I. ROLL CALL/CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 9:05 am. Delegates Present: Delegates Absent: Backbay Manchester Flames N.H. Avalanche Berlin N.H. East Eagles Twin Valley Flyers Concord N.H. Jr. Monarchs Dover N. Cyclones Hanover Nashua Henniker Oyster River Hollis Plymouth Kearsarge Rochester Keene Seacoast Lightening Lakes Region Upper Valley Mt. Washington Valley Officers Present: Paul Comeau Mike Durant Kevin Fascetta John McKenzie Bobby Rodrique Matt Roy Cam Stoddard President 1 st Executive VP & Interim Treasurer Webmaster Mites Divisional VP Coaching Director Bantams & Midgets Divisional VP Secretary & SafeSport Coordinator Guests: Michael McCullough NED Registrar II. OPENING STATEMENT AND STATUS OF NHAHA Paul Comeau thanked everybody for coming. The tier placements for teams will be announced later this morning for 10U through 18U and Girls. Copies of the proposed changes to the rules and regulations will be handed out later this morning. The Executive Board has been working on these changes for the past several months, and members will be voting on them at next month s meeting. Please ensure that these copies are placed in the hands of delegates who will be voting at next month s meeting so that they can come prepared to vote. Next month s meeting will be held at on the Crown Plaza in Nashua on September 16 th. The numbers of registrations for the Little Bruins program have been outstanding this year. For $100.00, players are equipped with $500.00 of equipment. This program also provides four ice sheets in a learn-to-play format. Regretfully this program filled up quickly. NHAHA will continue to expand it next year. There will (Page 1)
be an election at next month s meeting for open Executive Board positions. The 2 nd Executive VP and Treasurer s positions are both open. Mike Durant has been filling in as Treasurer on an interim basis. III. TIER 1 ALLOCATIONS The number of Tier 1 teams will be limited by registration numbers moving forward, and New Hampshire has been allocated one team at each Tier 1 level. For this season, and this season only, USAH has agreed to a grandfather provision which will allow teams that fielded Tier 1 teams last year to field teams again this year. Thus these teams may have more than one Tier 1 team at each level this season. Starting next season there will be an application process and a set of criteria that programs will have to meet in order to have Tier 1 teams. Tier 1 allocations will be made public no later than March 1 st because Tier 1 tryouts are in April. IV. GRANT APPLICATIONS Grant applications may be submitted online beginning September 1 st. Grant applications are located under the Forms tab on the NHAHA website. After the initial allocations of $1,000.00 are made, any leftover funding will be reallocated to programs whose entire requests were not fulfilled. Grant applications will be accepted until December 31 st. Members must be in good standing with both USAH and NHAHA to submit grant applications. USAH provides the funding for this grant program. V. DEVELOPMENT CAMPS (FORMERLY FESTIVAL) Tryout dates have been posted on the NHAHA website. For the Boys, 14s, 15s, 16s, and 17s, tryouts will be November 19 th (a Sunday) at the Rinks in Exeter. For the Girls, tryouts will be on November 5 th (also a Sunday) at Tri-Town Ice Arena. NED will be discussing development camps at its September 23rd meeting. Paul Comeau will share information from this meeting with members as soon as it is possible to do so. Because this body next meets on September 16 th, Paul may need to send this information out ahead of October s meeting. Last year, there were not enough players on a couple of levels from which to select. On some levels there were a strong number of players from which to select. Camps are a great experience and top-level coaching is provided there. Please help NHAHA get information out to players about them. It costs $60.00 to register online for tryouts and $100.00 at the door. Mike Durant will be sending out a poster about camps that can be electronically distributed or printed and hung. VI. USAH DEVELOPMENTS AND RULE CHANGES This is a USAH rule change year. Bobby Rodrique suggested for programs to have their refereein-chiefs talk with their coaches about the rule changes. The most controversial appears to be that all face offs will always be on dots now. Also, for 14U and younger, icing is now icing even if teams are short-handed. The USAH website has a page detailing every rule change in full. Paul Comeau encouraged program managers, registrars, and coaches to familiarize themselves with (Page 2)
