Improving the evaluation process

Mario Prusina

Times Editor

 

Strathmore Minor Hockey will be making adjustments to their evaluation process for the upcoming 2011-2012 season.

“What we’re doing this year is, after Day 1, we’re going to take a total of all the scores that the kids have and we’re going to break them up into two groups for Day 2,” said Wayne Hansen, President of SMH. “It won’t necessarily be split in half – we’ll see where there is a be break in the marks – what we want to try and accomplish through this is getting like players on Day 2 playing against like players. So the same skill level playing against the same skill level.

“(For example) it does nobody any good to have a kid who never touches the puck or doesn’t skate as well as another kid because he’s not going to get a pass. We don’t get a chance to evaluate him properly, so we didn’t place him properly (in the past).

“The same thing goes for the better kids – if they’re always skating with the puck because nobody can keep up with them, we can’t see if they can pass, etc.

“The goal of this (new format) is to really narrow down and place the kids where they belong.”

According to Hansen, the board was trying to find ways to improve the evaluation process and looked at methods used in other communities in and around the Calgary area.

“There’s a lot of people on our board – really young and enthusiastic board with wanting to try and take our teams to the next level,” said Hansen. “Five years ago we introduced two practices a week to try and improve skill level. We’re introducing a coach-mentorship program. This is just the next step in trying to refine that process … this change will show rewards for everybody by the time the season is done.”