My Life as a Community Hockey Manager

Life as a Community Hockey Manager is one where I never seem to be surprised because in the world of six degrees of separation, everything that I never thought would be in my current job description is something I've done before.

Starting with our office situation. For the first two months of my job we had two floors of an office space around the corner from the primary turfs in Christchurch that we had on a month-to-month lease. On September 23 we were told that the property manager had someone who wanted to lease the space long term and we needed to be out by the end of the month. Half the office moved to a smaller unit. The other half has been relocated to a trailer on the site of the fields for the next two months. The situation is temporary. We actually have our old offices that were at Porrit Park (which is where the brunt of the September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes hit). The land will never be built on again, but the building is intact and they'll load it up and bring it by truck by the end of December.

Let me tell you about our trailer. It’s been kindly donated to us by the folks at Just Hockey (THANKS!!!) and it’s really nice. And cozy. The trailer (affectionately known as Nunweek Suites) houses the offices of Planning and Development Manager, the director of Hockey Academy South as well as the Community Manager and all their equipment. Cozy. On the plus side, the weather has been spectacular and it’s pretty cool when your offices are between two turfs and you can park next to your office.

Now, a little about my job. Representative hockey is huge in New Zealand and in the world of youth rep hockey we're currently hosting the Hatch Cup, the boys primary (under 13) provincial tournament. This is the first age group that regional teams compete in and there are 24 teams from
around the country competing. This is the first tournament Christchurch has hosted since the quakes and the first time that a lot of teams from around the country have actually been in the city to see where we are as we recover. Many of the teams have gone down to Porrit to see the damage and where the city is in the rebuild process and it's pretty impressive.

Nunweek Pavilion

I got to my office/trailer on Monday and was told all hands are on deck to get ready for the tournament. Nunweek Park is our primary turf and has two sand-filled (what they call wet-dressed here) fields. It was once a grass facility with an old pavilion that has been expanded over the years so that there are two turfs and a third one that will be done by Christmas.

Monday was spent converting old goals into football/soccer style dugoutswith tarps laid over the top, back and sides. We have a groundskeeper who is a nice enough guy, but high tech and him are two words that have never been used in the same sentence. Where in the modern world cable ties are the easy, efficient fix to securing things (plastic zips), we have buckets of old pieces of hemp rope that are used to tie everything. After an hour of watching this go on, I suggested a trip to our equivalent of Home Depot (Mitre Mega 10) and bought zip ties and got black nylon cord. He watched me work for about twenty minutes and then walked away. I was very competent and was left to do nets for the day.

Tuesday was opening ceremonies and I was brought back to the days of Futures Tournaments and Buckeye All-American Camps. Last minute choreography, whoever is closest does what needs to be done. Hatch Cup is a tournament of traditions and one of the first comes with opening ceremonies, ribbon swapping. Each of the teams exchanges 24 ribbons (one for everyone on the team) with the other team, so effectively each team brings 24 bags of ribbons and gets one from each of the other teams. Sounds simple enough but throw in the fact that it’s 13 year old boys and nothing is as simple as it sounds. Four days after the opening ceremonies teams were still trying to get their ribbons sorted out.

Opening ceremonies

Tradition two is the Supporters Award. At Hatch Cup there is an award to the province with the best supporters. Being a good supporter means positively encouraging your child’s team and being a positive influence around the field. It also includes costumes. Not every supporter comes in costume, but significant groups of parents at least wear something that contains provincial colours. A common motif is coloured wig and hats. For Wairarapi that means green wigs and red bowlers. Folks look like Oompah-Loompahs. Wairarapi wins the supporters award hands down. With colours being Green and red, these people go nuts. Middle age men dressed as Christmas trees (notice I say men, meaning multiple), Robin Hood (complete with matching tights and boots), and assorted other variations on the themes. Some of the team’s supporters are into it more than others, but it provides a great perspective for all, especially as you realize this is the first time some of these players have been out of their province and that it’s about the traditions and the experience.

On the hockey front, it's been amazing watching the level of skill by 13 year-old boys. Canterbury (my boys) is in the finals against North Harbour. For Canterbury to reach the finals is huge, they beat Auckland in the Semis. Auckland is our Michigan.

