This document’s goal is to provide the EHA membership with an overview of the scheduling process employed. This is not an exhaustive list of the considerations, but should provide details regarding some of the key aspects that are part of the scheduling process.

ICE COMMITTEE

EHA has formed an Ice Committee again this year. This committee is tasked with reviewing and confirming the ice scheduling settings for the season, reviewing the schedule before publication, and determining overall scheduling processes and changes for the upcoming season. The committee members for this season are: Mark Steinke, Ryan Ellingson, Dave Karsnia, and Mike Jelen.

 

CHANGES FROM THE 2018-2019 SEASON

1. Practices at 7:00 AM will be shared to the extent possible. In the past, 7:00 AM practices were solo to reduce the number of early morning practices for all teams.
2. This year the Ice Committee was able to secure additional ice hours at the Eagan Civic Arena & Woog Arena, versus purchasing those hours at other rinks.
3. Each traveling team will be provided a $500 credit to purchase additional practice ice to fill in schedule gaps. It will be the responsibility of each team to find this additional ice. The credit is to be used for practices only (not tournaments or scrimmages). Team managers will be provided with the information and how to schedule/pay for this ice.

 

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

1. EHA purchases approximately 1,400 hours of ice for the season. This includes ice for practices, league games, EHA hosted tournaments, clinics, tryouts, pre-tryouts, jamborees, etc.
2. Ice balancing is done for an entire season, not a specific week or month. For example, a team may have a string of away practices for a given week, but overall will have the same number of home vs. away practices across the season.
3. It’s always a goal to have as many practices as possible at the Eagan Civic Arena. Unfortunately, EHA cannot purchase all of the needed ice-time from the Eagan Civic Arena, therefore EHA purchases ice from other local ice arenas.
4. Eagan-West is used by many Civic Arena customers, besides EHA. The goal is to put as many games as possible on this sheet, however, there are conflicts with the High School games, Skate School, Open Skate, etc., that limit the number of available games.

 

ICE DISTRIBUTION

EHA distributes ice in three blocks: mid-October, early-November, and early-December. The multiple blocks are used to allow for adjusting the schedules after the District game scheduling meetings are completed (these meetings are listed below). If EHA were to publish all of the ice in a single block when teams are formed, any adjustments for home/away game schedules, additional tournaments, or other special team considerations would be the responsibility of the teams to resolve. This, historically, has resulted in a number of wasted ice hours as the teams are unable to reschedule conflicts.

 

Adjustments for the 2019 -2020 season:

Based on the feedback from the 2018-2019 season, the ice schedule will continue to be published in three blocks of ice, but the next block will be published at least one week before the previous block ends, so, for example, if the first block was through 11/11, the next block would be published on or before 11/4.

 

1. Schedule Ready for Committee Review………………………………………………………….……………….Sun 9/11
2. Ice Committee Review Complete………………………………………………………………………….………..Sun 9/18
3. Team Formation/Ice Schedule Distribution (through 11/9)………………………………….……...Sun 9/25
4. Bantam/Peewee AA/A/B1,12UA/B Final Game Schedule Released from District….……..Mon 10/31
5. 2nd Distribution Ice Schedule (through 12/9)…………………………………………………………..…..Mon 11/4
6. Bantam/Peewee BB2/C, U10A/B, Squirt A/B/C Final Game Schedule Released from District….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Mon 11/14
7. JG Scheduling Meeting……………………..………………………………………………………….……………..Mon 11/28
8.  3rd Distribution Ice Schedule (12/12-End of the Season)……………………………………………....Mon 12/2

 

PURCHASING ICE

EHA purchases approximately 1,400 hours of ice per year for the association. EHA purchases all of the ice for the season during the summer months. Our initial contract ice from the Eagan Civic Arena and Woog Arena is usually received early-to mid-July. The remaining arenas are purchased “off-the-rack” starting in mid-July, including Inver Grove. By early August, all ice has been purchased for the season. The number of hours purchased from Eagan Civic Arena is limited due to High School Hockey, Arena programs and allocated ice to the Eastview Hockey Association.

 

The scheduling system used provides details regarding where the ice should be purchased to provide a balance across the season. Due to activities outside out of control, ice is not always available when and where it is desired. For example, historically, the first week of December is light due to the start of the High School game schedules and early December tournaments hosted at the Civic Arena.

