SRIYHA Families, 

I hope this message finds you in high spirits and excited for the start of another hockey season! As the President of the SRIYHA, it gives me great pleasure to extend a warm welcome to all parents, players, coaches, and volunteers. With a longstanding commitment to providing a safe, inclusive, and enjoyable environment, our association has nurtured a rich tradition of excellence over the years. This 21st season promises to be no different as we witness our players and dedicated individuals come together as a vibrant hockey community.

At SRIYHA, we firmly believe that hockey transcends the ice, teaching valuable lessons that extend far beyond the rink. Teamwork, resilience, discipline, and respect are just a few of the qualities we hope to instill in every young athlete under our guidance. Rest assured, our dedicated coaches and volunteers are eager to help the players reach their full potential.

As we embark on this journey together, I encourage all parents to actively participate and engage in your player’s team activities. Please reach out to the coaching staff to assist in team activities, score keeping, playing game music, or other areas that help take the workload off the coaches who will mainly focus their attention to on ice activities.

Before I conclude, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the board members, coaches, and volunteers who selflessly devote their time and energy to SRIYHA. We are incredibly fortunate to have such a dedicated community whose passion for hockey shines through their efforts.

In conclusion, I want to wish each and every player a memorable and rewarding season filled with exciting moments, camaraderie, and development. Remember, we are united by our love for the game, and together, we will make this hockey season an unforgettable experience!

Please do not hesitate to reach out to me or any member of the SRIYHA organization if you have any questions or concerns. We are here to support you every step of the way!

On behalf of SRIYHA, welcome once again to the start of the hockey season!

Sincerely,

Jordan Novak - SRIYHA President

We highly recommend downloading the SportsEngine app as many of the coaches use the app for communication and several use it as the ONLY method of communication. The app can be downloaded here for Apple and Android.  

Please remember to RSVP using the app to ALL of your games, scrimmages and practices so the coaching staff can adequately prepare!

Integrating your team schedule into your Google calendar:

1. Go to your team page on the SRIYHA website
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the iCal feed link
3. In the popup window, copy the URL at the bottom
4. Go to your Google Calendar and look for “Other Calendars” towards the bottom on the left
5. Click the “+” and choose “From URL”
6. Paste the URL in the URL field and click “Add calendar”

The first few weeks of practice schedules are available on the website or in the SportsEngine App.

Schedules for parity have dropped into SportsEngine, please go take a look!

These games are not able to be rescheduled. They are quick games verses as many teams as possible to determine equal play across the divisions. Once the parity rounds complete a competition committee consisting of 1 member from each organization meets to determine placements of all teams. A team’s division placement can be moved based on performance in parity. For example, a B team that wins all their parity games easily will likely be elevated to A, conversely a B team that loses all their games will likely be moved down to C. The league may also split a division into two halves if the committee deems it necessary in the best interests of equal play. There are no appeals to the movements once completed.

Once the committee meets and makes those determinations the league will schedule the remaining portion of the year’s schedule and release those dates.

U8 B & C Rams (SCHL) can expect to see their game schedule on September 25th

U14 & U19 Sirens (ESGHL)

• Practices have been populated to the website and the league schedulers are currently working on finalizing the season schedule. We will provide an update to those schedules as soon as it becomes available.

U12 Sirens (NEGHL under the Sting banner)

• Both practices and first half game schedules have been populated to the website. We are very excited for this new partnership and look forward to the season!

U14 Rams (PHL under the Jr. Blues banner)

• Both practices and parity game schedules have been populated to the website. We once again have partnered with the Jr. Blues to provide opportunities across the U14 landscape. Post-parity schedules should be available by the first week of September once final placements are made.

The Boston Bruins are excited to continue to grow the Bruins Academy Learn To Play presented by Pure Hockey to help aspiring youth hockey players develop their skills. The $199 registration fee includes: 

• Full set of equipment to keep (valued at $550 retail)
• Pair of skates
• Professional, personalized fitting
• Four weeks of on-ice instruction led by certified coaches

The Boston Bruins are thrilled to share their passion for hockey with the next generation of hockey players. All players must be between 5-9 years old and all participants should be able to skate on their own, unaided. Children that have previously completed this program are not eligible.

One major item of note this year is that travel to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is MANDATORY for all teams in the SCHL (provided your division has an island team). We understand it is a long day, but the schedulers will ensure that if your player's team has an island team in the division the trip will be for two games minimum on that day. If a team fails to fulfill its obligation to travel to the islands, it will forfeit the games and forfeit participation in the playoffs. When the regular season schedules are released, please circle those dates and plan ahead. It is a great team building day and can be a ton of fun when everyone participates.

For this month, We would like to highlight a great goalie movement drill for younger goalies, The Post to Post Butterfly Slide.

