Only once has a Faribault boys high school team qualified for state-tournament play, that coming during the Minnesota State High School League’s brief and ill-fated Tier II tournament experiment in 1993 (the Faribault girls also have one state tournament appearance to their credit, in 2010).

Conversely, the Faribault-based Shattuck-St. Mary’s prep school has been competing in – and often winning – USA Hockey youth national championships since the 1960s. In fact, eight SSM hockey alumni participated in the XXII Olympic Winter Games, including Sidney Crosby (Canada), Zach Parise (United States) and the Lamoureux Twins (United States).

But all of these players were imports, merely stopping by Faribault’s famous finishing school. Grassroots hockey in the community never reached the same level of success, a reality that chaffed some of the citizenry.

Enter Dean Weasler, a former St. Cloud State University goaltender raised about 40 miles north of Faribault.

After parlaying his college career into two seasons of professional hockey, Weasler returned to Minnesota in 2004 and joined the corporate ranks. His passion for hockey remained, so he also coached at the high school level and helped guide his sons’ youth teams in the Twin Cities suburbs. Then, in the summer of 2012, Weasler accepted a dual offer to coach the Faribault High School boys’ team and become director of hockey operations for the youth association. His mission became aiming grassroots Faribault hockey toward a higher trajectory. Part of that process involved installing USA Hockey American Development Model principles.

“The response has been much more positive than negative, but whenever there’s change, in anything, there’s always going to be some resistance,” said Weasler. “And we’ve been accused of trying to operate ‘like a big association’ now. But we’re not trying to run ‘like a big association,’ we’re just trying to run it the right way.”

Without “big association” numbers, Faribault faces some small-association challenges. One of them is finding the right level of competition. An in-house mite league was built, which helped reduce costs of participation and travel, but it lacks in opponent diversity, since there are only enough players to roster three teams. Road trips, however, often yield opponents that are either identical or dramatically different, netting the same degree of skill development – or less – in exchange for greater costs. It’s a well-known obstacle to generations of Faribault hockey families.

Another challenge is Faribault’s limited pool of coaches. It’s not a huge city and not a hockey hotbed, so the number of volunteers willing and able to nurture kids’ on-ice talents from November through March is finite. Without the seemingly inexhaustible supply enjoyed by its suburban neighbors to the north, Faribault is at a disadvantage.

But Weasler, along with the association board, thinks the ADM can help Faribault overcome some of these challenges.

The association aided its coaches by increasing use of ADM practice plans and by developing a vision for putting more teams (and thereby more coaches) on the ice simultaneously in station-based practices. Cross-ice games have become the norm for mini-mites and an increasing standard for mites. The teams have also embraced USA Hockey-recommended practice-to-game ratios, which Faribault customized to include use of a smaller-sized “studio” rink at SSM for unstructured small-area games. The association also created a learn-to-skate program that better prepared kids to excel in mite hockey. One player, who began the season in learn-to-skate, graduated to mites at mid-season. He struggled a bit at first, but he continually improved, building his skills in the mite ADM practices. On the season’s final day, he scored his first-ever goal, giving everyone in the association a memorable success story.

“It’s new and it’s different, but our parents – especially our newest parents – love it,” said Weasler.

One of those parents is Cale Politoski, a former defenseman who helped win a conference championship at St. Norbert College in 1997. Today he’s a hockey dad and also the head coach of Shattuck-St. Mary’s Midget U16 team. His son, Andrew, plays mite hockey in Faribault.

“This past year for my son was awesome,” said Politoski. “And I completely give credit to the ADM for making this season as fun as it was. The kids were moving around, they were active and never once did my little guy say it was boring. This had to be one of our best-attended years of mite hockey (in Faribault). We never struggled with numbers. Our kids wanted to go to hockey.

“In terms of skill development, I can say confidently that every player took strides forward, from our best to our lower-level, and that was due to the kids being active, getting more puck touches and being put into ‘like-ability’ groups that prevented players from being overly dominating against weaker skaters. Plus, it created little rivalries that helped kids compete.”

Politoski was pleasantly surprised by the degree skill development he witnessed.

“It was great for our mites,” he said. “In terms of player development, we need to stay with this model. We need to keep enforcing the necessary skills to play the game: skating, shooting, passing. There’s no need to rush teaching systems or any of that stuff. Repetition is good. Being active is good. Tons of puck touches are good. We’re building our players’ confidence, and as a result, their success will continue as they move up to squirts, peewees, bantams and beyond.

