Hinton Pond Hockey

Pond Hockey, a stream of Hockey Alberta’s Recreational Hockey Model, is an innovative program that focuses on participation in an unstructured environment with no defined rules or age categories. Players can join a team and enjoy the game regardless of their skill set or commitment levels. Players registered in a Pond Hockey Program can be registered simultaneously in Rec Hockey or a Minor Hockey program. You can read more about it on the Hockey Alberta Recreational Hockey Model.

Because the rules around covid are constantly changing, we provide updates to parents through TeamApp.

We strive to keep the program going and it's only when we are mandated to shut down that we do so. We follow whatever rules the Province, the Town or Hockey Alberta set out for us.

In the event the season gets cut short, the Board will meet and make a determination on refund amouints, if any. We try to be fair.

Most Wednesday and Friday at the Steve Hotchkiss Arena. The dates and times are posted in the header at the top of this web page. We also have a calendar that shows what days there will be no pond hockey.

We usually start with a couple of fun activities with all ages on the ice. This can be tag, duck hunt (shooting the puck at anothers’ skates to tag them - kids love it) , or protect the puck. These are fun activities, but they also promote skill development. Then we usually break into 2-3 groups based on skill level with an on-ice supervisor working with each group on a skill or 2.

We finish with a scrimmage. We usually have 2 teams with 2 lines on each team. Each team will have a higher and a lower skilled line and we match lines to make it fair. We don’t keep score. We run each line for ~2 minutes and then we change. At this time we also adjust the nets... we move them to the blue lines for the lower skill/younger players so they have a much shorter playing surface and we go full length for the higher skill/older players. On-ice supervisors are known to “help” teams and players to make things even and ensure everyone gets some puck time.

You can watch a video at https://youtu.be/jPcz-yvbBBE

Absolutely

We have $5,000,000 per occurrence Commercial and General Liability Insurance through Hockey Alberta. You can read more about the insurance program here or, even better, Hockey Canada’s SAFETY REQUIRES TEAMWORK & SAFETY FOR ALL has even more detail on insurance.

The Hinton Pond Hockey Association is run by volunteers and any help is appreciated, from board members to on-ice supervisors and managers. Doesn’t matter if you can’t skate - be a manager and work the benches. Contact us if you are interested in helping out or just talk to us at practice.

Hinton Pond Hockey has come close to dying several times because almost no-one volunteered to sit on the board. There are board positions that do not require a lot of work and we've built a how-to manual on how to do each job - so pretty much anyone can do it. It's really a team effort and you'll have help.

If you like the pond hockey program, please consider talking to us about a board member position so we can keep the kids on the ice.

Pond Hockey does require you to be there for your child. If you and your child don't know how to put on the equipment, we'll show YOU how so you can do it next time. Please be aware that younger players especially want to come off the ice often multiple times a game. We don't supervise the players once they leave the ice, so you need to be there or have a responsible adult sit in for you. This is agreed to in the Terms of Service when you sign up for pond hockey.

All our on-ice supervisors are volunteers. As such we don't always get the same number and people from week to week. As required by the Hockey Alberta Pond Hockey program, our on-ice supervisors must complete the Respect in Sport for Activity Leaders Course.

Our on-ice supervisor coordinator normally gets an indication of how many supervisors are coming each week. If there's none available, the practice will be cancelled. If there's only one or two, the practice may be cancelled or modified so we don't have too many players on the ice at the same time. Player safety is #1 priority.

We don't supervise players that come off the ice.

Since adequate adult supervision is required, discipline will be handled by the Hinton Pond Hockey Association. Typically an on-ice supervisor will deal with issues right away. Please feel free to point out issues to any on-ice supervisor if they don't see them.

If you have an issue that needs to be addressed by the board, submit it by e-mail to the association within 3 days of the incident.

Ongoing or serious discipline issues will be dealt with by the board which may include termination of the player's registration. This is agreed to by the parents in the terms of service when you register your child for pond hockey.

Our primary way of communicating with parents is through Team App.

Team App s a platform that allows teams to improve communication by creating their own smartphone app.

It allows us to post schedules, load documents, share photos and there is a members only chat feature that we use to communicate with parents and parents can communicate with us.

If you don't wish to post in the chat, you can always e-mail us but you will get faster service in the chat.

And you can always approach one of the board members at practice for an in person chat.

See the TeamApp section in these FAQ for more details.

NO! there is no fundraising required but each family must pay the yearly fee.

Hinton Pond Hockey has been approached by other towns to see if we would be interested in travelling to play a game. The executive has declined because there is no travel in Hinton Pond Hockey.

It can be, but Hinton Pond Hockey only practices inside at the Steve Hotchkiss Arena in the rec centre.

We normally do.

There's no nudity or showering in our dressing rooms and with the age of the kids, some years parents have been comfortable with co-ed dressing rooms or their child gets changed at home. So we have 2 big dressing rooms.

We also have 1 smaller dressing room for girls only.