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I don’t have a problem with the change of structure at all. Larry brought it to a committee meeting and told the committee what was being done. I don’t think what was discussed in November ties the DIHL down, changes happen depending on who is involved, the change to a full season structure was told to the committee, and I think a bunch of people thought it was a good idea.
I think the details of how things have been done, which are not things you would come running to the committee every time have caused me concern. I think part of the reason for that is that Larry has pushed through a bunch of things to be done the ‘Larry way’. The other part is that you hadn’t read/didn’t know about the DIHL manual that we did for Jane. That’s a systemic failure.
"twolefts":24e5iuqq wrote:Yes next year there must be more input from the committee, this year both Larry and I have found very little enthusiasm/support/encouragement/help from them (although I think I get on better with Jackie than Larry does) Larry has frequently complained about the committee, but as to the nature of his complaints I cannot say, regardless of weather or not he/ they will ever see them. We both feel that the committee would rather there was no DIHL what so ever this season so that they can just focus on Thunder. Also, we were only given the ‘green light’ to organise the league 4 weeks before the committee wanted it to start. Sorry, but I had wanted to start getting things organised LAST YEAR! I wanted people to know when it was to start, how much they were going to have to pay and how long they were going to play long before they had to worry about actually having to pay for it.
[/quote:24e5iuqq]The DIHA committee doesn’t really discuss Thunder much at all. Having attended meetings, I often have very little idea what’s going on with the Thunder.
I think the committee wants the DIHL to happen in much the same way that it wants coaching, referees, fundraising etc to happen. It appoints people to run those things and they come back to the committee if they need anything that they can’t arrange by themselves. I’m not sure where the impression came from that the committee would be all involved in the DIHL, I think they’re used to it being run with no major problems, and returning a nice wee surplus to the club.
"twolefts":24e5iuqq wrote:Also, apparently DIHL orgainisers are supposed to have a booklet that tells them what needs to be done and how to do it??? I found out about this 1/4 of the way through the season, and have still yet to see it. Jackie knows about this.
[/quote:24e5iuqq]Ryan has linked to the thread that this is in. Ryan didn’t ever finish his manual, my one below got finished for Jane. I know that Larry doesn’t have access in here, but didn’t you look at that thread Kara? If I’d known you hadn’t seen that I would have given it to you ages ago.
"twolefts":24e5iuqq wrote:6 player minimum? I only wrote down what Ryan suggested… and none of the rosters should be that small, and as far as I know, none of them are. All the B-grade teams have at least 9 players on their roster – and the Bullfrogs pick up a few casual players at $15 a pop. For a few weeks we had 4 or 5 casual players playing for us. Some are continuing to play as a casual player as they cannot commit to the half-season due to work commitments (these are usually players who have started playing hockey half way through the year – although Larry is still complaining that they should commit to the full 1/2 season like the rest of us) -oh and its cheeper for them to keep playing as a casual player as if they paid in full, they have to join the club at $50 for half of the year. Not economical.
[/quote:24e5iuqq]Oldtimers had five skaters last Wednesday after we pulled in two people. I think normally we have six skaters (if everyone turns up) since Alan pulled out. That’s about $30/game that the club loses on us alone.
Casual player doesn’t mean ‘unregistered’, it means not on the roster of any team. Casual players should all be club members, no one should be playing in the DIHL if they’re not a member.
"twolefts":24e5iuqq wrote:When discussing options for the DIHL I put forward the idea of the three DIHLs, I liked the idea of the Spring/Autumn DIHL + Winter mixed DIHL. I also pointed out that this would = a full season, and cover the whole SIHL issue, and be fun, but Larry wouldn’t meet me half way so I meet him half way (all the way, but after 3 hours stuck in a room with him you kinda give up and give in just to go home) and have had to frequently remind him that he is only organising the A-grade. Yes he has a tendency to run away with his ideas, and I have come to realise that the only way you can convince him that they are not always the best idea is to tell him that his ideas are the ideal (and they usually are) but our reality cannot cater for them. I wish I knew this at the beginning of the year
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[/quote:24e5iuqq]The original idea was that in between the spring and autumn dihls there would be a senior checking competition. This happened two or three years ago, but no one has organised it since. The Thunder squad would make it completely different or impossible now anyway. Some people would fall through the cracks (non-high school players who can’t play in an A contact competition). I think we need to remain aware about just how much hockey some people play. Some high school kids are playing DIHL, High Schools, House League, and SIHL, on top of anywhere between one and three practices. I think Harrison King is on the ice as a player 7 times a week.
