With a roster of new players selected in the SDMHA Atom draft the previous night, I began sending out the personalized invitations to the kids, and their parents.
The invitations are sent to the kids – parents’ email – are done to make sure that I connect with the children and let them know that they have been “personally selected” ….and that they get to make new friends and learn new things. I also speak about “our secret B3 strategy”. We later talk about values that not only guide the team, but now as President I utilized for my message to the broader membership.
Be the Best you can Be — our mission is about instilling character and individual development through the hockey experience.
Be a Good Teammate – in the same way you need to respect and be accountable to other players on the team, members of our association have the same onus as well.
Be a Hockey Ambassador – while the kids always ask ‘what is an Ambassador’ …it is good learning that they are responsible for representing not only themselves, but their team, the Association and ultimately the Game of Hockey itself …wherever they are.
The final and most important part of the effort is making sure that all parent members on the team understand that this is a ‘member-driven’ organization …..not a paid for service. Everyone is responsible, everyone is accountable to one another in this ‘hockey collective’. In that regard I have drawn upon some of the zeitgeist of professional sports where they speak of things like ‘Bosox Nation’ or ‘Leafs Nation’. Bengal Nation means that all of us are involved …that together we are responsible for creation of the ‘hockey experience’. And it speaks to the fact that,ironically, being in a ‘hockey association’ means that the ‘association’ part of the title is an equal part of the equation. And in looking at our operations and efforts through solely the lens of hockey can lead to angst and conflict, which unfortunately characterizes many teams and organizations these days.
pucksense 