September 14th
Good Evening!
Today we had a great turnout of our skaters in both our younger and older groups. We are making great strides in our membership but we are in need of more players, especially for our Squirts group. As a part of the SDAHA, our squirts team will be traveling and have a schedule that will be coming out. But we need your help! We will be looking forward to seeing you next weekend.
If you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to reach out to Rob at 605-569-6147 or email the board at northernhillsaha@gmail.com
Peewees and Bantam
Today we worked on great skills again. In your free time, try to get some running practice in. Like we did in practice, set yourself up two lines on the ground and run back and forth trying to stop perfectly on them. Imagine you have your skates on and how it feels different from going back and forth on your skates compared to your shoes. If you have a friend, try practicing kicking a ball back and forth with them, keeping and maintaining control at all times. You want to only put the puck or ball where your partner can get it and you can both maintain control while moving forward or backward.
Try working on your forearm passing for next week!
Mites and Squirts
Every day is a new adventure! We saw a lot of improvement from the previous week in some of our newer players. Everyone needs to keep working on their skating and turning. Keep working on trying to be able to not walk your skates but truly glide across it. At home, if you can set yourself up with an area and try to do Moguls back and forth to get the feeling of what its like to glide back and forth on your skates and build up your strength in your legs.
Strengthen your legs at home!
Video link with an example, you don't have to use a ladder, just jump jump jump!
Important reminder
As of August 1, 2024 the USA Hockey rule mandating neck laceration protection went into effect. There are a lot of great options for our SDAHA and Northern Hills Chinook families to choose from to outfit their players. We have had a few practices and starting with our next practice on September 21st if you do not have a neck guard, you will not be allowed to skate with no exceptions. This is to adhere to not only the Chinook and SDAHA rules, but to USA Hockey.
SDAHA Rules for players and spectators can be read here
Help Us Recruit!
With our program still being young, we have the hard task of keeping our numbers up and proving to the city councils in our area that there is a need and want for hockey and ice sports in general in the Northern Hills.
We need EVERYONE to continue to talk up how fun hockey and being on the ice is with their friends. The more skaters we have the better the program can grow with all of us. That being said, we have a MONUMENTAL task ahead of us:
Monday, September 16th at 5:30 PM in Spearfish, the Northern Hills Chinook Board is presenting in front of the City Council about the currently vacant location previously used by the soccer programs in Hillsview Drive. We had previously went before the special recreation council and was voted UNANIMOUSLY to put a temporary rink at that location to be maintained by us. This would be a huge step forward in growing the program and would give us our own ice and we would not need to continue to drive to Rapid City during the fall months anymore. If we can get the council to vote, this would be the home ice for us for the foreseeable future looking to many years there. We want the council chambers to be FULL and STANDING ROOM ONLY with everyone possible that is wearing Chinook gear. They NEED to see how loved we are and how much of a benefit this would be for the communities of the Northern Hills.
We ask each of you, if possible, to be there to show your support and if you can, bring friends and family and talk about it to everyone you know. The more we have the better it will show and help convince the council to approve us building a rink.
SPONSOR OF THE WEEK