More on déjà vu and Buckeye Dayz. Tournament hosts are expected to provide a Kookaburra game ball for each game. No ball boys, just one ball for the game. The field is surrounded by fencing so not having ball people isn't a huge thing but finding a white ball is. Sand filled turfs will turn a white ball green by the end of a match and after three days of hockey, all our Kooks were green. Sound familiar?

Once again, previous life experience comes in handy. Deja vu from my Spring break adventures in Columbus after winter hockey. As I'm getting ready to leave Friday afternoon the tournament director, who is our Association board president and is this sweet old lady who has to be at least several kids’ grandmother asks if I can help, we need white balls for the remaining games and she has this bucket of at least 30 dirty balls soaking. In comes Community Hockey Manager, yours truly. On the really good news, I can know tell you there is a product that is amazing for cleaning called Chemico (hopefully it's not toxic). Take a scouring pad and a good dose of Chemico (it's a pink paste) and scrub away and in 5 minutes you can get a Kook mostly white.

Saturday afternoon is the finals, North Harbour versus Canterbury and it’s pouring rain sideways. Welcome to Christchurch. I still don’t know whether their called Southerlies, Westerlies or whatever, all I know is when they roll in (and it’s usually within an hour of the sky going ominously dark) prepare to be cold and wet. 12n the sun was out, by 2pm the third place game had to be suspended because of flooding on the pitch and the final was moved to Nunweek 1. Blown over dugouts had to be uprighted and tables organized for the trophy presentations/closing ceremonies. Can you say Community Hockey Manager?

Once everything was set up, both teams played an awesome final. Canterbury had most of the play but couldn’t score and the teams were tied 0-0 after regulation and extra-time. The game savvy, composure and execution by 13 year-old boys was totally impressive. Canterbury won the stroke off 3-1, but only after North Harbour put two strokes off the post. And I had the best seats in the house, front row, ten meters to the side behind the goal. Just another day at the office.

Hatch final

I've had some brilliant coaching opportunities here in spite of the fact that this is not my primary responsibility. My role as Community Hockey Manager is to service all the regional hockey associations in the Canterbury Province which includes West Coast, South Canterbury and
Mid Canterbury. A high performance academy has also been set up for the province and the guy in charge is Chris Leslie the women's under 21 national team coach and an assistant for the senior women's team. He's asked me to run goalkeeper training for the keepers in the Academy and
it's been alot of fun. I'm working with a group of five, three men and two women, our Senior guy has been invited to trial for the expanded men's senior squad, my club keeper has been invited to the women's senior goalkeeper squad, one of the other guys just got back from national u-21 squad trials and u-18 squad trials are going on right now and we have a boy and a girl at them.I had asked Chris for more information about the NZ style of goalkeeping and the big highlight for me was that he arranged for me to go up to Auckland as an observer at the women's Black Sticks goalkeeper camp. Mark Hagar and Greg Nichols (the two primary coaches) were there and Helen Clark (who played for the team as a keeper in the 2004 Olympics) ran the camp. I went there completely with the mindset of learning and after about a half an hour of observing, I asked Mark a question about something they were emphasizing in stance. He was awesome, he considered it and gave a well thought-out answer.

He and Greg are completely hands-on. Both were international forwards but obviously know a lot about keeping from the scoring perspective. Greg actually played goal for two years in his 20's so he could get a better understanding of the position. Bottom line, we started talking and Mark said to me, "we don't pretend to be experts about goalkeeping and I'm welcome to provide any input."  There were ten keepers at the camp and it was run over a weekend. By the Sunday, I was working with some of the group. There is a second weekend that I'll be going to at the end of the month and I'm working on presenting a think piece for the coaching staff about elements of ice hockey goalkeeping that are applicable to hockey.

Community Hockey Manager is about development and that’s been a lot of work, but good work. I’m learning how clubs and communities and those entrusted to them work. I’m learning the processes involved in securing funding and those sources. I’m learning how to present to groups. Now I’m starting to see some of the rewards. We’re getting funding, we have schools signing up for Small Sticks. I’m speaking to club presidents and learning their issues because a third of their club members left Christchurch post-earthquake. How do we get more people playing hockey? It’s funny, I think I’ve had half my life to get ready for this job and I can’t think of a better place to be. Life is good….

Company Car - Play Hockey!