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Yeah, there was a bit of intentional fouling in those games. Mike Sam was unimpressed with some of the holding the other team was doing, and was expressing this by elbowing them. Probably could have done with both being called I thought.
But the second game was still a pretty good game. The first was… well really weird!
I wouldn’t worry about it Stefan… er Stefan being Ryan. The original team you put in was ‘stacked’, which is why it got bumped. That’s no biggie, you were just putting in a team based on what you thought other teams would be like, and they didn’t turn out that way. The current roster that you have fulfils the rules and isn’t ‘out of whack’ with the other teams greatly. It’d be easy to say that you’ve benefited by not having a weaker A grade player show up at all, but you also have Peter Lamb on your roster, and he hasn’t shown up either so it balances out.
I don’t think the Phantoms are a fantastically greater set of players than any other team. Several people on your team has their rating increased between last year and this year in recognition of the level that they were playing at, so I think the numbers are probably a fair reflection.
I think you’ve got benefit out of grouping together a bunch of players who play together in the prems team. The system that we use to balance teams out doesn’t take this into account, but it’s obvious out there that a few of you practice and play together on the same lines. Other players didn’t organise themselves in this way and so miss out on this benefit. As the person organising the DIHL, I’d much rather four people put their hands up to put together the four teams from all the available players, but unfortunately only two teams worked out that way, so the other players just have to live with where they end up.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, getting properly balanced teams is the hardest thing to do in running the DIHL, particularly when players sign up late or don’t show etc. Sharks have picked up four players since I made their team (though between the four of them they probably balance out right), Johnnies we had to add a player to when they lost two that they thought they had, and Bullfrogs have added Jacques (assuming he keeps on showing!) to their roster, because Andrew Kibbelwhite is probably not going to be seen again. Phantoms are the only team not to pick up late players. Bullfrogs also added James VL last week with the consent of the Phantoms (and Graham PB, recovering from a knee injury) as a one-off casual player (the rules allow this, though typically I try to keep in mind when allowing teams to add casuals that they shouldn’t unbalance the game greatly, so adding two top players would be too much for me), and it turned out to be a very even and good game as a result.
My opinion on the DIHL, is that we should take it seriously as a competition. The DIHA association is looking ahead at some increased separation from the SIHL – their own NZIHL team for example, and while I presume we’ll still be playing southern teams, we’re a big enough (and hopefully we’ll get bigger) club that we can have a reasonably high quality local competition that people take seriously, play 100%, and that helps with the growth of the club and provides a game environment to push juniors, prems, snc etc players to perform better in the other competitions that they play in. I know it pushes me to play better when I’m chasing prem players around on the ice, and I hope that I’m good enough that I’m at least not making them play worse when they face off against me!
But that doesn’t mean that we can’t take a sensible look at two teams on the night and with the consent of both teams, add or swap a player, because in the end of it the whole point is the quality of the game and being able to play good, enjoyable hockey. There are limits as to what I would allow teams to change from their roster, but if both teams agree to allow changes beyond that, then that’s fine with me. Stefan agreed that James could play for us, and it probably cost his team a point, but it was an enjoyable game.
So in summary, Stefan’s been doing a good job with the Phantoms and good on him for stepping up and doing it.
That wasn’t a hit, that was clipping. Not really something that players should have to ‘take’ and just bounce back up, and he did a fairly good job to avoid it.
Nice one prems. Sounds like the team is having a really good start to the season.
From the schedule, looks like next time you have a home game is 7 July. Have to see if I can arrange to get that night free to come down and support the team.
I believe all the Sunday SIHL games that are held at our rink start at 4:30. The original schedule had some generic times for all rinks, they’ve since been changed, but as far as I know the calendar schedule has never been updated.
Only come video the game if we play better than we did this morning. Went from 7-1 up at the end of the first period, and then let in 6 goals in the first 8 minutes of the second period, after Alex figured out that our goalie didn’t have much experience in the position. It finished up 9-8 to them <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/sad.gif" alt="
” title=”Sad” />Alright, B grade is in the last week of round robin tomorrow night. The places for the finals next week are actually already decided (Kings 10 points, Beasts 8 points, John McGlashan 1 point, Bears 1 point I think), so as it works out, this weeks games are warm-ups for the finals, since everyone will be playing their finals opponent this week.
First up, Bears taking on John McGlashan. This was a good game last time, both teams were pretty evenly matched, and Bears went into the back end of the game one up, but a late goal to Johnnies saw it tied up. Johnnies won’t have been happy about that result at all. Key for Johnnies – they’ve been having nightmare problems in goal this season, I can’t keep track of the number of different people they’ve had playing there. If they get someone there who plays well, they should win. Key for Bears – skate, skate skate! The team has got some good players, but also some beginners, and they’ve struggled a lot with other teams catching them and taking the puck off them. A bit more pace on the ice, and you’d see a lot more from the Bears. You’d have to be a fair way out on a limb to pick Bears to win this one, and I’m going to have to be safe and pick Johnnies, 3-1.
