How does the SMHA decide who gets which ice times and when?
It's a funny thing about ice – it’s really expensive and there's never enough of it. Ice costs are by far the LARGEST expenditure the SMHA has, or in other words most of your registration fee goes towards buying ice. Here's how it works:
The season is made up of three segments, 1) conditioning, evaluations, pre-season 2) regular season from mid-October to end of February and 3) playoffs.
SMHA distributes ice among teams in two groups - House League from Novice to Midget, and a second group of Initiation and Juvenile. Initiation and Juvenile both pay a lower fee and as result have fewer ice times than house.
Below you will find a breakdown of each division’s regular season ice allocation and the amount of time each player should expect to be on the ice.
INITIATION – Typically receives approximately 60 half ice hours (each 1 hour shared ice session is known as a "touch" or touches throughout the entire season, as there is no regular season or playoffs at this age level. Ice times are usually early morning on Saturday and Sunday as INITIATION players cannot be assigned evening times.
NOVICE “A” – Players receive 60 touches per regular season, the same as house. They play a 20 game regular season so they get 10 home game touches, 10 away game touches and 40 half-ice practice touches throughout the regular season.
NOVICE “B” and “C” – Players also receive 60 touches in the regular season, but will practice more as they only play a 10 game regular season due to the structured development program. Each player/team receives 5 home and 5 away games with 50 half-ice practices. At the convener/coach’s discretion, half-ice can be changed to full ice where possible for exhibition games.
ATOM to BANTAM – The goal is 60 touches in the regular season, made up of 12 home games, 12 away games and 36 half-ice practices. Practices may be full ice at the convener/coach’s discretion based on ice/team availability. Any full ice practice counts as two half-ice practice touches.
MIDGET – Will have fewer than 60 touches in the regular season as their games are 1.5 hours in length. The season consists of 12 home games (12 x 1.5 hours = 18 hours), 12 away games with 24 half-ice (12 full ice) practices per year for a total of 48 touches using 60 hours of ice. Practices may be full ice at the convener/coach’s discretion based on ice/team availability. Any full ice practice counts as two half-ice practice touches.
JUVENILE – Will have 40 touches using 50 hours of ice. since they pay a lower fee. The regular season consists of twenty 1.5 hour games, with 20 one hour half-ice practices, or 10 full ice practices. Juvenile will also receive extra late night and returned ice from Midget that is unusable for the other groups.
COND/EVAL/PRESEASON (all groups) - In addition to the regular season, each player will receive a minimum of three conditioning sessions and three evaluation group sessions and a few practice ice times before the regular season kicks off in Mid-October.
PLAYOFFS (Novice to Juvenile) – At the end of the regular season each team will receive additional practice and game ice for league playoffs. The allocation will vary depending on team success and could be anywhere from 4-10 extra touches.
By the end of the season (preseason, regular season, playoffs), all players from Novice to Midget should end up being on the ice for the same amount of time, approximately 70 hours. INITIATION AND JUVENILE should be bit less at 60 hours.
Buying Ice
SMHA purchases as much ice as possible from the City of Ottawa, which currently has a rink shortage and cannot meet the demand from minor hockey. THe city allocates ice hours to us based on historical allocations, and the needs of other user groups (ringette, etc). The City gives us ice mostly at the Goulbourn Rec Center (GRC) and the Stittsville Community Center (SCC), with only a handful of hours at the Bell Sensplex. We try when possible to purchase more than we are allocated. SMHA also augments city ice with a private contract with the Township of Beckwith and their arena. Occasionally unused ice from other arenas becomes available, usually at the last minute, and we try as often as possible to buy it for clinics and other non-practice uses and for extra practices.
The SMHA has zero control over the time of day, or day of week, or the amount of ice we get Also the amount of ice we get varies from week to week, as does the schedule. That is, we may have 70 hours at City rinks one week, and the next week we may only have 50. As a result, week to week hockey schedules and touches per week can become unbalanced. Over the course of the season, it should balance out.
Private ice
Private ice is available for rent at the Bell Sensplex and Kinburn arenas but the cost is prohibitive, almost double the price of city ice.
Games
Games are scheduled by Lanark Carleton minor hockey League "LCMHL”. SMHA submits bulk ice times we have that are suitable for games and LCMHL then creates the schedule, handing back any unused ice which we then use for practice. LCMHL decides the day of week , time of the day and the location of the games, and SMHA has nothing to do with game schedules or the choice of arenas that the games are held in.
Rep Hockey
Wwe're often asked why the competitive hockey teams have full ice practices. The competitive organization operates independently from the SMHA area they charge their players more, about double your house league fees and they buy their own ice from the city and from private arenas like the bellsensplex, often getting ice at non-peak hours. They charge more so they can buy more ice and have more full ice practices
Other associations
We’re also asked why other associations run full ice practices. Each association's executive and management Council decides if they want to offer a greater number of shared ice practices or fewer full ice practices. Also some rural associations pay less for their ice and have fewer players, and therefore have the luxury of more full ice practices. Given that we can't get as much ice as we'd like, SMHA has always chosen to go with 100% shared ice practices to ensure our players touch the ice as often as possible.