I hope that you are all enjoying a great summer so far and thank you for registering your player with KVHA! I cannot believe that I am already writing this email, but I am excited to welcome you to another season of KVHA Hockey and are happy that you are a part of our hockey family this year. I am equally excited to announce that our Mite Director, Brandon Camerella is returning this season to organize and help the coaches administer the 6u and 8u teams throughout the season.
We are grateful to continue our KVHA and BIGGBY Coffee Partnership this season. This will be BIGGBY’s sixth season sponsoring the program and their support will help provide a great experience for our Mini Mite and Mite players and families this season.
We currently have 40 players registered in our 6u/Mini Mite Division and 44 players registered in our 8u/Mite division for this Fall season.
The plan is to have 4 teams at 6u and 4 teams at 8u, so we are still looking for a few kids and we will need a few new head coaches to pull this off, more information on that below…
The plan for each division is as follows
6u – preferred max of 13/team (52), 6 per side + 1 goalie
8u – preferred max of 15/team (60) 7 per side + 1 goalie or 6 per side + 2 goalies
We are aiming to kick off the season the weekend of August 16th with a series of 3-4 pre-season conditioning/evaluation skates. The players will be evaluated on basic skills such as skating forward, stick and puck connection, hockey iq and attitude. The players will be scored on a scale of 1-3 (1 beginner – 2 intermediate – 3 advanced). Based on these scores, the teams will be drafted based on their evaluation ratings with the teams formed around Labor Day.
Practices begin in September and the games begin in October once jerseys arrive.
Jersey fittings will be completed during the evaluation skates.
We are trying to gain a weekday ice time every week to share, but the practices will be on Saturdays 230pm, 330pm, 430pm, 530pm and game days are Sunday mornings 8am, 9am, 10am and 11am; all of the teams will rotate through those times. We will pick up additional ice as available and we will also provide teams with solo ice time in January, February and March for which to schedule games with outside teams. The teams will play half ice games against the other teams in house until January and then we begin to move out to 3/4 ice, playing full ice with officials by the end of February and to finish out the season, which ends mid March. We will also have jamborees for the kids in December and March. These will be formats different from normal with multiple games during a set time with a party afterward.
TeamSnap Communications
By registering with KVHA, you have automatically been placed on the KVHA 6u or 8u Pre-Season Skate “team” in Teamsnap and soon, the House evaluation skates will be scheduled and posted there.
If you do not seem to have access to Teamsnap, please let me know and I can help you get up and running. You do have the ability to add anyone who needs access to your own profile.
Monthly Ice Fee Set Up
In addition to the KVHA registration fee, which you recently paid and covers the cost of your player’s jerseys plus administrative fees, there is a monthly fee for the ice time as well as referee fees and MAHA jamborees. This individual ice bill payment must be set up before jerseys are ordered on or before September 2nd. For either division, the monthly ice fee is $150 per month
The payments are made in either one lump sum or can be made in 6 installments and must be paid in full by February 15, 2025. The season ends March 16, 2025.
You are welcome to pay at any time, but all payments must be set up prior to jerseys being ordered on September 2nd
During the season, if one of your payments should fail to process, you will receive a message from Teamsnap to fix your payment. Please be aware that these are not SPAM, you can contact me to verify.
All coaches must be USA Hockey certified to participate on the ice. You can find the list of coaching credentials here:
https://kvhockey.org/coaching/If you are interested in being an assistant coach, you will also need to complete the coaching credentials, so please get those complete or get started at the link shared previously.
Play with a Friend Request
Finally, if your child has a certain friend that they would like to play with, please complete this request to be considered. Families are allowed to make one request only as outlined below.
Each year the association receives numerous requests to be placed with a certain coach, ride-share, best-friend, etc. Unfortunately, multiple requests are not allowed given the number of teams and players that we have and that is why we limit families to one friend request in the Fall. This system makes it as fair as possible for all of our players. Every coach is permitted one protected player other than their own child, which is usually an assistant coach or manager. Families are allowed to make requests known to various coaches, but the final decision lies with that head coach. KVHA does not offer any promises or guarantees for players to be placed, or not placed, on any certain team. Refunds will not be considered for players who are not drafted on any specific team, with specific teammates, by any specific coach, or any other team request.
Siblings within the same division will be placed on the same teams, no play with a friend request needed.
In our 6u and 8u Divisions each player is allowed to make one friend request. No multiple/chain requests will be honored. To make a valid Play with a Friend request, BOTH families must submit a request at the following link: https://kvha.formstack.com/forms/2024_25_kvhaplaywithafriend
Please do not submit multiple requests.
Examples:
· Player A request player B / player B makes no request = NO
· Player A request player B / player B request player C = NO
· Player A request players B and C / player B request player A / player C request player A = NO
· Player A request player B / player B request player C / player C request player A = NO
· Player A request friend B / Player B request friend A = YES
A submission email will be sent to the entered email address. Both parties must reply to this email to confirm the request.
Play With A Friend requests must be received before the season begins in mid August.
Thank you for following this process.