The rulebook has ways of adjusting teams mid-competition, which we’ve never really used. If I’d been going for a full season DIHL I would have been tempted to split it in half, make everyone pay for half the season, then uni holidays and school holidays break, then re-structure the teams a little and do the second half.
"twolefts":24e5iuqq wrote:Anyway, we have now got some idea of how the rest of the world plays hockey and we now know how we feel about it. I like it better than the Spring/Autumn split seasons, but I think I like the idea of the Spring/Autumn + Winter social DIHL even more. If anyone could convince Larry not to organise next year I would put my hand up again with this in mind. Also only if we had more support from the committee…
[/quote:24e5iuqq]Larry waves around this ‘unlike the way the rest of the world plays hockey’ like a mantra. He forgets that lots of people in the club have played hockey internationally. No country has uniform ways of doing their ice hockey, different places do things differently. And the way that we’ve done things here is based on our experience and our environment and culture, and has worked well here before. Rather than taking the advice of people who knew what they’re doing, and then tweaking the DIHL in the direction he wanted it to go, he’s applied the “Larry International Model” which hasn’t worked well.
Larry got very defensive about my email and is taking it as an attack on him, which wasn’t the intention of the email or bringing it up at the meeting. Which will probably make Monday’s meeting really interesting – I think Aaron is going to set up a snack bar and sell tickets. But you should make sure you are there Kara, particularly given that you control the B grade and Larry the A grade – we will want to hear about both.
It’s certainly not going to be my intention to say that either of you are or have done a crap job. Apart from the fact that I don’t believe that’s true, it would be entirely unconstructive. So hopefully it won’t be an unpleasant meeting.
The email that he sent on 26 June was:
“Dear DIHL2008 Player:
After a one month hiatus, the second half of DIHL 2008 is about to begin.
There are a few items that have arisen for your information and
consideration.
1. Proposed Wednesdays Schedule Change.
High School competition occupies the time prior to Wednesday DIHL games.
At the June Committee meeting, the High Schools comp wanted their ice time
expanded one half hour to complete at 8:30 pm. (Currently we start DIHL B
at approx 8pm) This of course will delay the start of Wednesday DIHL games
by approximately 30 minutes: Start DIHL B – 8:30, Start DIHL A – 9:45pm.
Some people don’t mind the change, others are unhappy with it. The DIHL
schedule has been out since early March and people are expecting those
game times, however the High School comp had been compressed from last
year and their format would work better with some more time.
Have your say.
If you are unhappy with the time change, respond to this email before
Monday June 30th. (No reponse will indicate an acceptance of the time
change). If a majority of DIHL players are against the time change, the
Committee will be notified.2. DIHL Financial Status and Budget Projections:
DIHL 2008 was created for 8 teams, playing a total of 72 games over 18 weeks.
Costs to make it happen:
Ice time: 5 hrs x 18weeks $13,500
Referees: 72 games x $40 $2,880
Score & Time Keepers: 72 x $10 (new cost for 2008) $720
($17,100)Optional Placing Medals (Gold, Silver..) $12ea: Estm ($1000)
DIHL Player Fees to Cover Costs
Estimate 90 players @ $200 ea (Less Goalies Discount: 8×130=$1040) $16,980Extra players and external funding was expected to cover the small ($120)
shortfall and cover costs for medals (or DIHL keychain). However, not all
players opted for the full term amount (only 60%) and if significant
numbers don’t pay and play in the second term, there might be a shortfall.
If this is the case, it’s projected that there would have to be a $10 per
player collection on the final round to cover ice time. Placing
medals/keychains would be extra again.Question: Are you interested in paying approx $10 more for a placings
medal/keychain? (If yes, we have to send purchase orders in by mid July).Your prompt feedback is greatly appreciated.
Best Regards
Larry Nichvolodov
DIHL 2008 Organiser”So it says ‘proposed change’. I presume that no one objected, but as far as I know, no one got back to the players to tell them that the change was confirmed.
Why he sought the players opinion on it I have no idea. Even if the players had said ‘no’, the change was still going to happen, the committee controls the ice time and was quite clear that it needed to change.
"Ryan":33mobwtc wrote:I think the scorebox walked out due to of the teams not having the correct uniforms. So presumably whichever team that was would default … I guess.The schedule was changed too. Apparently the players were told, but those of us wanting to spectate weren’t. Luckilly Rob Owens informed me of the schedule change so I knew to turn up 30 mins later.
