Evaluation Coordinator Report 2015/2016
This year NSDMHA once again engaged in a player evaluation process to assist in the selection of both rep and metro league teams. Players were given the opportunity to participate in both skill and scrimmage sessions as part of the evaluation process. This past year the drills for the first sessions were posted on the NSDMHA website and where possible were explained to players before they went out for the sessions. Most of these drills were used from the Hockey Canada website.
There were a minimum of two scrimmages as part of the process as well. In some cases players were released from tryouts for rep teams before final selections were made depending on the size of the group. A minimum of three evaluators for each division from atom through to midget observed and evaluated the players. Before teams were posted on the NSDMHA website, the rep coaches presented their potential rosters to members of the board to help ensure that the selections were fair and aligned closely with the evaluators’ selections. I would recommend that process continue next year.
Next year the hope is to have players at registration indicate whether or not they are going to try out for a rep team, so that when evaluations are happening they are split into two groups, one for rep tryouts and one to assess players who will be playing in metro leagues. As well there will be more of an emphasis on scrimmage/game situations during tryouts, including looking at 3 on 3, and 4 on 4 along with regular 5 on 5 formats. This gives players an opportunity to demonstrate their skills in game-like situations.
I would like to thank the many volunteers who gave several hours of their time to help complete the evaluation process: Blaine Penny, Mike Bishop, Troy Jessome, Troy Rudderham, John MacPhee, Charlie Johnson, Troy Jenkins, Peter Keagan, Harold Marsh, Scott MacMullin and the minor hockey coaches who came out to run practices and tryouts in the first few weeks of the season when things are so busy. My apologies if I failed to recognize other volunteers. Without your help, we would not be able to get teams organized in a timely fashion. Finally I would like to thank Sheri Campbell for her many hours of work in ensuring players are organized for evaluations, properly numbered and recording statistics around the evaluation process. This takes a lot of time and effort ad is greatly appreciated.
Shane Ryan
Evaluation Coordinator
NSDMHA
2015-16
