The coming season could see some significant changes to the calibre of hockey seen in Athabasca.
There have been some changes already with the Athabasca and District Minor Hockey Association (ADMHA) with Jay Alix named as the new president at the group’s annual general meeting on Apr. 16.
“Overall, the AGM was pretty uneventful,” Alix said.
“We have quite a few new people stepping up to fulfill roles and that is exciting. A big thank you to Darcy and Jody Tangedal, Wendy Hutchinson and the rest of the board members who are not returning, for their time and effort over the years.”
Alix has been a coach for the last six years and joined the board as Atom director plus the ADMHA’s representative to the league last season.
“Since my commitment as director was only for one year and when Darcy hinted that he would not be returning, I began to think about letting my name stand,” he said.
“It is a very big responsibility, but given the time I have put in at the team level and now on the board, I figured I have enough of a background to try fill that role.”
For Alix, one of the priorities he would like to accomplish getting as many kids involved in hockey as possible and keeping them involved.
“ADMHA has seen a great increase in player numbers at the Atom, Novice and Pre-novice levels over the past few years and we want to keep that momentum going by providing a great organization for them to be part of,” he added.
One of the areas that has seen a great increase in numbers is in how many females are signing up, so much so that the ADMHA is working on setting up at least one all-female team for next season.
“We have seen a large number of girls playing the game, so many in fact, that we are in the process of setting up at least one, if not two, all-female teams,”Alix explained.
“It’s been many years since we were able to say that and it’s great to see. We also have some very talented and knowledgeable people involved in getting this off the ground.”
As the league Athabasca is currently affiliated with – Sturgeon Pembina – doesn’t offer an all-female division, ADMHA is in the process of getting those team(s) into the North Central Minor Hockey Association (NCMHL).
The NCMHL is structured around communities in central Alberta that started an all-female league, and last season saw Whitecourt join with Athabasca hoping to also enter the fold.
“Looking at the numbers, and depending on what age group you compare it to, the travel isn’t much different than what some of the older groups already have, it’s just to different places,” Alix stated.
He added that depending on the success of this venture, it could help if the ADMHA ever needs to look at potentially changing leagues for the entire organization.
Where the largest change will come for the coming season is the loss of AA hockey as Hockey Alberta has made some big changes.
One good thing though, is they did listen to Athabasca and left them in the same zone as Lac La Biche, Boyle, Plamondon, Goodfish Lake, Kikino and Smoky Lake.
“Initially, they had us as a host team for the PeeWee level, but with a different draw zone than our Bantam and Midget players. That meant that kids playing AA PeeWee would end up playing with different players on a different team at AA Bantam or AA Midget,” he said.
However, with the change, that has meant that Lac La Biche is now the official host community for all of the AA teams.
Although, Alix did explain that the ADMHA is “just beginning the process of working out all the logistics with the other communities involved in order to make this program successful,” he said.
“Now that Hockey Alberta has stepped in, it should help communities like ours, who have been trying to make such a team happen, become more successful by providing the support from the other communities involved.”
The first official meeting of the new ADMHA board takes place this week and there has been already been some discussion already about the potential of having some teams move leagues in order to play the higher calibre A-level hockey.