[/quote:33mobwtc]It was Sharks that didn’t have uniforms, though a couple of our players didn’t have penguins tops on (but they were white). I wonder if the sharks have a manager looking after them – if the uniforms aren’t being provided, it’s hard for them to wear them.
Even the schedule change wasn’t that organised. Larry sent around an email last week to all the players asking for their opinion on the time change, asking them to get back to him. As far as I know the players weren’t informed that the time had actually been changed though.
No new schedule given for the web site, nothing posted about the time change etc.
This weeks DIHL seems to have been the worst kind of disaster. Kings didn’t turn up for their game vs Bulls. Jets played Beasts, but Jets only had four regular players, they filled the gaps with Bulls players. Johnnies didn’t turn up to play Bullfrogs. And the Sharks Oldtimers game was called off when the scorebox walked out, so they just played a pickup game. I have no idea what the result for that will be, a draw I guess.
"Ryan":3p3v8dbe wrote:EDIT: Actually, I’ve got that a little wrong. The rules say you can’t play in more than one team in the same league. But we also said that players in the range 5-10 could play A-grade and 1-4 could play B-grade, so there could be no crossover (apart from a few exemptions – me in B-grade and a few B-graders up in the A-grade to pack the numbers out). But we also said that the players paid $70 for seven games, so they’d obviously need to pay another $70 for another seven games in the other league. I was quite anal at making sure all of this information was available to the committee as it didn’t seem appropriate to do otherwise since it was the clubs money, not ours that we were dealing with.
[/quote:3p3v8dbe]Yeah, it may be that you were more explicit and I don’t remember it. It’s not something that I would have thought about raising with the committee because I don’t think anyone would have ever imagined that they wouldn’t pay twice.
"Ryan":3akpbf0t wrote:"Kyle":3akpbf0t wrote:… But then again, we never presented that level of detail to the club either. We never would have gone ahead with insufficient numbers of people to make it financially viable. The people who had that information, didn’t use it.[/quote:3akpbf0t]Yes we did. We always provided evidence that we could cover all of our costs. The information I posted above was from stuff which was posted here on the website and all of that was sent directly via email to the committee. Admittedly we may have gotten approval from the committee before we sent that information, but it was definitely available quite some time (four weeks maybe?) before the season began.
[/quote:3akpbf0t]Hmm. I can’t remember us ever saying to the committee that players that played in both grades would pay twice. I think if we’d gone along and said that they should pay once but play twice, we would have been told to bugger off. It’s a very ‘Larry’ idea that he seems to have brought with him from Australia. I remember we had a minimum number, I think you had more contact with the committee when we started so perhaps you sent that to them. We did discuss goalies with Jackie I remember that.
"Ryan":3akpbf0t wrote:Yeah, I had that as a suggestion in a document Kara and I proposed to the club at their ‘planning meeting’ late last year. They agreed to run two regular split A/B-grade leagues in Spring and Autumn and a social league in the winter for those players who wanted something less serious. I guess they decided to can that idea. I’m not sure why. Kara, do you know why that didn’t go ahead? Did you change your mind? Perhaps it was changed because there was a concern no one would volunteer to run the social grade?
[/quote:3akpbf0t]I think between that meeting last year, and Larry raising it at the committee this year, that fell over. I’m not sure if that had to do with Chris backing out, Kara not stepping up to take charge of the whole thing, or just the changeover in the years, and then Larry putting his own ideas forward. It certainly wasn’t mentioned again at a committee meeting.
"Ryan":226tpf0v wrote:Okay. Someone needs a serious kick in the ass.Why the hell did the club agree to this?
[/quote:226tpf0v]Umm. I don’t think the club agreed to these details, they were never presented to the club. Larry presented a broad plan about having a full season, two grades etc. But then again, we never presented that level of detail to the club either. We never would have gone ahead with insufficient numbers of people to make it financially viable. The people who had that information, didn’t use it.
I think I’ll be arguing that the club have more oversight over the DIHL as a matter of good practice in future. I won’t be the only one.
The financial situation isn’t a complete disaster. The club got a couple of grand of funding for the DIHL. So that will cover the loss. It’s a real waste though, if this has been well managed financially it could have made 3,000 easy, plus that 2,000 = $5000. That’s starting to get towards some serious money to put towards a pro coach for 2009.
This course has now been rescheduled:
Linesman Course Sunday 13 July
The linesman course which was canceled in June is now on Sunday 13 July, 9 am – 12 noon. The class will consist of two hours of off-ice learning, and one hour of on-ice training.
