WARRIORS! FALL 2012 Winnetka Hockey KICK OFF PARTY The Winnetka Hockey Club hosted its 2012-2013 season kick off party on Sunday, August 26th at the Winnetka Ice Arena. Despite the rain, over 600 hot dogs and brats were consumed! Special thanks to the Loyola hockey players for supervising the cross ice games. Parents enjoyed catching up with fellow Winnetka Hockey Parents and Players. Congratulations to John Babnik on winning the Sani Sport raffle. The prize was a framed picture of the 1980 Olympic Gold medal hockey team Registration Instructions Registration forms must be completed on line at www.winnetkahockey.com. All registration must be completed no later than August 25 for Travel & Girls Teams and October 10 for House League Teams. All players (new and returning, travel and house) Must register with USA Hockey each year. You will need a current USA Hockey number in order to register on the WHC site. You will NOT be able to complete WHC registration without it. You may register at www.usahockeyregistration.com. Please complete all information requested on the WHC website including the WHC Medical Release and WHC Waiver Form. All FORMS must be completed on-line before your player is allowed on the ice. There are no exceptions to these rules. Please contact Cindy Lyman, at lymanfamily4@comcast.net. with questions. RAFFLE: ED STARR The Winnetka Hockey club will be organizing a raffle to support fundraising this year. This is an opportunity for families to reduce their travel hockey fees, and for players who sell the most tickets to win prizes! The raffle will run from mid September until mid November. A drawing will be held during the Wishbone Tournament to announce the winners. We plan to raffle off great prizes including a Winter Classic trip, electronics, hockey tickets and other items from Winnetka merchants. Participation in selling raffle tickets is totally voluntary. This will be open to all travel team members from Mite/ U8 up through Bantam/ U14. Questions? Please reach out to Ed Starr at cestarriv@gmail.com! PAGE 1
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT: MIKE PURCELL Welcome back, I hope you and your family enjoyed a long and restful summer...but it is now hockey time. We are fortunate at the Winnetka Hockey Club because we have over 70 years of experience preparing for the next hockey season. That said, we are also steadfastly committed to constant self improvement. I m frequently asked how 70 years of history benefits the families we serve so I ll provide two brief responses: First, in our history we discover (rediscover continuously) our hockey club s charter. We are community based hockey program serving the townships of Winnetka,Glencoe,Northfield and Kenilworth. The key phase is community based (i.e. closed) because it distinguishes us from all of the other Illinois programs. Simply put,this provides more opportunity for the kids we serve to learn and enjoy the great game of hockey. Second, looking backwards over a long time horizon provides a stable foundation for our club to continue to build upon. The foundation, of course, is only as strong as the people who design, build and manage it. DJ LaVarre and Tom Gullen (combined) have nearly 50 years of experience working with and guiding our community based hockey program. Remarkable stability. Enough history-let s get to recent improvements. What have we been doing recently to improve your experience with our club? First, we upgraded our web site registration systems. It now includes your medical forms, WHC waivers and player/parent code of conduct. We hope this automation simplifies the registration process. Second, with our goalies in mind, we retained the full time services of Kelly Gee s Kage Sports. Every travel team will be assigned to a specific goalie coach for on going training and evaluation. Please check our web site throughout the season for more details. Lastly, the Winnetka Ice Arena is known for the best sheet of ice in Illinoise. Once again Tom Gullen and his co-workers have recreated a pristine sheet of ice for our sons and daughters to skate safely on..but there is something new. The number 40 is painted at center ice. the Winnetka Ice Arena is celebrating it s 40th season (1972-2012). I want to formally thank the Winnetka Park District for sharing it s ice rink with our club for the past 40 years. I look forward to seeing you and your hockey players at the rink. It is hockey time.
