Minor Council Meeting May 5-6, 2017 Radisson Downtown Hotel Terrace West 1. Welcome/Introductions - Friday Evening In attendance: Laurie Clarke (Brandon), John Ferg (Central Plains - not in attendance Sat AM), Ken Kutzak (Eastman), Jay Charison (Interlake), Ron Larocque (Norman), Ann Ransom (Parkland), Greg Ens (Pembina Valley), Guy Williams (Westman South), Guy Jeanson (Winnipeg - not present on Friday), Dan Johnson (Yellowhead), Mike Neill (Central Plains not present on Friday), Greg Thompson (Midget AAA not present on Friday), Ken Gladden, Chris Hall, Ashley Fergusson, Scott Furman, Peter Woods, Bill Whitehead 2. Approve Agenda Motion to Approve: Ken Kutzak/Guy Williams 3. Approve minutes 2017 Semi Annual meeting Motion to Approve: John Ferg/Guy Williams 4. On line Registration 2016-2017 Only major glitch seemed to be the online transfers that were not working properly at the beginning of the season. Some issues in YH for Female Bantam AAA wanting to play outside of their region. A form/appeal application would be set up that can be submitted to the region director. There would be no appeal if a player didn't want to play in their home region, as long as all regions/mhas involved agree they would be eligible. Can we make it mandatory for physical addresses to be included? This is currently mandatory however not a process that is followed. Please be sure that you are monitoring your MHAs to ensure this is done properly. It is something taught at the registration session and will be stressed this year again. An example of how addresses should look, one city and one rural, will be added to the registration manual. Norman had issues getting rosters in for their teams that don't use the HCR.
There are never ending issues with duplicates. Break until Saturday Morning. 5. Provincials- this season, brief discussion on: IL - expressed the desire to have an A2 provincial. They were told by regional reps that it was unlikely that provincials would be expanding but would bring it up at the AGM. Brandon sends lower level teams to C provincials, this is an option. Pembina Valley will be moving to three bantam AA teams next season so all kids can try-out at this level. This could affect their true AA centers. Morden could lose their AA players but would still be considered a AA centre. Do we add AA1 (or whatever we decide to call it) and that can be for AA 5 centre teams and regular AA would be for AA centers. A recommendation will be made to the board to add a AA1 Bantam provincial Moved: Greg Ens/Jay Charison Because of the Manitoba Games we will have to move some provincials around as the Games are the first weekend of March. The easiest solution would be to start a weekend earlier. This could make things tight though because there would be not enough time between bantam provincials and MB Games. There was some discussion on how we handled the adjustment during the last MB Games. Atom/Bantam rural Mar. 2-4 Manitoba Games Mar 9-11 Peewee/Midget rural Mar 9-11 Bantam AAA rural Mar.16-18 Bantam AAA Final Mar. 23-25 Western Bantams Apr. 5-8 Hosting - there was some confusion about who hosts the best of 3. We will be sure to clarify this as much as possible. Winnipeg will host Male Bantam AAA finals. Rural winner will host the best of 3 for the Female Bantam AAA. Western Bantams will be in BC. The board will finalize what sort of funding will be available for travel for this event. 6. Male Bantam AAA 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 IL hosted the banquet and had very positive things to say about it. The guest speaker had everyone on the edge of their seats.
It was confirmed that everyone is still okay with the Bantam Showcase October 6-8. The Female Showcase will be at the same time. Scott reminded everyone about the new regulation about the double rostered Bantam AA teams. Players that do not make AAA have this program to fall back on. 7. Development Updates provided by Bernie during joint council. There was a brief summary of programs and thoughts for upcoming changes. POE - Eastman questioned 13 year olds attending. They felt that there were better 14 year olds that should have attended in that spot. The player in particular was granted exceptional status but should that be an option? 8. 2017 Extended season - 2017- Spring/Summer Hockey proposal Do you play in the region you live in or the region you play in? You should play out of the region you registered for that season but exemptions can be made by the chair of minor. 9. Fall meeting We will move forward with the event. Some details will be worked out at June Planning. If you have ideas for workshops/presentations please let us know so we can look into these ideas. One of the issues from a branch perspective is we get great feedback from this event however it is only from the people that attend, there are still a bunch of MHAs that don't show up. A bunch of people register, pay their fees, but then do not attend. They feel like they have done their due diligence by signing up. It is a significant cost to us to order food, plan, etc. for numbers that don't show up. Parkland commented that having it start on Friday is difficult for the people that have to travel. We try to schedule it so guest speakers are on Friday and the workshops and vital info presented on Saturday. Guy Williams suggested collecting a fee from the Regions so that there is some incentive to send their MHAs to this. This is a great event that we don't want to lose because we are consistently providing an expensive weekend for people that aren't coming. The people that are coming and making the effort then lose a major resource to them. What can we do to convince people that they need to attend this? The people that do come see the value, how do we convince those that don't. We should communicate better that this event is open to everyone, not just MHA representatives, etc. An idea for a presentation might be - "New Parents in Hockey" Create something that regions/mhas can post on their website.