“Let’s face it. None of these kids are running the power play for the Minnesota Wild tomorrow. It’s important that we and the other parents understand that. But by continuing to focus on skill mastery now, well, who knows? We may one day see a Faribault player indeed running the power play for the Wild. But let’s continue to focus on the now, on skill development, instead of focusing on 15 years down the road.”

The post Faribault Embracing Youth Hockey Renaissance appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

For example, greater St. Cloud, a community of about 80,000 in Central Minnesota, didn’t even have an indoor ice arena until November 1972. Now there are six indoor sheets and more kids playing than ever before, but growth and retention didn’t come easy, and it still doesn’t, even in this rather large Minnesota city. Fortunately, parents and volunteers from the St. Cloud Youth Hockey Association are all-in. Their concerted effort to make youth hockey more inclusive and more fun is paying dividends.

“We’ve been proactive,” said Mike Petroske, president of the SCYHA. “We were early adopters of the American Development Model, and even before USA Hockey formally introduced the ADM, we were playing cross-ice hockey.”

In the early days, acceptance wasn’t universal. When the SCYHA adopted station-based youth practices, some parents grumbled, but most of those dissenters quickly became advocates. A new mite program built on fun and frequent puck-touches proved especially persuasive.

“We created a fun atmosphere with a Saturday-morning in-house mite concept with four teams of 10 which played half-ice games against each other for six weeks,” said Petroske. “We had two games happening at once, each team playing in the jerseys of four college teams. It was a carnival atmosphere. We’d announce goal-scorers over the public address system and really build it up. That’s when we got people to start buying in.”

The program began as a free offering, which helped encourage parents, and when the SCYHA offered it for a second time, enrollment maxed out in minutes. Now the initial graduates of the program are ascending the ranks and impressing observers.

“Last year, our squirts were really strong and I credit it largely to adopting the ADM,” said Petroske. “And since we launched that in-house mite program, we’ve had almost no complaints.”

Focus on Fun

Jaime O’Hara, SCYHA mite coordinator, joined the association in 2011 and looked to amplify the fun factor. It was her son’s second year of organized hockey.

“It is not about getting the players to perfect every station, have the perfect stride, the perfect shot, et cetera,” she said. “It’s about fun, period. Adopting the ADM added to the fun factor, and not just for the players and the coaches, but also for me as the coordinator. It’s an easy job with the ADM plans, so I get to have more fun and enjoy watching the kids’ enjoyment at the rink. The players doing the stations don’t realize the skills they are learning. They just think they are on the ice playing games with the coaches, when all the while, they’re improving skating skills, puck handling, building muscles, and listening and working together – to have fun.”

O’Hara also credits the coaches for being eager and excited about the ADM mission.

“It’s been more fun and enjoyable for them too, because everything is drawn up for them, there is no planning, scheduling or drawing up practices,” she said. “The ADM practice plans are printed and labeled with practice dates. Coaches get to the rink, grab the tools they need for the practice, and it’s easy as that. Then they have more time to learn who players are and pump up the excitement about practice.”

From the stands, parents see smiles, energy, organization and skill development.

“In Minnesota, with the changing seasons, there are so many athletic choices for kids, so most of the parents have seen practices from several different sports,” explained O’Hara. “But when they watch their first hockey practice with us, they can’t believe how well-organized it is and how well the time is managed. They love the eagerness and excitement the players show about going to practice, and they love that their kids burn a lot of energy while on the ice and then rest well after a practice.”

Bring on the Girls

Recognizing an opportunity, the SCYHA launched a new girls-only version of the introductory mite program this past Saturday. They hope it causes an enrollment increase similar to what occurred in the boys ranks, which would further strengthen the association’s growing foundation of young talent.

Saturday’s festivities began with a station-based practice led by members of the St. Cloud State University women’s hockey team. Afterward, the girls received a guided tour of the Huskies’ locker room followed by a feast of donuts, juice and yogurt. Needless to say, they were all smiles, which is truly the secret sauce in St. Cloud’s recent success.

“Our association growth, both for girls and boys players, has come naturally, from kids and parents talking to friends and other parents,” said O’Hara. “They can’t help but mention the fun time they had at hockey. And really, don’t we all want to be involved in fun?”

It may be a simple philosophy for growth, but it’s also undeniably effective.

“Our players have such energy when they talk about the good times they’re having at the rink,” said O’Hara.

“And the love of the game all starts by having fun first.”

