EXCITING NEWS regarding tryouts beginning April 19.
We are pleased to announce that the kick-off to the new season with our U11 AAA team is right around the corner! Our full staff list can be found on our team page. We have assembled the strongest staff possible with years of hockey experience and success to help ensure that we provide our players with elite development opportunities throughout the season.
With the new OHF guidelines in place, our staff have spent countless hours viewing/evaluating and learning as much as we can surrounding this 2015 group of athletes, and we are extremely impressed! Given the new format that each team will be challenged with, it was important for us to learn as much as we could while following a handful of teams over the past couple of months. For this reason, tryouts will appear a little different than they have in the past. We plan to move quickly during the first few days of tryouts in order to secure the most capable team possible for the 2025-2026 season.
Below is an outline of what to expect ;
Day One- Due to the number of registered players, we will begin with several one hour sessions of "skills/flow and compete drills" in order to provide each player with an opportunity to showcase their talent. This will include a heavy focus on skating/edge work, compete level, hockey IQ, confidence with the puck and many other attributes that will assist our team by identifying well-rounded players capable of playing AAA hockey next season.
Day two- The group will be reduced to a much smaller number of athletes competing for final roster spots, also in a "skills/flow and compete drills" format with a tighter talent pool to compete against.
Day Three- We will move into an intrasquad (Blue vs. Red) format game and place our top athletes against one another. We feel that our Regional area of players are among the very best and we look forward to pushing the players against one another as a final assessment. We have intentionally decided not to enter into exhibition games due to the new OHF format, so that we can provide each individual with one final opportunity to showcase their abilities. The intrasquad format also allows our Coaches to participate closely by working on the bench in order to witness first hand how players respond to instruction, as well as their overall behaviour, compete level and positivity toward their potential teammates.
Final Camp Day- The team roster will be set with a player meeting taking place prior to our last session. Player expectations will be communicated and we will hit the ice as a team for the first time. Our players will witness first hand what our development program will begin to look like, in order to lay a foundation of what to expect as a group going forward and the level of commitment that will be required to be successful.
Our team approach will be comprised of a very disciplined environment this coming season. Endurance and conditioning will be intertwined strongly in our teaching methods. We expect our athletes to arrive to every team event prepared to work extremely hard as we push their development while having a healthy balance of fun! We will remain focused on establishing the absolute best complement of players that will approach the season with a
"TEAM FIRST" mentality, while placing teammates ahead of themselves.
Thank you, Coach Sean and our U11 Staff