By Jordan Ercit
Chronicle Staff (view the original article here)
The Waterloo Girls Minor Hockey Association has big plans for the 2012-13 season.
On-ice changes — a new Ravens logo and a pair of concussion-related pilot projects — and off-ice developments — a revamped strategic plan and an expanded IIHF women’s hockey day celebration — highlight the association’s 12th season.
“That’s when you become complacent, when you keep doing things the way you’ve always done it,” president Robert Hennig said.
“One thing that we have always done through our 11 years (in operation) is we’ve always come up with new, innovative ways of providing new elements to the program.”
Case in point, Hennig said, is the “tremendous amount of work,” that has gone into the association’s Development Program for Female Hockey Excellence.
The program, which includes a partnership with the University of Waterloo and Waterloo-based facility The Zone Training, sets guidelines for vendors to prepare players at both the house league and representative levels for the next stage of their development.
Hennig said it also lays a foundation for the association to start its own one-stop development centre in the future.
“We’re investing in the program heavily so that one day we might have our own facility, where we will be able to provide this type of training in a facility that we have, or we rent or we lease,” Hennig said.
The association will also be moving ahead with its Head Injury and Prevention Management Initiative.
Last fall, the WGMHA hosted a head injury workshop at RIM Park featuring noted neuropsychology consultant Dr. Michael Czarnota, who also works with the OHL and Hockey Canada. Phase 2 of the initiative will be launched this year and includes increased education and a pair of pilot projects.
The first will see seven teams — the intermediate-AA Kitchener-Waterloo Rangers, three bantam rep teams and three bantam house league teams — submit to baseline testing and take part in a head injury awareness program.
The second pilot project will involve a pair of teams — the Ravens bantam-AA and peewee-B rep squads — that will use the Battle Smart Impact Indicator, a chin-strap device championed by former NHL forward Keith Primeau that measures the force of a hit and issues a warning light if a player needs to be assessed for a head injury.
“It isn’t something that is going to prevent a concussion, nor is it going to diagnose a concussion,” said Sandra Hanmer, who chairs the Head Injury and Prevention Management Initiative committee. “What it will tell the player, what it will tell the training staff and the referee is that, if the light changes on it, these kids should be assessed.”
Hanmer is also involved in the marketing of expanded IIHF women’s hockey day festivities on Oct. 13 and 14 at RIM Park, which will also help raise funds for the Think Pink campaign for breast cancer research.
The event features three high-level women’s hockey games with teams from the OUA varsity women’s hockey league, the Provincial Women’s Hockey League and the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. Ravens house league and rep teams will also play games around the clock.
Former Olympians Cheryl Pounder and Becky Kellar will start the day off with a learn-to-play hockey seminar, while national team regulars like Tessa Bonhomme, Cherie Piper, Gillian Apps and Jayna Hefford — members of the two CWHL teams (Brampton and Toronto) expected to participate in Waterloo — could be in action on the ice as well.
“There’s a real push to make sure that we’re honouring and recognizing and raising awareness of women’s hockey,” Hanmer said. “We just thought, let’s do something a little bit different and why not raise some money at the same time?”
The Ravens will also have a new look on the ice with a revamped jersey and sleeker logo. All 42 teams in the association will be provided with new jerseys over the next two to three years, with the first 10 teams being outfitted in the fall.
But at the same time, there are no plans to forsake the old logo and motto of “For the kids, for the game, for the fun of it” said Hennig.
“It is part of our DNA,” he said. “It is woven so tightly into the fabric of this organization.
“It’s our guiding principle. It really truly is.”