The goalie clinics with Pro Crease will continue this year!  Drills and skills for goalies monthly! 

• September 11-12
• October 10-11
• November - no goalie clinic
• December - no goalie clinic
• January 8-9
• January 29-30

If you know of anyone who wants to try some time in the crease, please reach out to me - they can try it at one of the SRI clinics and possibly play in one of our house league games to see if they like it.

Coach Jason

Yes, Coach Sebby will be back this season with his own special brand of power-skating!  Look for all of our specials skating events throughout the year.

• September 11-12
• October 10-11
• November - no power skating
• December - no power skating
• January 8-9
• January 29-30

The SRI House League is tentatively scheduled to kick off the weekend of November 11th and 12th.  House league is a great place for younger skaters and goalies to get a bit more ice time and older skaters to help out, learn some coaching skills and get some service hours, if they need them.

House League Info - Contact Emily or fill out our House League Interest form.

Save the date for another great event! Saturday, June 1st at Beaver River Gold Club - 1:30pm shotgun start! Registration and details coming soon!

• The SRI Goaltender Development program continues to rave reviews!  Coach Jason is now attending group practices to work with the goalies on a more individual basis.  As an organization, we are intent on providing all of SRI's goaltenders the goalie-specific training, drills and skills that they need to develop.  Keep it up Coach Jason!

• Be a better hockey parent with the American Hockey Parent Handbook from USA Hockey.

• The SRI Team Store will be open again in September - and you WILL be able to get one off jerseys!

The upcoming season The Bruins are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Mini 1 on 1 and want to get as many youth players from around New England involved!

The winners of the Squirt and Girls U10 divisions will win a trip to the NHL All Star Game in Toronto. The Pee Wee and Girls U12 winners will win suite tickets to a Bruins game.

Competition:

• All New England states will select two teams at the Squirt, Pee Wee, Girls U10 & Girls U12 age classifications to advance to TD Garden Finals scheduled for November or December 2023 (subject to change; more details will be sent closer to date).
• New England states must host playdowns or choose other means to select teams no later than November 1st. Please email these details to youthhockey@bostonbruins.com
• If states do not send teams info by November 1, 2023 all associations within state forfeit right to send teams to TD Garden finals

There are many tournaments to choose from at the beginning of the season - 

• The Lake Placid International Youth Hockey Tournament will take place February 22nd - 25th, 2024.  This is always a kid AND parent favorite and will fill up quickly, so make sure your head coaches are aware of the signups, which happen VERY soon! Last year, the Rams took 4 titles home, all three U12 divisions and the U14 C division! The U12A team is a back to back champion at Lake Placid and will be looking the three-peat!!!

• The Hockey Academy runs tournaments at Waterville Valley all season long.  They might not be the best (read: even) tournaments, but it's a great way to combine hockey with a family ski weekend!

While we're discussing tournaments, sponsorships are a great way to offset some of the costs of playing travel hockey.  Sponsorship funds can be used for tournament registration fees, tournament hotel costs, and other travel related costs including team meals.  100% of the money collected goes back to the team that collected it.  

Now is the time to begin asking your employer or other local businesses for their support.  We had several teams collect enough money last year to pay 100% of their tournament registration fees!

All sponsors receive recognition on our website and on social media.  This is a great way for local businesses to help our young hockey players and, in return, get some great exposure to all our hockey families.

Please see our Sponsorships page for additional information.

• September 11-12
• October 10-11
• November - no power skating or goalie clinic
• December - no power skating or goalie clinic
• January 8-9
• January 29-30

• Drills
  • U10 Crossfire Passing LAX
• Dryland Skills (From ADM)
  • U10/U12 Dryland Training - Backward Jog with Arm Swing (agility & balance)
• On Ice
  • 2-1-2 Forecheck Explained
  • 1-2-2 Forecheck Explained
  • 2 on 1 Tips for Defenders
  • Starting off with some basics, here are some high level roles and responsibilities of the 3 primary skating roles in hockey (from HowToHockey.com).  This is MUST reading for all young players!
    • The role of the center
    • The role of a winger
    • The role of the defense
  • More basics - The 5 steps to learning a new skill
  • 5 Breakout plays every hockey player should know

A hockey fan passed suddenly and met St. Peter at the pearly gates.  St. Peter showed him around heaven and the hockey fan was pleased to see nothing but ice skates, hockey rinks, frozen ponds and pick-up games.  There was one huge ice rink, off by itself, however, with just a single skater circling the ice with all kinds of nifty moves.  The hockey fan was in awe for a while and said "Wow, who is THAT?!?"  St. Peter looked over and said "Oh, that's God - He thinks he's Bobby Orr."

Questions or comments about the newsletter?