Recruiting

savagegopher · Post by **savagegopher** » Thu May 30, 2013 2:48 pm

We are looking to recruit more girls to our association. I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas that have worked in the past.

Benfishin · Post by **Benfishin** » Thu May 30, 2013 4:34 pm

Get the High School Girls involved, get some open ice and have a big "try hockey" party. Have skates and helmets that kids can use and bring plenty of treats. Hit the elemantary schools and recruit hard. Good luck.

Nimrod · Post by **Nimrod** » Thu May 30, 2013 4:51 pm

Here are some random thoughts. First, you need to start them very young (4 yrs to up to maybe 8 years old). Have a very low entry level fee if not free so they get hooked in. Consider having your association collect old equipment from others that have out grown them (skates in particular but everything you can get) so that new players have less of an investment to try it out for a year).

As for recruiting, promote from within first - encourage your hockey families to get other siblings involved, maybe even a volume discount. Then have players and hockey families talk to their neighborhood and school friends. Then bring flyers to girls soccer/softball games and hand them out. See if the local elementary schools will let you do some sort of advertisement, handouts, presentations or flyers. Maybe a booth on teacher's conference day at the front of the building. Maybe do mail outs, ads in local papers, flyers at sporting goods stores, etc.

Good luck. Its a noble cause.

luckyEPDad · Post by **luckyEPDad** » Thu May 30, 2013 5:24 pm

Getting the HS team involved, especially when combined with some sort of introduction/rookie training program. My daughter still remembers when Andrea Green complemented her skating at Twig's rookie camp, and when Meaghan Pezon fitted her for her first pair of new skates. More impressive is that Meaghan remembers too!

A trial balloon I tried to float is a hockey "class" through community ed. From what I hear, hockey associations have limited access to elementary schools, but community ed can pitch pretty much anything they want as an after school activity. Even if you started out with roller hockey it would be a great way to introduce a lot more kids to this great game.

I remember few years ago seeing a flier for $50 hockey in St. Louis Park. Am I "misremembering"? If not, how has that worked?

royals dad · Post by **royals dad** » Fri May 31, 2013 9:35 am

You need to look at your demographics to determine what your going to try to do. Frankly what works in an upper middle suburb that is predominately caucasian does not really translate to middle to lower middle highly integrated first ring suburbs or outer ring suburbs. Or to less affluent parts of outstate. Not sure what the answer is there, we have done everything from a float in the local parade to players and alumni in free clinics, summer camps, free hockey, rink rats, even players reading in k-1 classrooms. Hockey is becoming a tough sell.

I don't know anyone or anywhere that they have really broken through to have a successful program with minority populations or new immigrants (even Canada struggles there). We did some good things at Henry and then later Henry/Edision back in the late 80s but it never sustained. I think we are seeing that the staying power of the free or almost free hockey is limited, we keep a few but not enough to sustain teams.

Seems like Armstrong has done a pretty good job of late and Minneapolis has been on a good growth curve but a lot of others are shrinking and not always from a lack of recruiting effort. Part of it is that the competition is training in a way that cant be matched, look at the training facilities with in a few miles of the western mega associations (Velocity, Minnesota Made, Hat Trick, Acceleration, Stabers), those are full of mite and squirt age kids. Not many free hockey kids will be trained like that, it can be hard just to get them to understand the concept of not missing a hockey practice come heck or high water. It is hard for the people who come into the free hockey to see what they will be facing when they look at what is happening to the older teams at the association. While we still produce some great players it is getting harder just to field teams. Hopkins had 1 combined 12 and 14 team last year, our neighbor to the east had 3-14 teams and 4-12 teams (the fact that they still were here recruiting one of our top players is kind of sickening).

