Hello Again Members,

Here we are already - more than half way into the season. Wow. That was fast. People often say to me that one of the reasons they like this league is because its season is short and sweet. Personally, I feel that an extra month would be nice. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes all year round to make the season function for just three quick months of playing time. I know some of you are probably thinking "get a life" but a little longer wouldn’t hurt would it? Maybe I shouldn’t have turned that last sentence into a question. Now I’m in trouble.

The possibilities of a longer season may be getting one step closer. With over 700 kids now playing in our league, people can see that we are here to stay. I have attended a few meetings over the past few years with City and District Recreational planners and a lot of questions were asked about our fast-growing sport. How many members? How big could it get? Is it just a fad? Most people in those meetings were surprised at how big we are and how fast our league and the men’s league have grown. Few even knew we existed. The North Van Rec Centres are all being redeveloped in the near future. The NV Rec Commission recently released a draft consultant’s report studying the needs of all the sports user groups and so far it looks like they’re at least hearing us. The report identifies 13 "indoor recreation needs that had a facilities dimension". Only five of these are rated as high priority and an indoor year-round dry-floor facility is one of them. "Ya never know".

I hope by now you have all settled into your teams and are having as much fun as you have come to expect from this game. Some years are always better than others on the floor. Some years you will be on a winning team and some years, not so winning. But remember what you should really be there for and that is to meet other people, get some exercise, play a great game and have a lot of laughs. If you win, bonus. If you don’t, life goes on. Every year we try something extra to try to balance teams as best we can. In most cases we get it right and in a few we are out of whack a bit. Your Board of Directors works diligently on this but it’s not as easy as it might seem. There are all kinds of reasons for imbalance. From not enough goalies to players doing too many other sports and not making their games. Slowly though, Inline is becoming "the" sport and not the other sport in our kids’ lives. That alone will help in balancing. Our League Manager does not have an easy job when it comes to team balancing, but he tries very hard. There will always be a first and a last place team, so let’s make having fun the priority.

I personally would like to thank the playing members of this awesome league of ours for your acceptance of- and kindness towards- our two special-needs members. We have a boy in Bantam and a boy in Peewee Rec who are living out a dream of playing a game they love as much as - or more than - most of us. These two young men have been embraced by their teammates and by the divisions they are in with so much kindness that it always makes me thankful that I live in such a fine community like North Van. You have all raised your kids to respect and accept diversity. With good morals like these, no matter how far your kids stray you know they will be fine adults one day. I have witnessed the crowds from whoever is playing these boys’ team go nuts whenever one of them scores or even touches the puck. More often than not the opposing team will slow down and let them shoot even if it means a goal. Both boys have scored and it is a special thing to see. Many times a player will spend a good part of their shift trying to help one of these two guys to score a goal. Both teams that these boys play on happen to be struggling in the standings and still their teammates would rather see these two guys get their shifts and have a chance to play. I thank all the players involved in helping these two very special boys live as fulfilling a life as they choose. I am especially grateful, as one of these boys is my son.

Thanks to all the coaches and volunteers for making the first half of our season as enjoyable as possible for everyone. Thanks to all the members for being understanding when things aren’t going as well as you would like. We are all volunteers on the board and we are constantly learning. I have enjoyed my three years as President of the NSIHL and thank you for your support.

See you at the rink,

Mike Smith
President
NSIHL

In early May, our nine tournament teams (several age divisions have more than one team from the North Shore) headed out to Langley for the annual Topcat Tournament. Despite this being the first tournament of the year, our kids did us proud by taking three of the six divisional championships: Mite, Squirt and Bantam (and in a side-note, the Men's division was won by ex-NSIHL players under the Tour Rage banner.) This was just a warm-up to the more important tournaments still to come: the provincial championships in Victoria in late June and the national championships in Alberta in mid-July.

In the 'better-late-then-never' category, we should also recognize our kids' victory last summer in the BC Summer Games. Led by coaches Vince Harriott and Kelly Weal, they took the gold medal in spectacular fashion in the inaugural inline hockey event at the games. Check out the following link:
http://bciha.com/NewsItems/2006news/2006 Media Release - BC Games Results.pdf

In the next week or so, you will receive another league email notice of an annual fundraising raffle called "Gear Up For Next Year" where you will have the opportunity to buy tickets to win a $500 grand prize gift certificate from Time Out Sports to suit yourself up with brand-new equipment prior to the 2008 season, or a free NSIHL registration. Net proceeds for the fundraiser will go towards buying equipment and providing registration fees for disadvantaged kids on the North Shore who otherwise might not be able to afford to play. We’re proud of our community spirit and want to make sure that the NSIHL is reaching out to all who have a love for the game.

Click here to upgrade your equipment
with exclusive NSIHL deals

Ever wonder what happens to all of the league's equipment after the lights go down on the last game of the season? An amazing amount of volunteer work begins once the season ends: collecting jerseys, goalie equipment and pucks from 54 teams, sending 800 jerseys for laundering, counting inventory to predict the requirements for next season, etc. As the league has grown so much in the past five years, the biggest problem that we face is trying to jam an ever-growing amount of equipment into a severely-constrained crawl space at the Harry Jerome Arena.

At a recent meeting of the league's board of directors, we decided to put the request out to the membership in the hopes that one or more of you have a spare 500 square feet of dry, lockable storage space that you don't know what to do with between this July and April of next year. If you do, or you know someone else that does, please contact Ruben Gharakhanian, the NSIHL Equipment Manager, at . Thank you.

As you've seen over the past season, all important league information comes to you via email. When we start registering your kids for the 2008 season (scheduled for December), we will be using the email database that we built up over this 2007 season. It's our standard practice to contact past-members before advertising available spaces outside the league, but several past-members failed to give us change of email address info and their kids were on the outside looking in when the league filled up so quickly.

What's the moral of the story? If you do change your email address, think of the NSIHL as one of your best friends and let us know through . That way, we'll be sure to contact you, and your kids will be among the first to be registered, not the last.

As you all know, the league provides full-time goalies in the Squirt, Peewee and Bantam divisions a full refund of their registration fees if they successfully play in the nets for at least 80% of their team's games. Because goalies are a rare find these days, this has been determined to be the best incentive that we have available to us to encourage more goaltenders to step into the nets and put their bodies in front of 80mph plastic projectiles.

If you are one of the goalies in the above divisions that qualify for the refund, a Goalie Registration Refund form is available for you to download at http://www.nsihl.com/docs/goalie refund.pdf . You will need to have your head coach confirm in writing that you have met the requirements and then submit the completed form to League Manager Greg Crompton by June 30th, 2007. Refunds by cheque will follow in the mail during July.