Kings vs Beasts. This should be a good game. Kings ran away with it 7-3 in the first match-up, Beasts will have been unhappy with that and will be looking to push the game a lot closer. Both teams will be thinking ahead to a final next week against the same team, and an impressive performance this week will put the pressure on the opposition for the following week. Key for Kings – previously I’ve been lauding a few players on the Kings team, but they played well last week missing their junior reps, so their whole team has stepped up significantly. If they keep playing like that, they should take this game. Key for Beasts, playing like they can do. They had a great game in the Easton Cup against the Dunedin Juniors team at Easter. If they play like that, they can push for a win. They don’t seem to have quite fired this DIHL, they’ll be hoping to rectify that now they’re in the home straight. My pick. I think this game is going to be much closer, but I’m still going with Kings, 4-3.
Also, Dunedin midgets and Dunedin Ducks (SNC team with some great players, including former Ice Blacks Steve Jackson and Mike Sam), are playing Alexandra tomorrow at the Dunedin rink. Midgets are on at 8.30 and 11.30am, Ducks at 10.00am and 4.30pm. Come along and support the local rep teams and see some good hockey.
"Ryan":3751pjrq wrote:"Kyle":3751pjrq wrote:I’m happy to look into this, depending on how much success Mark has with it, in the second half of the year. After DIHL is finished and I’ve figured out what I want to do next.[/quote:3751pjrq]I was suggesting you present other peoples ideas, either in the form of an email you forward on or by mentioning it in a meeting. I wasn’t suggesting you actually do anything yourself, unless of course you want to <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smiley.gif" alt="
” title=”Smiley” />
[/quote:3751pjrq]Well, I wasn’t thinking of setting it all up. But I don’t think an email is the solution either. It takes a bit of work to set up these systems and get buy-in from other people. The marketing/branding thing is probably a reasonable model – a couple of people go away and work out a solution. An email at the moment would probably just be seen as griping I think.
I don’t know if you can upload in Roundcube, but you certainly can in some webmail systems. Gmail imports csv, and it wouldn’t be difficult to convert ldif to csv. Others will do similar things.
"Ryan":2gd71rxz wrote:"Kyle":2gd71rxz wrote:I’d go the other way and say that there should be one site which controls communications, which one or more people would have access to. The web site has associated with it a webmail, why couldn’t all communication go through that – it could be set up with a good address book so people could choose teams – tick boxes to send an email to all the SIHL team players. One person might maintain it, but multiple people could access it. It could copy all emails sent to the secretary or something, who could then fire them onto other people who needed to know about that email.[/quote:2gd71rxz]Mark Hareb is currently setting it up to use an LDIF (or similar) file tied in with an email program like Thunderbird or Outlook rather than webmail. He was looking at rather exotic systems using fancy online databases but I’ve convinced him (I think) that the LDIF route is better. I’m not sure if he considered using webmail. An annoying problem with the webmail system would be backing the data up as I can’t access that data directly – I don’t think so anyway.[/quote:2gd71rxz]
Well the only thing that would need to be backed up would be the address book file, and that would be the one part that would have to be controlled centrally, so I would presume it could just be updated locally and then uploaded to the webmail.
There’s no great need to back up the actual mail. I’d make it either come from a no-reply email address, or from the email address of the person sending that email. So there shouldn’t be any replies, and you could copy the emails to the sender to they would have a copy.
I would like to see a system whereby, whenever Paul Roth wanted to contact the juniors, he just logged onto the site, pushed the email juniors button, typed in a message, added an attachment, and sent it off. If anyone’s details changed, one person would be responsible for updating the email addresses etc.
The problem with having Mark (or anyone) dealing with the the communication with players, is that managers, coaches etc, need to contact players directly. They’re not going to email Mark and say ‘please pass onto all my players’, and they really know who they want to contact, so they’re going to want to control their list. There are very few instances where we need to contact all members of the club, as the only things that apply to all members of the club are things to do with registration, AGM etc. We do need the ability, when we want to advertise the DIHL, to contact all players older than peewee for example, or when we’re running a senior tournament to contact all senior players. So we need a system where Paul Roth has the ability to contact his juniors, but other people do as well. And it needs to be one system rather than more than one.
"Ryan":2gd71rxz wrote:"Kyle":2gd71rxz wrote:I think the communication problems are rather deep-set in the association, and I think there are solutions. But I don’t think the best way to go about it is to sweep in and try and take charge and then give up when it proves to be hard.[/quote:2gd71rxz]I wonder who that’s aimed at <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/tongue.gif" alt="
” title=”Tongue” />[/quote:2gd71rxz]Well only partially! It’s also that I think that Mark is going to find it just as hard as you did, and if he reacts the same way, well it’s going no where. I also think that whoever ends up setting up whatever, they need to work really closely with Joyce. She’s been doing this job for a long time now, and while she doesn’t have a perfect system going, the problem isn’t just ‘not contacting people’, it’s ‘not having the up-to-date details of people’, and ‘information not getting to the right people to contact players’, and ‘people who are in meetings not showing their own initiative to tell players things’. So it’s more than pestering people for emails. There’s problems in the area of getting up-to-date contact details from players and managers finding out who is eligible for their teams etc.