them. David Maxfield, NHAHA s Referee-in-Chief, will be discussing some of them at next month s meeting. Bobby handed out a document entitled Coaching Guidelines 2017 2018. It is the responsibility of program coaching managers and registrars to familiarize themselves with and to follow USAH rules for coaches to ensure that their programs remain in compliance. Toward that end they may find this document helpful. Coaches must complete any online modules that they are required to take prior to coaching, because the modules are available to take online at any time. It was different in years past. It is no longer that way. There is still a December 31 st coaching clinics deadline. The only exception to this rule is for split-season coaches, the clinics deadline for which is October 31 st. There is a calendar in the handout listing dates and times that coaching clinics will be offered in New Hampshire between now and December 31 st. Both the handout and the calendar will be posted on the NHAHA website. If coaches can be seen on rosters (online) but cannot be selected, they may not be in compliance. In addition to CEP requirements there are other USAH requirements to consider such as registration, background screening, and SafeSport requirements. USAH has requirements for all adults over the age of 18 who work with players. It is up to program coaching managers and registrars to familiarize themselves with and to follow these rules to ensure that their programs remain in compliance. Bobby has been asked a lot of questions about coaches for Mites and nationally-bound teams. Coaches with an expired Level 1 coaching certificate may coach Mites so long as SafeSport modules and background screenings are up to date. For Tier 1 and 2, for nationally-bound teams for Tiers 1 and 2 Midgets and Tier 1 Bantams, coaches may coach with any level so long as modules are completed although if a coach is coaching a nationally-bound team and was on Level 3 the previous season, that coach must proceed directly to Level 4 during the next season. Bobby is available to answer questions any of the programs may have and to stop by for a visit. His contact information is posted on the NHAHA website. VII. BACKGROUND SCREENINGS NHAHA worked over the summer to improve the adjudication process. Programs can now pay for background screenings directly (online) when they make requests for them. In the past, NHAHA was billed for background screenings and in turn invoiced the programs for them. The cost is now $9.45 per background screening. As soon as they have been completed, USAH is notified and accounts for coaches are verified. Coaches can be seen on rosters (online) but cannot be selected if their background screenings have not been verified. Programs are not presently receiving confirmations when coaches are verified. NHAHA can make this information available to programs upon request. All adults interacting with players must be screened. There will be no exceptions. Have USAH registration information and confirmation numbers handy when completing background screening requests because information in these requests must match with USAH registration information for requests to go through. For example, if a coach was registered with USAH as William, a background screening request cannot be made for Bill. There is a separate portal (online) for (Page 3)
referees. Right now program referee-in-chiefs must ensure that their referees have been verified. They can log into their portal to do so. VIII. CLUB EXCELLENCE REVIEW Andy Gibson from USAH will be giving a presentation at next month s meeting on Club Excellence and Growing the Game. These are excellent programs with handy online tools. Please take the time to check them out. The Two-Plus-Two Challenge is part of Growing the Game. The Two- Plus-Two Challenge signup deadline is almost here. USAH sent out brochures about the Two- Plus-Two Challenge. Teams completing this program will receive some free equipment. IX. CHAIN OF COMMAND Executive Officers are listed by function on the NHAHA website along with their contact information. Contacting the most appropriate Executive Officer when issues arise will lead to quicker outcomes. X. WEBSITE Kevin recently sent out an interface linking document to program schedulers. He asked for them to complete and return it to him by August 31 st. Otherwise game results will not flow down to individual program websites, because schedulers only post home games. The 16U/18U have already started scheduling games. This is the final year NHAHA will be under a service contract with SportsEngine for its league and team management software platform. This contract expires in April and a number of vendors have expressed an interest in submitting proposals for the new contract. Paul asked members to provide him with feedback regarding both SportsEngine and the platform because the new contract can be modified to better meet NHAHA s needs. Wes Riley (Concord) asked if a lower background screening cost could be negotiated under the new contract. XI. SAFESPORT On September 18 th, SafeSport will be updating its online modules in order to remain IOCcompliant. For anyone renewing after September 18 th, the online modules will have changed a bit and they may also take a couple of minutes longer to complete. Certifications of completion are good for two years. Please print out and save them after completing the modules. Last year there were some nationwide locker room issues. According to the rule book, coaches and locker room monitors must remain in the locker rooms at all times or within an arm s length away so that they can hear what is going on inside. As a reminder, anyone working with players must complete the SafeSport modules online. Program coaching managers and registrars should review the rule book to ensure that their programs are SafeSport compliant. (Page 4)