The training will be good value for new linesmen, but also those who have done training before and want some retraining.
After training you will be able to line Dunedin Ice Hockey games at various levels, and may even get paid for it.
Bring: Skates, helmet, whistle, $10 to cover ice costs.
RSVP: Kyle, referees@dunedinicehockey.hellyer.kiwi"Ryan":1ynrwr07 wrote:"Kyle":1ynrwr07 wrote:Ryan might have something different as a reason[/quote:1ynrwr07]No, that was the main reason for me too. It also means you get a break from organising. Running the league all season long won’t work properly the way Larry and Kara are doing it.
[/quote:1ynrwr07]I was actually quite interested in the idea of running a full season. I think it’ll affect our SNC involvement in the SIHL, but that’s OK – I don’t have a problem with us having just one Southern SNC team which gets picked like every other team in the SNC. A full season of domestic hockey would be good here.
"Ryan":1ynrwr07 wrote:Actually, now that I look back at the numbers … Larry and Kara decided to allow teams with only 6 players on them. That would come to $9600 minimum takings. So they’d have a minimum of $9,600 which they’d have received from the players. Assuming a cost of $190 per game (ice time and refs), that comes to $13,680, a loss of ~$4000.For spring 2006 we specified a minimum of 11 players per team, so a minimum intake of $7700, but it we were guaranteed a profit of ~$1000. I can’t remember the numbers, but presumably the profit was quite a lot more than that.
I still don’t get how it could possibly run at a loss though. They collected the money in before the season. Surely someone wouldn’t be stupid enough to run the league without being able to pay for it first!?
[/quote:1ynrwr07]The figures are worse than that. Larry booked the ice directly with the rink, rather than through Joyce and Jackie, despite being told by me about five times, and several other people as well. So he’s booked four games at 1.15 each, rather than just booking four hours and ‘running over’. So Ice time is $190 or so a game, plus $40 for referees, plus $10 for scorebox. That’s $240, which at $200/18 games requires 11/team just to break even.
I presume some goalies are playing for free, so that might be 11 skaters.
Some teams have very few skaters. I think the old timers has about 9 on the roster, but Al O’Conner only played a couple of games, so I can’t imagine he paid the whole season. Mark Bingham has only played about half the games, so I dunno what he’s paying. Adrian van Leeuwen only played one game. Bullfrogs are a pretty small team.
I understand that players that play in two grades are only paying in one. So some of the Beasts that are covering for the Bullfrogs, aren’t paying twice, they’re just getting a free B season.
Some people have paid for the first half of the season, but won’t be playing and paying for the second. As far as I know they aren’t being replaced by new players.
They’ve had real problems getting money out of some of the kids. Kings hadn’t paid a cent a month in, and I think they’d got money from three or four of them about 7 games in. I’m not sure if that’s improved. Jackie has been pulling her hair out.
The figures that I’ve seen is that if everyone who played the first half, paid for the full season, they would just about break even. They would probably have to collect another $10 from everyone to pay for the final. Ironically it was in an email from Larry asking if everyone wanted to pay another $10 for a medal/keychain.
It was kicked off with virtually no money. The deadline for payment was after about three games, rather than before the league started. So no, they didn’t collect the money in before the season.
It’s really up to whoever puts themselves forward Stefan. The two split season DIHL wasn’t done so much for the DIHL players, but to fit around the high school tournament (at least in my mind, Ryan might have something different as a reason) in terms of available ice time.
If someone sticks their hand up and offers to organise it next year, it’ll be up to them how it happens. I do think that the committee will probably want more oversight for next year, financially this DIHL is looking like it’ll struggle to break even, traditionally the DIHL has made up a couple of thousand dollars a year.
Game misconduct + major for high sticking. Sounds like someone took a swipe at another player’s head with their stick. Naughty!
Having just looked through the whole gallery, there’s some sweet photos in there – I hardly ever get to see images of myself playing hockey. Thanks to everyone who took photos.
"Ryan":1ptozwab wrote:[align=center:1ptozwab][size=3:1ptozwab][b:1ptozwab]
Kyle was causing trouble AGAIN!and AGAIN!
So the Alex boys decided to take matters into their own hands
you'd think he would have learned from the Beasts game …
[/b:1ptozwab][/size:1ptozwab][/align:1ptozwab]
[/quote:1ptozwab]That’s not trouble. Really should have done a better job on that breakaway in the first. Somehow the puck got ahead of me and the goalie dived forwards and stacked the pads and got it. Between that the the high stick goal that was awarded to them, close game.