I mean take the money issue that sprung up a few weeks ago with the Beasts players finding out they were going to have to front up with a bunch of money soon. That was discussed for all teams months ago in the committee, and the reason the players didn’t know about it wasn’t that the Beasts don’t have a good communication system – as far as I can tell they have a fairly good communication system. Either the manager wasn’t at that meeting and no ‘official managers’ email went out to him, or he didn’t take it upon himself to figure out what that meant for his players and pass it on, or the association committee wasn’t clear enough about what they were discussing. Or a combination of the above. I was at the meeting where it was discussed, and I never came out of it with anything other than the impression that players would have to pay for practices in bulk, in advance. Somewhere between me getting that information at the meeting, and the players not getting it until very late, the system has broken down.
"Ryan":2gd71rxz wrote:[b:2gd71rxz]I strongly suggest that if anything is going to be presented to the committee that it be done through Kyle (I’m assuming he wouldn’t mind) as he has a good of what’s going on and isn’t part of the communication problem – he is in fact a good example of how things should be done IMO. I think I also have a good idea of what’s going on, but I’m also quite opinionated and that’s not necessarily a good thing when it comes time to send what is essentially a critique of what other people are doing – Kyle is somewhat more tactful than myself <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/tongue.gif" alt="” title=”Tongue” />[/b:2gd71rxz]
[/quote:2gd71rxz]I’m happy to look into this, depending on how much success Mark has with it, in the second half of the year. After DIHL is finished and I’ve figured out what I want to do next.
Kyle
I agree that the web site is a good method. It’s only a medium however, in much the same way that a regular email or newsletter or phone call could be a way of communicating the information. All are limited by lack of information. And Ryan’s right, a reasonable number of players have little or no access to the internet. I actively encourage players not to put down an email address on forms if they don’t check it every couple of days at least. I’d much rather know that I have to phone them rather than send them an email and not know it hasn’t worked until a week later when I see them and they know nothing about it. The problem isn’t that we don’t have the ability to communicate with players, it’s that we’re not good at doing it. Decisions are made in meetings and aren’t pulled out to go to the web site, or the minutes take ages. Managers change things but don’t pass it on.
There needs to be one system of communication, and people need to use that one system, so that people who have the information put it through the right channel, so that it gets picked up and passed on to other people who need to know – the secretary, the president, the web site administrator, etc.
I agree that the vast majority should be done by email, backed up by the web site. This needs to be done centrally though. Ryan has pushed having one person be ‘communications officer’ or something similar. I’d go the other way and say that there should be one site which controls communications, which one or more people would have access to. The web site has associated with it a webmail, why couldn’t all communication go through that – it could be set up with a good address book so people could choose teams – tick boxes to send an email to all the SIHL team players. One person might maintain it, but multiple people could access it. It could copy all emails sent to the secretary or something, who could then fire them onto other people who needed to know about that email.
Ryan’s right… or at least as far as I can tell. He’s been annoying a bunch of people with his regular emails demanding information, so he’s not the right person to push it further. I personally don’t think anyone should go over the top about it now, I’d let the branding stuff settle in and think about putting in place systems later this year for next year. For now, most of the information comes from the committee meeting, managers of all teams should attend committee meetings and make sure that they follow up and inform their team of stuff.
I think the forum is good, and I know a lot of people read it but don’t post very often. It should never be relied on for anything however, it’s just an add-on for fun and discussion. A lot of people don’t, and won’t ever use it. I think it’ll continue to grow, but only in parallel with hockey. I think someone needs to take charge of a topic on high schools hockey. There’s a fair few high school players signed up, and a lot more would sign up if it was promoted to all of them and there was active discussion and stuff about the games like I do for the DIHL games. I’m always surprised by the number of people that read my picks – I get people coming up and talking to me about them before, after, and during games, and emails from people who aren’t signed up, commenting on them. It’s really just a bunch of shit that I make up, but people seem to like it.
I think the communication problems are rather deep-set in the association, and I think there are solutions. But I don’t think the best way to go about it is to sweep in and try and take charge and then give up when it proves to be hard. It is going to be hard, there needs to be buy-in from the whole association, as everyone will need to be involved with the communication, as no one person has the information and the need to pass it on.
Though Matt, I do have some questions about some of your posts. The bible quote of the day for example, is a long way away from anything relating to ice hockey. And those TV theme messages, which I’ve haven’t looked at enough to figure out if they have any meaning beyond being stupid.
You strange web-poster you.
On the other topic, I’m not sure I’d see the point of saying a post is inappropriate for the site, then moving it into another forum where a whole bunch of people can read it anyway. What you’ve proposed is collating all the inappropriate stuff together into a place where people can still read it, as far as I can tell.
If it’s inappropriate, then it should disappear from the view of the ordinary people, and there may be repercussions for the poster – slap on the hand with the bus ticket etc.
This is somewhat a feature request. The ‘Show unread posts since last visit.’ link is great. Makes my forum following a lot easier.
I wonder if it could be further supplemented to read ‘Show X unread posts since last visit.’ And maybe if there’s no unread posts it could say ‘No unread posts since last visit.’?
Currently you click it to get nothing. It’d be nice if you could look at it and figure out if you should click it.