We should try to get a big name for a presentation, someone that would attract your average hockey guy. A hockey dad may not recognize the names of the presenters and not see the value. There is a possibility that Tom Renney could attend for 2017-18 Season Opener. What about Sheldon Kennedy or Theo Fleury as a presenter? This would be a somewhat negative topic to address however it is something that should be talked about. Social media presentations should be done again. There are two sides to it - the bullying side as well as the use of social media to build your MHA. Should the Season Opener be somewhere other than Winnipeg? 10. Eastman Pilot project update/report They had 500+ kids enrolled. The program went very well last year. They had two teams, one finished first and the other finished sixth, that played out of the Hockey Winnipeg league. There are enough kids in the region that this does not hurt the MHAs. Eastman wants to move forward with this as a permanent program. Ken Gladden read out the report on the program from the last season. The numbers support this program and they will not participate in provincials. Moved: Ken Kutzak /Jay Charison Discussion: Winnipeg is willing to continue to accept them to the league. This will lead to other Regions wanting to do the same. The regions that have the number to support this sort of program are at the advantage because they now have the opportunity to develop their players at a younger age. Regions that do not have these numbers cannot develop players at the Peewee level are not given this advantage and will fall behind. Vote: For - Eastman, Norman Against - Brandon, Westman South, Central Plains, Parkland Abstain - Winnipeg, Yellowhead Defeated 11. Interlake Pilot Project Proposal Plan is to take the top tiered kids out so they can play together on one team in the Hockey Winnipeg. This allows the other players more opportunity to develop at an appropriate level and have more chances to participate,
touch the puck, etc. without the strong kids dominating. Stonewall, Stony Mtn and Gimli are growing. This should grow numbers as well so that taking the top players will not affect the MHAs. One team would be formed of 5 associations. They would not attend provincials. Motion: Jay Charison/Ken Kutzak Discussion What is the alternative if they do not get accepted to the Hockey Winnipeg league? If they are not accepted to Winnipeg they would not form the team. What is the long term plan? After the pilot project do you want to continue, Eastman was denied after a successful year, is it worth it? Vote: For - Interlake, Pembina Valley, Eastman Against - Parkland, Brandon, Westman South, Yellowhead Abstain - Norman Defeated 12. Midget AAA League Update It was a very good season and the regular season standings were very close. The top two teams ended up in the final of the playoffs. At this point last year there was concern about fighting and PIMs. This year things have turned around and it is back to normal. 90 total games worth of suspensions compared to 165 last year. A lot of the suspensions this year were as a result of the adjustment to the slew foot regulation change. There is continued discussion with the league and TELUS Regionals. The league has had 3 regional championships and Western Canada has won 8 of the last 12 national champions - 2 of which were Manitoba. About 80% of the players move on to play Junior. There will be a third team in Winnipeg next season called the Winnipeg Bruins. Dan Eliasson will be the coach. This is a positive direction for the league to take. They will play out of East End CC. This could affect the rural teams slightly that would traditionally take players released from the two Winnipeg teams. The city will be split into the SE corner will be the Bruins, SW corner will be the Wild and NW/E will be the Thrashers. Current players will be grandfathered. The hope is that this will keep players from going to sports schools and keep them in the AAA program. The league went to 48 games from 44. This does not affect the league that much as the season will be an extra week longer. The TELUS Regionals are in Thunder Bay next year. Both teams from Northern Ontario will be in, the host and the representative because there are only two teams. Of all other teams competing 2 teams out of 24 will also attend. This is somewhat of a concern. The rotation sort of balances it out though since MB hosts the event 4 times to every one time that HNO does.
In the last three or four years there have been about 4 new teams (Sports Schools, new Wpg team) that have been formed which take players from the AAA league. There was some discussion in allowing a AAA Midget representative to have a vote in Minor Council. They could vote on anything but would likely only vote on motions that could affect their league. 13. High School Hockey update - no one in attendance 14. Hockey Canada Spring Congress Hockey Canada meetings are coming up in a few weeks. Chris Hall will be attending on behalf of Minor Council. If there is something that should be brought up please be sure to bring this up to Ken or Chris. How long do you think it will be until Hockey Canada implements the modified ice surface for Novice? It is expected that this will be put forth as a motion this year to be effective in the 18-19 season. Interlake requested that it be brought up that roster sizes can be expanded at the midget level to 20 players. Peter indicated that he can bring it up and revisit it however in the past it has not been well received. 15. Mouth Guards There is new data coming out that doesn't support the use of mouth guards as a concussion prevention method. Should we still continue to enforce the use of this? "No one wears them anyway and it isn't enforced." Just because a regulation is not followed doesn't mean we should get rid of it. This was put in as a safety measure and to remove this we would have to have reasonable support to do so. Do they prevent concussions? We would need more data, information and research in order to support or disprove this theory. 16. Budget Questions arose about the budgets of specific programs. Can these budgets be circulated? Some programs have high costs and we should be transparent as to how these costs are distributed. We could go over the program budgets (in a power point, handout, etc.) at the Fall Council meeting. Discussion about legacy funds etc. and their (under) utilization. 17. Other Business Some discussion about the format of the weekend. Ie: when does it make the most sense to have joint council, etc.? There is sometimes a need to reconvene to discuss certain topics as a group once they have been discussed in councils.
Motion to Adjourn: Guy Williams/Dan Johnson