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Graham is still organising them on a regular basis, usually on sunday at around 7.15, but it’s not every week
"Ryan":2fwcb6tu wrote:FYI, I always found that having a constant supply of posters up up around campus helped a bundle with recruiting players. Of course you then have the problem of convincing someone to do that job. I haven’t seen it done properly (ie: plastered pretty much everywhere for ages) as it takes quite a while to go round putting them up and most people seem to give up after they’ve done a few poster boards. But when it is done over say a month long period, I’ve usually picked up an extra 20 players or so, 10 of which dissapear after a few weeks and 5 of which dissapear after a month. Then if you are lucky the remaining 5 stick around long term.It takes a crapload of work though, coz not only do you need to put the posters up, but it pays to go around adjusting them each day, making sure they’re on the top of the heap and not lost somewhere underneath a bunch of new posters or that the tags on the bottom have all been ripped off.
It’s an approach that does seem to be quit Ie effective though and you can measure how effective it is by asking new players where they found out about the sport from and from the number of phone calls and emails you receive. For the record, putting posters up in Supermarkets is highly ineffective in my experience and posters in schools usually don’t work unless you personally arrive on their doorstep and ask if you can put them up and if not ask where the appropriate place for them to go and ask them when they’ll be put up in the vain hope that they don’t get filed in the trash (I suspect this is usually what happened when they were emailed, faxed or posted).
Oh yeah, the posters seem to need to emphasise the whole beginner aspect of it. I never got much success from posters which didn’t have “BEGINNERS WELCOME” in big giant writing somewhere.
Ryan,
[/quote:2fwcb6tu]That would definitely be a start. I put up a few posters before the first DIHL this year, and hopefully they got some attention.
I’m happy to do this again, and I’d also be happy to arrange for others to help me out. I know quite a few who’d be willing to give it a go.
The other thing is writing in chalk on the pathways around uni, which actually gets a lot of attention.
The current DIHL posters need to be changed, or a new one needs to be made up (better option, IMHO).
I think we should be pushing Ice Hockey in general, and http://www.dunedinicehockey.hellyer.kiwi in particular, rather than the DIHL. I see signing up for the DIHL more as a result of getting new players involved in hockey, rather than something they would start playing ice hockey [i:2fwcb6tu]to do[/i:2fwcb6tu], if you get what I mean.
I think the best approach is this:
1. Promote getting people to come along and “give it a try”
2. Promote http://www.dunedinicehockey.hellyer.kiwi as [b:2fwcb6tu]the[/b:2fwcb6tu] way to get involved in hockey. Once we get people onto the website and talking on the forums, it’s a very short step from there to jumping into the DIHL.Oh, another way to get some interest might be leaflet drops around the student area, and although personally that always fucks me right the hell off, I hear it’s effective.
"Kyle":4xfq0axp wrote:Why doesn’t someone open up the social room after some Wednesday night games. See if people want to come along and have a drink? The way to build up culture is to start it off.
[/quote:4xfq0axp]I think that’s not a bad idea at all, actually. It might also encourage people to come along “for the night” and support some of the other teams and whatnot.
One quick question though: There’s a social room?
Another factor I can see inhibiting this is the extremely poor communication between organizers and players. This is definitely not just the organizers faults, since getting my team to show up a bit early for a chat was difficult because not everybody used email. (wtf?)
"Kyle":4xfq0axp wrote:Bigger is always a goal, but there’s no magic button. To lay it all at how Kurt and Cy ran the DIHL is a simplistic answer to a big problem.
[/quote:4xfq0axp]One point that I think we should discuss is how we might involve the wider hockey community in actively recruiting new hockey players. Personally, I see university as a prime breeding ground for new hockey talent. The schools that are interested in hockey are already making hockey available to their kids, which is great as a lot of these players seem to want to keep playing in the DIHL after they leave school. I get the impression that more effort could be made here to try and get people transferring from school teams to general DIHL teams once they leave.
I’m convinced that more advertising for hockey in general, not just the DIHL but for the whole club, could really help to improve the profile of hockey and increase membership for relatively little cost.
Fortunately for us, even non-diha-specific advertising, i.e. general hockey advertising, is directly beneficial to us as Dunedin hockey players have only one real choice about who to go to if they want to play some hockey.
One major factor for new players I’ve noticed is letting them know that there are *plenty* of other adult beginners out there, and that they won’t be the “old, odd one out”. I know that was a barrier for me when i first started playing, which was only overcome because my friend (jack) assured me that not only would I be fine ’cause I could already skate ok, but that I’d have a place on his team if I wanted it.
Tracey Epps, one of my law lecturers, seriously perked up her ears when she heard that there were other beginners far older than she, e.g. Paul Roth, who were not only going to beginners practices but actually playing games.
My point? I dunno, I guess I don’t have one, I’m just blabbering.
Chris.
P.S. Yes, if people are willing to help, I’m willing to help/organize stuff along these lines. I just need a clear directive from the DIHA and some helping hands
Well, it seems that all our problems have rolled into one bigger problem: numbers
It seemeth to me that if we had the numbers, separating by age would have no overall detrimental effect.
So, do you guys think that Kurt/Cy’s methods (I have no idea who these guys are btw – before my time) could be re-introduced to get more players?
Just reminding everyone that this is on tomorrow night, 7pm, upstairs at the Lone Star. I’ll most likely be driving if anyone needs a ride
"Ryan":2ale94ry wrote:…(in theory) get punished accordingly and the bad eggs weeded out.
[/quote:2ale94ry]Uhh, bingo.
