KVHA BIGGBY 2024-2025 Season 10u Squirt and 12u PeeWee Division Welcome!

We are thrilled to expand our KVHA and BIGGBY Coffee Partnership to our 10u, 12u and 14u house program for this season!    This will be BIGGBY’s sixth season sponsoring the house program and we are grateful to them for continuing to sponsor our house program.   The KVHA teams will remain the same; Admirals, Destroyers, Eagles, Generals, etc, but we are adding a BIGGBY logo to the shoulder as a thank you to celebrate their continued support of the program.  As part of the sponsorship this season, we will be adding an end of season BIGGBY jamboree for the 10u and the 12u divisions, plus some other surprise offerings during the season.

I am excited to announce that our 10u Head Coaches will be Jeff Cooke and Cameron Horvath and our 12u Head Coaches will be Eric Rybarczyk and John Vella!  Thank you to them and all of our new and returning assistant coaches for helping the kids during this season!

We currently have 38 players registered for the Fall season in the 12u Division and 37 players registered in the 10u division. The initial plan was to have 2 teams of 14/15 players each in both divisions and to close registration there.  When I began to receive emails from several new and old KVHA players looking for a place to play, something had to be done to ensure that we had room for everyone to play.  Given the situation, we felt it would be a great opportunity for us to introduce a new model of hockey that we have been considering that will benefit all of the players’ development.  This is both due to seeing injuries rise in hockey as well as the number of new players joining the sport at an older age who need to increase their hockey IQ.   We want to keep players safe and allow all of the kids the opportunity to develop in a more suitable and competitive environment. This new model will include two main 10u and two main 12u house teams plus a new in-house team for 10u and 12u combined or it could grow to be two or three separate teams.  Read on to find out how it will work, generally….

.

We will kick off the season the weekend of August 9th with a series of 3-4 pre-season conditioning and evaluation skates conducted by third party evaluators.  The players will be evaluated on skating ability, puck skills (shooting and passing), work ethic, sportsmanship, attitude, positional play, battle skills and heads up awareness.   The players will be scored on a scale of 1-5 (1 needs work, 5 is the most skilled).  Based on these scores, the coaches will draft two teams of up to 15 players each with the teams being evenly drafted based on their evaluation ratings.   All remaining players not drafted will join our in-house league.

The two main teams will participate in LCAHL and MAHA Districts during the regular season with approximately 30-45 games. There will be approximately 12-15 away league games and the travel will be within an hour of Brighton.

The In House league will be composed of two teams to start but will grow as the season goes on and these teams will scrimmage each other, the other 4 main teams, as well as other appropriate teams in the area during the regular season and can also participate in tournaments if we find something that fits.  We also have a non parent head coach to lead this team as well.  This will provide opportunities for those wanting to play goalie on the side more time to practice with another team.  The players on the in house league will also have the opportunity to practice with the main teams, but they are not rostered for games with these teams unless they are “called up” by exhibiting the skill level to play when a team needs to add a player to their game roster due to a player dropping, being injured or constantly absent.  The in-house league will have separate ice time and games that will help them master the skills and learn the game before moving on to a higher level of team.

The rink is still finalizing a couple of items on the schedule but in general, the ice times in the Fall will be rotated as follows

Fridays 530-645pm – shared main teams every other week

Saturdays 530-7pm –  we will also add a second sheet time TBD

Sundays 815-930am, 930-1045am, 1pm-215pm or 4-530pm

Fridays 715-830pm – shared main teams every other week

Saturdays 630-8pm

Sundays 10-1130am or 230-4pm or 615-745pm, every week the teams will rotate through the times

Teams will also pick up occasional Thursday and Mondays as available.

And finally, 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 weekly team ice time as well as referee fees and tournaments/districts where applicable.   This individual ice bill payment must be set up before jerseys are ordered on or before September 2nd.

 For 10u the monthly ice fee is $225 per month and for 12u, it is $275 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.

The link to make the first payment or to pay in full is completed through Teamsnap here –  https://go.teamsnap.com/forms/40609

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.

It makes us feel good that everyone wants to play at KVHA and we are happy to make this work by offering new amenities within the rink with new programs that offer a better development pathway for all of the players.  If you have any questions or concerns at all, please reach out and thank you for continuing to be a part of the KVHA Family.