Dear GHC Families:

Hockey Calgary has announced that the Competition Season for the Community Stream will begin December 1, 2020. (Read Hockey Calgary’s memo here.) This decision was made in part to reflect Hockey Alberta’s new accelerated plan to finalize formal team rosters and introduce league tiering play sooner rather than later.

The Competition Season will mean a return to our more familiar traditional team sizes and tiers (both co-ed and all-female divisions) within Hockey Calgary. Game “cycles” will be scheduled in a way that reflect government guidelines to keep our players, team officials and members safe. We expect that there will be a two-week transition period in November to allow players to move from their current Cohorts to their newly formed teams. This transition may include physically distanced practices and/or other measures directed by Hockey Calgary.

Hockey Calgary’s Sorting/Evaluation Phase and Development Phase were designed with the intent to transition easily to a traditional teams and tiers so that full evaluations are not required to be redone. Players have already been evaluated based on their skill and placed in skill-like Cohort groupings. As was previously planned, coaches will be evaluating players on game play (“Compete” and “Hockey IQ”) over the next few weeks. These metrics, along with the results from the physically-distanced Evaluation / Sorting Phase, will assist our formal team formation.

We are working alongside Hockey Calgary to confirm our team numbers, age division structures, rosters and scheduling. As is always the case, this format depends several factors, including the number of players registered in an age division, ice availability, and the grid prescribed by Hockey Calgary. Once we have these major issues addressed, we will have a clearer idea of our timeline from today until the end of November and beyond.

We know this will bring many questions for players and parents. Please know that we will provide updates as often and as soon as possible. There are many moving parts, so we will update members once we have more information.

 This season has demanded a great deal of time from our volunteers and trust from our members. We value your support and we remain committed to providing a first-class hockey experience to our female athletes.

Sincerely,

John MacDonald
President
Girls Hockey Calgary Association (GHC)

Posted in Announcements, Community, President's Message, Return to Play