GAME SCHEDULING

The game schedules will be automatically generated based on the home game slots provided by each association. There will not be any scheduling meetings this year. All tournaments and date blocks need to be provided up front so that games will not interfere with these events. Each association will have a chance to review the schedule for conflicts and once the final version is released, then any other changes that need to be made will be done through the District standard game change process. Conflicting events and date blocks cannot be honored if they are not communicated in advance of final schedule release. The ice schedule will then be released in two more blocks of time so that it allows for reduced ice waste by adjusting the schedule before the next block is published.

Games are scheduled to be back-to-back with another team of similar level. This is done at the request of the District due to referee costs, which are higher, if there is only a single game being played.

EARLY MORNING PRACTICES

During the course of the season ALL TEAMS will have practices starting before 8 AM, including 6 AM practices, on Saturdays and/or Sundays. There is always a certain number of early morning practices allocated to EHA from the Ice Arenas where ice is purchased included in the blocks of ice. The goal is to minimize early practices to the extent possible, but there will ALWAYS be some. Each team is assigned an equivalent number of practices starting at 7 AM. The number of practices is balanced across each level, Squirt/10U, Peewee/12U, Bantam/14U, and Jr Gold. The Squirt/10U teams usually have a few more of these practices a season due to the fact that they cannot practice late in the evening (after 9 PM). The goal is that no teams will have early morning practices on both Saturday & Sunday of any given weekend.

LATE EVENING PRACTICES

Late evening practices have been defined as any event starting at 9 PM or later. These practices are assigned to the Jr Gold, Bantam/14U and Peewee/12U teams. On a rare occasion, a Squirt/10U team may have one of these practices to fill a gap, but they are avoided to the extent possible. Each team is assigned a similar number of these practices based on their level. The Jr Gold and Bantam/14U will, on average, have 2-4 more of these practices for any given season.

GAPS/RUNS

The following gaps are considered acceptable for the levels given the duration of the season and hours allocated. These gaps are applied, to the extent possible, given the available ice. If your team has a gap longer than these, it can usually be filled by buying ice from the $500 association provided practice ice fund, team fund, outdoor practices, or other team based events.

• Jr Gold, Bantam A/B1, Peewee A/B1, 14U, 12U – 2 days
• Bantam B2/C, Peewee B2/C, Squirt/10U – 3 days

The system will allow up to 7 days of events before a specific team should have a day off. On occasion, usually due to tournaments, this may extend to 8 or 9 days, but these situations are minimized to the extent possible.

DRYLAND

Dryland & Treadmill is assigned based on a team practices at the Civic Arena. For games, 30 minutes is assigned 45-60 minutes before the game is scheduled to start. For practices, 60 minutes is assigned before or after a practice. Dryland scheduling, similar to ice scheduling, is balanced across the season, not a specific week or month. Coaches and managers are notified that additional dryland is available upon request.

OUTDOOR ICE

Outdoor ice is assigned to fill in gaps to the extent possible balancing across the teams.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1.Another association was skating before my team took the ice at 9:15 PM, how is this possible?

EHA ice is purchased over the summer where the Civic Arena allocates all of their ice to all of their contract customers. There is a return process that allows some of that ice to come back to the arena available to be purchased “off-the-shelf” which is what happens in these situations.

 

 

2.We had an early morning practice and the ice was not used after our practice. Couldn’t we have had the later hour?

This situation has arisen for a few reasons in the past. (1) The ice was not available when EHA purchased ice hours over the summer as it was sold to another arena customer. (2) The team assigned decided not to stake due to a conflict that arose after the schedule was published (i.e. scrimmage, tournament, etc.)

 

Team managers can review the schedule that is available on the website for all teams, and contact the respective team managers to make adjustments that the other teams will be using the later ice time.

 

3.Why do we have to skate at other arenas outside of Eagan?

EHA purchases approximately 1,400 hours of ice to fulfill the needs of all teams, clinics, tournaments, etc. A majority of the ice is purchased from the Eagan Civic Arena, but given the needs of other Civic Arena customers, including the Skate School, Open Skate, and the High Schools, not all hours needed are able to be purchased in Eagan.

4.Why are there gaps in the schedule?

Large gaps, such as 3 or 4 days, occur because there was not enough weekday ice to fill in all the gaps. This usually occurs in December and January when there are many High School games and tournaments that increase the demand for ice.

There are a few options available to teams to fill these gaps. (1) Teams have been allocated $500 to purchase additional practice hours. (2) Team managers and coaches are notified of the expected gaps as early as possible so they can identify scrimmages, tournaments, or other activities that can fill the gap. (3) Dryland or Outdoor Ice can be reserved.

5.When do we get our outdoor ice?

Outdoor ice is received from the city around Thanksgiving to start in mid-December depending on weather. The outdoor ice is distributed to teams in early December.