Last year there were also some nationwide issues with billeting. Billeting requirements under SafeSport are listed in the rule book. Programs should review the rule book to ensure that their billet houses are in compliance. For example, they may be only two players per billet house and anyone living in billet houses over the age of 18 must complete the SafeSport modules online. This year NHAHA will be looking at the SafeSport billeting requirements a lot more closely and programs should expect to receive periodic calls from NHAHA about billeting. Cam Stoddard can be contacted by anyone with SafeSport questions or concerns. His contact information is posted on the NHAHA website. Beginning this season, any issues which are sexual in nature will be handled by USAH directly. XII. RULES AND REGULATIONS UPDATE Mike Durant handed out a document entitled Granite State League Rules and Regulations. Paul Comeau asked for these copies to be placed in the hands of delegates who will be voting at next month s meeting so that they can come prepared to vote on the proposed changes. Amendments can be made on the floor at next month s meeting, but please send Paul notification (per the By- Laws) of any amendments that will be proposed well ahead of the meeting. Most of the proposed changes clean up the language or remove what is no longer applicable. An electronic copy of this document will be sent out with next month s meeting agenda. It will also be posted on the NHAHA website. Mike also handed out a document entitled Independent Team Rules and Regulations. The deadline for declaring an independent is September 1 st. Declarations must be mailed to NHAHA s P.O. Box. It will cost $1,850.00 to register, which will cover the playoff fees to get to regionals and nationals. XIII. AFFILIATE GOALTENDING COORDINATOR Paul Comeau welcomed Rob Day, the new Affiliate Goaltending Coordinator. Rob is from PuckStopper. He will be running statewide events and free clinics for goaltenders and their coaches. Two-hour blocks of time are required for events and clinics. Programs that are interested in setting up an event or clinic for U10+ should contact Rob. Rob said that he is very excited to be joining NHAHA in this capacity. He invited programs to use him as a sounding board. His contact information will be posted on the NHAHA website shortly. XIV. NED PROPOSAL At its September 23 rd meeting, NED plans to consider a proposal regarding new associations and teams or name changes. As Paul Comeau understands it, the proposal if passed, would require all new USAH associations and teams or associations and teams changing their names to seek approval from state affiliate executive boards prior to seeking approval from USAH registrars. Name changes would not be approved mid-season. All teams rostered by state affiliates would be required to be registered using their USAH hockey program names. Aliases would be (Page 5)
considered names that differ from USAH roster association names and aliases would not be approved for use on USAH rosters. Any rosters generated by co-ops between two or more programs would be required to designate lead associations, rosters for co-ops would have to be created by lead associations, and the name of teams would have to include the names of the lead associations. Games played in leagues or tournaments by any teams using names other than USAH roster association names (aliases) would not count under the 10-20 or 14-10 rules. XV. TOURNAMENTS The tournament matrix was drawn at the annual meeting in May. The Supersite for the Girls will be drawn at the September 22 nd meeting along with Sectionals and Regionals. The tournaments will be discussed in greater detail at next month s meeting. The tournament matrix and dates are posted on the NHAHA website. Mike Durant handed out a document entitled 2017 2018 Granite State League Tier Placements and Rules Overview. A couple of changes have been made since the printing of this document. On the Midgets pages, Backbay is out for Tier 3 Midget Majors (18U); and the Cyclones, for Tier 2 Midget Minors (16U). There will be some movement in Bantams (14U). Please contact the Divisional VPs with questions about movement. Jason Spaulding (Upper Valley) noted that Upper Valley should be removed under Tier 2 Peewees (12U). Placements will be posted on the NHAHA webpage shortly. Paul Comeau asked for feedback regarding the t-shirts that were distributed last year instead of trophies. Banners will also be distributed again this year. Members affirmed that both were a hit. Wes Riley (Concord) suggested working on sizing for the t-shirts. I. CLOSING STATEMENTS Paul Comeau announced that the next meeting will be held on Saturday, September 16 th at the Crown Plaza in Nashua. He reminded members to send voting delegates to this meeting. He also announced that a meeting for registrars would take place within the hour. This meeting was adjourned at 10:35 am. (Page 6)