoor ice and use outdoor ice. The Park District must be an active and willing partner in all of this. Regardless, a new local hockey club can have an immediate and large impact. It will open up opportunities to kids whose parents are less affluent and more willing to give hockey a second chance. Regards, Matt Noah Matt.noah@pobox.com