TRAVEL: CRAIG IZENSTARK The Winnetka Hockey Club is very excited to be fielding 22 travel teams this year. We will be offering 16 boys teams and 6 girls team. Our tryouts for our girls teams will begin on August 29 th and our boys teams tryouts begin on September 4 th. In addition to DJ Lavarre and the coaching staffs from each specific division, a division travel liaison and several proctors will attend every tryout from the Winnetka Hockey Club Board. The proctors are there to observe the tryout sessions and make sure the process is run fairly. The proctors at each level will not have any skaters playing in the specific tryout they attend and they do not participate in the team selection process. Our coaches at each level choose their teams and submit their rosters to our hockey director. Our goal is to give every player an equal opportunity at the tryouts. As you saw when you registered your players, we asked all players and parents to read our Code of Conduct. If you have not done so already, please take the time to sit down with your player and any family members that will be attending games and practices to go over the Code. We are striving to make the hockey experience as positive as possible. We ask that all participating families work hard to insure that we show our coaches, game officials, our fellow players and our opponents the proper respect. All of our conduct is ultimately a reflection on the Winnetka TRAVEL JERSEY FITTINGS & WARRIOR WEAR This coming 2012-2013 season, the Winnetka Hockey Club Travel teams will continue to wear the new design jerseys and NEW Travel players will be required to purchase their own jersey set. If your child is selected for a Travel team and you have not ordered a jersey at the June or August fittings, you will need to have them attend a fitting once the teams are selected. At that time we will endeavor to fit them from our small stock, but there are absolutely no guarantees that we will have a jersey or number that is appropriate. If we have to order a new jersey for your player at that time in early September, we will make every effort to get them as soon as possible but delivery may not be possible prior to the start of the season. New Travel players will be allocated their own permanent player number that will remain with them for the entire time they play for a Winnetka travel team. Player Numbers (between 0 to 99) will assigned on a completely random basis by the Club Registrar by birth year (all odd birth years will have odd numbers, and even birth years will have even numbers). Players can ONLY find out their allocated numbers at jersey fittings & absolutely no changes will be made to these allocated numbers- so please don t ask! Questions? please contact Claire at Claire.Hearn@mac.com Winnetka Warm Up suits are available to order - the purchase of these items is completely optional and in NOT a requirement of WHC.
HOUSE LEAGUE: TONY JANKAUSKAS Registration is open! Bantam evaluations take place September 23 rd. There are still volunteer coaching spots left to fill at every age level. Volunteer s are always needed House league is the foundation of WHC. The goals of our house league are to: Teach the fundamental ski"s of the game.teach sportsmanship,fair play & team work. HAVE FUN! Sign up @ www.winnetkahockey.com Go to contact us. Sponsorship/Advertising Brian Farrell The Winnetka Hockey Club is actively pursuing local business to sponsor the WHC and our Wishbone Tournament. If you know any local businesses owners, or your own company might benefit from reaching the dedicated audience of the WHC parents and extended families, please let us know...we can help. Big or small, we have a vehicle for your business to reach this affluent audience with discretionary income to spend! Please email brianfarrell10@yahoo.com for more information! Back by popular demand: The Warrior Windup! Come eat and drink with your favorite hockey friends and coaches and support the Winnetka Hockey Club. The party likely WILL be the first weekend in November. More details to follow shortly! Questions? Contact Kathy Robinson at korobin23@gmail.com or Karin Larkins at karinlarkins@me.com.
FULL ICE MITES: TOM GULLEN Full Ice Mites: Where are we going? Many of you with children in our Mite (U8) program are likely aware of a movement to convert all mite hockey to cross- ice. We thought we would update the membership of this process and the different possibiliges moving forward. A few years back, USA Hockey (the governing body of hockey in the U.S.) unveiled what is called the American Development Model (ADM). There are many components of the ADM that we as a club believe in strongly and have long subscribed to: less games/more pracgce, less travel to away games, beoer ice uglizagon, and a greater emphasis on skill development. Where the WHC and other North Shore clubs have differed with the ADM is on the surface on which games are to be played. While the ADM was never intended to be a mandate, USA Hockey has mandated that all Mite Hockey (House and travel) are to be played on half sheet or cross- ice beginning in 2013-14 season. Their belief is that the smaller surface will lead to more touches of the puck and more involvement by all players. While we believe that cross- ice hockey has its place as a training tool, we strongly oppose the conversion of Mites to cross- ice based on the following: The feedback we consistently receive from parents (our paying customers) is that full ice is strongly preferred. That our house leaguers, who skate twice weekly, feel that their once a week game should be played on full ice. That playing full ice will significantly improve skagng a game skills SPRING SEASON JERSEY S: IF YOU HAD A JERSEY ISSUED TO YOU DURING SPRING SEASON- PLEASE RETURN IT TO THE WINNETKA FRONT DESK DURING CLINICS OR TRYOUT