Travel Hockey Evaluations

Travel hockey evaluations are an integral part of your players hockey experience, progress, and overall enjoyment of the sport. It takes a good deal of effort and cooperation between the club and the parents. We will explain the process here.

1. The process starts with parents registering their players for on-ice evaluations. This registration is sent out mid February and on-ice evaluations are typically mid-end of March.
2. Emails are sent out approximately a week out from evaluations informing parents of the schedule and in some cases which groups their player is placed in.
3. If your player is in a group, it means that we have too many kids to evaluate at a single time. We try to limit the number of kids on the ice at the same time to manageable numbers so evaluators have time to see everyone. Every player is evaluated for 2 days, each day for 1 hour.
4. When checking in to evaluations at the rink, your player is assigned Black or Yellow numbered pinnies and your player is asked to turn their jersey inside out so evaluators cannot see their name on the back.
5. To keep things as objective as possible, we hire an outside service that assists us in evaluating the kids on the ice with a skills and drills session and a scrimmage session. They do not know our players by name or team, and reference their pinnie number only.

After all on-ice evaluations are finished, we receive a score sheet for every player who evaluated. The Evaluators job is to score the player based on their experience doing this service for many years and countless players.

After On-Ice Evaluations.. our process continues.

Once on-ice evaluations have finished, the club gets a master score sheet of all our skaters who participated. The master score sheet is merely a snapshot of how the players were observed on those two days. More information is needed on our players to properly place them on a team.

Coaches Player Evaluations..

During the last month of the season, coaches are asked to fill out an extensive evaluation of each player on their team.

These player evaluations by their coaches are taken very seriously and are based off of the coaches and assistant coaches experience with the player over the course of the season. Many criteria are ranked and coaches spend a considerable amount of their own (volunteer) time doing their best to give a comprehensive score to every player on their team. Coaches and Assistant Coaches work together to score the players.

Master Ranked Player List..

The Evaluation Committee meets together and uses a formula to combine the coaches score and the on-ice evaluation score together to give every player a raw combined score. The committee use their combined knowledge about our players and the raw scores to make a master ranked list of players. Using that master ranked list, the Evaluation makes their recommendation for team formation.

Important:

Members of the Evaluation Committee are not permitted to participate in Team Formation of their own son or daughter. NCMYH strictly adheres to this policy to keep the process fair and unbiased. Other members of the BOD or Coaches are brought in to complete the work for that level.

As an example: A Committee member who's own son is a PeeWee is not allowed to participate in any PeeWee team formations. Coaches or other BOD members brought in cannot have any PeeWee players of their own.

The product of this lengthy meeting is a sorted and ranked list of every player placed on a suggested team with kids who score 'between' teams available for coaches to choose from.

For example, the suggested PeeWee 1 team will have the top 5 scored kids, and 'bubble' kids who would be suitable for PeeWee 1 or top of the list for PeeWee 2.

Head Coach Meeting:

The final step in the process is the head coaches meeting to choose their team.

The NCMYH Head of Coaches assembles all Head Coaches together and with the Committees Team Formation recommendations, finalize their teams.

Head Coaches are given the leeway to fill the balance of their team with the needed positional players and players they know will compliment their teams skill set and team chemistry.

Conclusion

We understand there is always room for improvement but we have taken many steps to make our teams competitive, the process fair and as unbiased as possible.

• An independent outside group is hired by the club to evaluate the kids on the ice.
• Coaches evaluations are cumulative and are in-depth and extensive.
• Multiple criteria is ranked in addition basic hockey skills.
• A formula is used to balance the raw on-ice score and coaches scoring.
• Peer review is used to double check scores so player scoring is not done in a bubble.
• Evaluation Committee Members do not participate in Team formations of their own children
• Coaches are given the opportunity to fill out their teams with positional players but must use the Committees recommendations of the top scoring players.

There is no way to form teams that every parent will be pleased with. Parent expectations of player skills versus demonstrations of their skill are NEVER equal. A player is not just a skater on the ice when it comes to forming teams that will succeed. A player that is a good teammate , teachable, and skilled at hockey are all attributes coaches must consider when writing their evaluations, and ultimately choosing players for their teams.

Consistent with NCMYH goals, we aim to make hockey fun for our players, and forming competitive teams that foster player growth and promote a positive hockey experience, help us achieve our goals.