I started coaching in the late 80s long before I had kids and spent years in the inner city trying to grow hockey. We had a church group that actually took a van and did rides for games and practices. Back then it seemed like we could get some used equipment and reduced or no fees you could make it work. I don't think it is the case anymore, I think hockey especially girls hockey will be contracting to fewer communities in the near future. I am becoming more of an advocate for a AAA style borderless system similar to summer. It is silly that we have so many good players in one association that A level players are on B teams while other associations have not enough kids to field A teams so they have A players who have to play up or play B.

hockeychopper · Post by **hockeychopper** » Fri May 31, 2013 9:52 am

Some of the things we have done and are planning on doing are the community parades, try hockey for free day, etc. Those work from a marketing perspective and get the word out about girls hockey but not sure how effective it is in recruiting new kids to the program. I think the big push is to have the HS girls involved in the program. These little one's look up to those kids and having them on the ice or in the locker room with them is a big deal. An issue we haven't had to deal with is the girls playing in the boys program. This is taking away from overall numbers on the girls side in some associations. I think the free hockey concept for 5-6 year olds is worth a look to see if you can get them hooked on hockey but if there's no "skin in the game" so to speak the attendance and commitment may not be there. Not sure if there is a Silver Bullet to fix this on-going issue.

JRG · Post by **JRG** » Fri May 31, 2013 9:57 am

We started a "Girls Intro to Hockey" program as an alternative to our Termite program, but instead of limiting it by age, we opened it up to any girl at any age interested in trying the sport. We provide equipment and two practices a week for 6-8 weeks in the fall before the bulk of the youth progams begin and again in the spring after the youth programs are finished. The emphasis is teaching basic skills but more importantly having fun- everyone skates off the ice with a smile on their face (and most of the girls go on the ice that way too!). When we started, we promoted it through the schools, handing out information on Back to School nights (I've been out of the program for a few years now, so I'm not sure if they still promote this way). We keep the cost to a minimum and generally have 20-30 girls participate each year most of whom have continued in the sport. It's been a great way to introduce the game to girls that may be intimidated by skating with boys, or for the older girls, embarrassed by their lack of skill. It's also benefitted parents who are only familiar with the male game and feel it's too rough for their daughters to play.

Bandy · Post by **Bandy** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 11:04 am

Some great thoughts already expressed.

I think associations need to be more cost conscious, and conscious of the time commitment that youth hockey (at 10's and above) requires. Cost and time commitment are barriers to participation.

But again, starting at the 4-8 age level with free or low-cost options is a great way to find out if someone has enough interest & desire to continue on to competitive levels of youth hockey.

JRG - Great comment about emphasis on 'teaching basic skills but more importantly having fun- everyone skates off the ice with a smile on their face (and most of the girls go on the ice that way too!).' Coaches at competitive levels should embrace this philosophy too. Much more important than winning, and if you're doing SKILLS AND FUN right, the wins will come. I know of a couple new recruits to hockey who left the sport after one season solely because they hated the yelling & tough guy attitudes of the coaches. Good kids with hockey potential...just didn't want to put up with bad coaching. Recruitment is important, but so is retention!

One other thought for ya: USA Hockey and Girl Scouts have a cooperative program called Put the Biscuit in the Net. http://www.usahockey.com/Put_the_biscui ... e_net.aspx This was run once in Minnesota quite a few years ago. Lynn Olson organized it with USA Hockey; a few Whitecaps helped out (Winny, of course!). USA Hockey (or MN Hockey?) purchased starter equipment packages to loan to the girls for the weekend. Girl Scouts get a badge for completing the program, and they leave the ice with a smile on their face. The host association had a registration table outside the event after it was over, and a couple local girls signed up. As long as the "recruiting" isn't too overt, everyone wins. Complete novices learn how to skate (a little), and earn a badge. And local association gets a couple enthusiastic new recruits. Not sure if anyone has run PBN in Minnesota since the initial one.

hockeychopper · Post by **hockeychopper** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:02 pm

Last summer I checked into the Put the Biscuit in the Net program. From the response I received, is the girls scouts were no longer participating in this program. I thought this was a great idea though. One other thing I tried was I reached out to other local sport associations (soccer and softball) hoping we could create some sort of a partnership in promoting each other's sports but also reaching out to those kids that don't play hockey come out and give it a try. This was not successful. I am a big believer of these young kids playing multiple sports and not playing 1 sport year round when they're 10 years old. I believe there is such a push for winter training for summer sports they thought this may take away from their program. Again just my opinion.