The post Focus on Fun Builds Believers in St. Cloud appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Featured Image:
Alexandria’s rink rookies huddle for a quick chat. The association’s intro-to-hockey offerings have generated unprecedented local interest. (Photo by Joe Korkowski)

There was a time when coaching involved searches for good sloughs with clean ice. Some folks in Alexandria can still remember those days, when west-central Minnesota housed only a handful of hockey players. Today, thanks to a passionate commitment to its youth hockey, and two sheets of cattail-free indoor ice, Alexandria has become something of a hockey hotbed.

Andrew Shriver has lived 15 years of that evolution, having launched Alexandria’s girls hockey program in the late 1990s. Today he serves as director of hockey operations for the Alexandria Area Hockey Association, and also as coach-in-chief for Minnesota Hockey’s District 15.

“In the early 2000s, our overall numbers had plateaued, so we started doing beginner clinics for girls as a way to drum up interest,” said Shriver. “As those evolved, we started seeing more and more young players. Then our high school girls won the state championship in 2007-08, and that, coming on the heels of women’s hockey in the Winter Olympics, did a great job of increasing the numbers.”

Next on the agenda was building better practices, while at the same time accommodating the influx of additional players, both girls and boys. USA Hockey’s American Development Model was taking flight at the same time, providing a blueprint for Shriver and his cohorts.

“There were so many great things that had been going on for years in Alexandria – we were doing a lot of ADM-type things already – but it was somewhat hit-and-miss,” said Shriver. “As we dove in deeper, we found out how easy it was to set up station-based practices just by going to the USA Hockey website and printing out plans. Our coaches did a phenomenal job.”

One of the challenges they faced was the mental hurdle of combining age-appropriate fun, skill development and competitiveness.

“We were doing a great job channeling our inner Sponge Bob instead of our inner Herb Brooks with six-year olds, but we worried about whether it was ‘hockey’ enough, rigorous enough to teach kids what they need, so that when they flip the switch to competitive hockey, it was time well spent,” said Shriver. “And that’s another thing the ADM does really well, is help us weave the technical pieces in so that we’re not missing that component just because the kids are smiling. We’re not boring them with five-minute dissertations on the merits of an inside edge, but they’re still being taught inside edges, and they’re working inside edges and they’re able to implement them into their game mostly because of how engaged they are and how much fun they’re having in practice.”

Soon a full-blown overhaul of the mite program was underway. Among the priorities was providing an inclusive program that didn’t force parents to drive hundreds of miles in search of skill development.

“If the only people we’re catering to are the people who are interested in and can afford that travel hockey experience from beginning to end, then we’re shrinking the talent pool even more, especially in a community like this one with a population of about 12,000,” said Shriver. “So, working with USA Hockey, we reinstated our mite in-house league and dressed up our cross-ice games to make them such fun events that parents don’t feel like all we do is practice. We focused hard on making our cross-ice game nights something exciting, without abandoning the core ADM principles.”

Shriver calls it counterintuitive to some, but in Alexandria they discovered that by focusing on in-house mite and squirt hockey, the peewee and bantam traveling teams became even stronger.

“More kids are interested, more kids are staying in hockey and more parents are receptive to hockey,” he said. “As a result, in the big picture, our travel teams improve because they have that in-house culture of all those kids playing together because they loved meeting at our rink.”

But a dynamic in-house program needs players to succeed, so Alexandria expanded its beginner clinics with a boys offering last month.

“We realized we were missing an opportunity by only offering it to girls,” said Shriver, who hoped to draw more of the area’s best athletes. The response was fantastic. Sixty new boys enrolled for the six-session program, the last of which included a cross-ice game, and the total cost to each player was $25, a fee that included equipment costs. Afterward, Alexandria’s mite enrollment swelled.

“The kids loved it and the parents were blown away (by the ADM practices),” said Shriver. “It was amazing to see how the stations worked perfectly, even with kids who’ve never played before. By the third session, 60 kids that had never played hockey before were moving smoothly through a station-based practice.”

Mites to bantams, Alexandria’s hockey enrollment now exceeds 300 players for only the third time in history. Retention rates have also spiked, with potential for an unprecedented four squirt teams and three peewee teams on the horizon.

“The depth that we have is great, and it’s depth not just in numbers, but also in talent, so that’s an indication (of the ADM impact),” said Shriver. “When people see how the ADM is playing out at our mite, squirt and peewee level, there’s buy-in because they can see the benefits. The more people learn, the more they embrace what the ADM offers.”

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For more on this story, check out Joe Korkowski’s coverage at the Voice of Alexandria.

The post Alexandria coaches ‘channeling inner Sponge Bob’ appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.