"Kyle":2ale94ry wrote:The young kids are obviously going to be small, but they’re not the only ones. Kara is tiny for example. If there’s a problem with physical size, then shouldn’t there be a tape measure before you step on the ice? Or scales? Why discriminate on age if size is the problem?
[/quote:2ale94ry]This is a really good point kyle.
If I could make one comment re: a size-oriented restriction: I know that it *really* hacked off one of the players on my DIHL team (not me, btw) when he was called for tripping (or hooking, or something, can’t quite remember what) when it really REALLY wasn’t anything of the sort – it was just that the kid was too little to stay on his feet during normal hockey play, and the ref called “big guy on little guy”.
I was called for tripping. Granted, i had my stick over the top of the kid’s, but that’s because he was physically too short for me to get my stick under!!!!!!!!
do they hackle you?
Frequently, and with seeming impunityAre they cheap shot artists?
Yes, far far more so than I think most adults realise. As yet another (again not me) member of my team said the other night, the refs don’t even see it because it’s just not something that you expect to see, or is especially visible given their smaller size.Admittedly, I’m talking about a small group, who I believe are midgets, and is unlikely to be a league-wide problem.
What is my problem with these young guys?
I don’t really have a problem with them, and neither does hellyer. We’re just throwing this up for debate. That’s how things work, sunshine.In response to Kyle, two people who I have tried to bully into playing hockey have cited the youngsters playing as being one, among other, factors in why they didn’t want to play, having had bad experiences with kids in other sports in the past.
There’s a big difference between you knocking me over, Kyle, and me knocking a kid over, even if there’s the same height difference of 8 inches (you’re 6’8″ right?)
Cool, thanks ryan.
one last note: turn up looking like a muppet/hobo/chemist and you will be drubbed senseless
Oh, and say no to drugs
I’m certain that that can be arranged. I can leave at any time, so I’ll stick you both in my car unless you have another preference.
bear in mind that anyone in my car may be asked to help with the trailer <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/wink.gif" alt="
” title=”Wink” />"Ryan":3itxb7mw wrote:Julian has injured his angle, soft tissue damage I think.
[/quote:3itxb7mw]God damnit, I [b:3itxb7mw]told[/b:3itxb7mw] him to be careful with his Cosine, but did he listen to me?
[i:3itxb7mw]PS: Maths jokes rule…[/i:3itxb7mw]
"Michael":s2uvqezd wrote:Well I decided to rekindle the project that we seem to have let slip through the cracks again, I spent 16hrs on it last night and have built the basis of a database layer (Collection of classes that provide a way to edit the database safely without the need for writing out tones of queries in an object oriented manner that I came up with yesterday because I thought it would be a good idea) and an Ajax query base (Way to trigger actions in the script through GET/POST ing variables to the server without having to leave a page using ajax, also sets up all the common funcions for a non ajax based app).So far it contains all the means of adding and editing statistics however I havn’t put any displaying functionality in yet, since im a visual person I like to have some templates made up. I really need someone who can code css easily to go over it with me and make some templates for me.
If not I will do my best to add the displaying functions in tonight.
If anyone wants to look over the current source and want me to explain anything let me know on msn or email me.
[/quote:s2uvqezd]Whoa, bro, nice work!
I can’t really contribute much, as my design skills suck the penis.
What I can do however is start drawing up a license agreement for you and the club, if you want.
"Kyle":3bjsx2jo wrote:"Chris":3bjsx2jo wrote:I also think that there is a maturity aspect here. Granted, I’m not yoda-like when it comes to serenity, but recently I’ve been particularly unimpressed by the belligerence and discourtesy of younger players. I’m not talking about mere rough playing either, as everyone knows that I’ve always been a fan of a bit of rough and tumble, but that certainly does come into it as well.
[/quote:3bjsx2jo]The behaviour of senior players, in terms of language, respect for other players/teams, respect for referees, and playing clean hockey, not fighting etc, is typically much worse than peewees and midgets.
I know of one midget who’s been trouble this year, and none of the peewees, I can think of half-a-dozen ‘adult’ players who have crossed the line.
[/quote:3bjsx2jo]You’d probably know better than I would Kyle, I’m just speaking from personal experience
"Kyle":n8kcwdpt wrote:I’m not in favour of raising the age. DIHL B grade is a social competition, it’s open to people of a range of abilities, sizes, genders, ages etc. It means parents can play with their kids, siblings can play together, coaches and managers can play with their team etc etc. If you raised the age you wouldn’t just lose the kids, you might lose a lot of other players who play to play with those kids.If people only want to play with adults then SIHL has grades for that.
[/quote:n8kcwdpt]If that truly is the case, which I’m not convinced it is, then the levels of the grades need to be altered so that people who don’t want to play with rugrats can swiftly progress beyond the B-Grade. Then people who want to dodge carpet-crawlers can play in the B-Grade, the intermediate players can play in the A-grade, and the really good players can play prems/superleague/whatever.
What you’re talking about Kyle might be true in a few specific cases, but from what I’ve seen I’d say that’s only true in the vast, vast minority of cases. While it sounds great in there, how much actual demand is there for such a grade?
Just taking the Bullfrogs as a random sample, I don’t know of anyone in that category, and when I made a comment at Wednesday’s game about the kids there was a definite vibe of agreement.
I don’t want to stop the kids playing, not by any means. The kids are the future of the club. All I’m saying is that the little ones shouldn’t be playing in the DIHL [b:n8kcwdpt]in its current format.[/b:n8kcwdpt]
