Minutes of Cleveland Suburban Hockey League General Meeting - February 16, 2006

Programs absent: Cleveland Hts., Cleveland Skating Club, Euclid, Geauga, Gilmour, Harborcreek, Ohio Flames and Shaker. Board Members absent: Chris Kendel, Don Lewis, and John Stojak

Motion to approve minutes of October 11, 2006 meeting made by Betty Ann Maulorico. Second by Dave Pulaski. All in favor, motion carried.

Playoffs – today is final day of regular season, all division seedings have been determined with exception of Mite AA, final game tonight will decide that division. Playoff schedule has been posted on web, please check for updated version reflecting slight change in start time of two games for first round weekend Feb 24-25. The teams involved have already been notified and acknowledged revision. Very few questions received regarding tie-breaking formula. Columbus Capitals and Columbus Bluejackets have a first round game between two of their teams, have requested Board allow that game to be held at a Columbus rink to save on travel time and expense. The Board will meet after the general meeting to discuss this.

Player Eligibility Forms for Playoff Participation were sent via email document attachment to all program directors, as well as forms distributed to all programs attending tonight’s meeting. Coaches of teams advancing to playoffs much declare if any players are not eligible for playoffs if they did not meet the 50% rule, that is, did not participate in 50% of the teams regular season CSHL league games. If all players are eligible the coach still needs to submit a form stating that fact, for the league’s records. Please send completed forms to Terry Horonzy at the league office either via email, US mail or fax. Program directors may submit one form encompassing all of their teams if so desired. If a player did not participate due to injury the coach may request the board to grant a waiver allowing that player to participate in the playoffs.

Division winners receive a banner and individual trophies for players and coaches. Playoff Champions will receive a banner and individual player/coach trophies. Red Banners for AA divisions, White for A divisions and Blue for B divisions. Playoff runner-ups will receive a large team trophy and individual trophies for players/coaches. Commerative T-shirts will be available for sale for division winners. New this year Playoff Qualifier T-shirts are also available for sale for all teams participating in playoffs. These shirts must be pre-ordered, team sales only, no individual sales. Order forms are on the website along with the shirt designs. Deadline to place orders is Sunday, February 19. Teams advancing to division championship games will be able to buy playoff championship t-shirts on site at Iceland Arena in Strongsville during championship weekend March 5-6. Division winner banners and trophies, plus pre-ordered t-shirts will be available for pick up at Strongsville during championship weekend as well.

USA Hockey Associate District Registrar Cathy Fievet distributed patch request forms (hat trick, playmaker, shut out) to attending program directors, will send additional forms to program registrars. If any one has questions regarding upcoming state playoffs at Peewee, Bantam and Midget levels please direct those to Cathy.

Elections – there are 4 Board Director positions that are up for election at the Annual League meeting to be held Monday, May 15, 7 pm at Garfield Civic Center. Mike Cordish, Chris Kendel and Ron Short will have completed their two-year term of service, and John Stojak will have completed his one year of service. John was elected last year to complete the term of resigning Board member Roger Galippo. The 4 positions elected will start a two-year term of service beginning on May 15, 2006 and concluding at the annual meeting in May 2008.

If you are interested in running for a Board Director position please notify Terry Horonzy at least 2 weeks prior to the May meeting. Candidates will be asked to give a short (5 minute) speech introducing themselves and explaining why they are seeking to serve on the Board of Directors. The league reserves the right to post the names of the candidates on the website as well. Nominations will also be accepted from the floor for write-in candidates at the May 15 meeting.

Question on scoresheets; what can be done if goals, assists and possible penalties are not assigned to correct player number by person recording the scoresheet? Ideally scoresheet should be reviewed by coach before leaving the ice and any corrections made then. But this is not always possible and sometimes inaccuracies are not noticed until weeks after the game has been played, when statistician is compiling information. As far as goals, assists and minor penalties, the league does not track this and teams can correct the information for their own stat sheets.  Major penalties, i.e game misconducts, are monitored by the league and inaccurate recording could potentially affect a player’s eligibility. The league relies on an honor system whereby scorekeepers and team statisticians try to be as accurate as possible. Notes can always be stapled to scoresheet copies to clarify discrepancies, this is preferred rather than adding notations to the scoresheet after the copies have been distributed to teams and referees.

Review of 2005-2006 season, suggestions for 2006-2007; despite the low turnout and short agendas that are the norm for December and January meetings, it was requested that these be reinstated for next season. For 05-06 the December and January regular league meetings were replaced by board of director meetings. The November league meeting also was cancelled due to time constraints between team placement decisions and preparing the regular season scheduling session. This created the unfortunate effect of not allowing the program directors to meet in session to review team placements and division determinations prior to the Saturday scheduling session. Next season Halloween should not caused a meeting scheduling conflict as it did this year, so that situation will not be repeated. The league will look into setting up a conference call system for next season.

Officiating received high marks over all, suggestion made that perhaps more high arm, forearm to the face/helmet could have been called.

In 06-07 there will be a few changes to the preseason process. Teams will again play preseason games against opponents selected by the board based on initial rankings. Those teams wishing to schedule additional games will be strongly encourage to do so against teams which are +10 or –10 from their team RPI ranking. Example team 217 should schedule teams 201-207 or 227-237. This gives better data when a team goes 0-8 or 8-0 and is petitioning to move up or down in the final rankings. The Board will reserve approx 4 sheets of ice for the last week of preseason. Certain teams may be required to play a mandatory game that weekend if the Board requires more information to determine that team’s regular season placement. Once the RPI ranking are published they will list teams only from 1-50, without arbitrary delineations between AA, A1, etc. levels. Petitioning teams will make request to move above a certain number of teams, ex. From ranking 227 to 223, not petition to play a specific level, example A2 rather than A3. The division levels and number of teams within levels will be determined by the ranking program after petitioning replacement, based on mathematically dividing teams into groups of no less than 7, no more than 9 teams per level.

Last season it was suggested that a round-robin of games be scheduled whereby the top 8 teams in a division could play 3-4 of their RPI games in one weekend at one location. This is a great idea but was not able to be implemented in time for last season. Programs wishing to host this “festival” concept must start planning now and have dates and game times finalized by next August.

Regular season scheduling sessions: team reps will reconvene in rooms to receive printed schedules, check for errors and work out corrections before leaving the building. Revised printed schedules will be distributed at that time. This should reduce the number of changes found after leaving for the day, requiring changing via the web during the free change period.

Committee Reports:

Finance- A line item was omitted from the final bills and revised bills have been distributed. Any questions please see Betty Ann. Financial statement for 05-06 season and budget for 06-07 will be discussed at March meeting.

Rules – Mitch Green distributed a form requesting suggestions for rule changes and clarifications, and posted a similar request on the message board as well. Mitch hopes to have a list of suggested rule changes prepared for distribution at the March meeting Proposed changes to the Standing Rules will be drafted and distributed for review to the program directors by April 15. Rule revisions will be discussed and voted on at the May meeting.

Referees: All playoff games assigned, officials aware of extra scrutiny these games require. 05-06 very successful for recruitment of new referees, projecting high retention. Thanks to coaches for patience with new refs.

CSHL 35^th Anniversary/MidAm District Annual Summer Meeting; June 16-18 at Cleveland Renaissance Hotel. Information sessions will run noon-5pm on Saturday, reception 5-7:30 Saturday evening. MidAm meeting and elections Sunday morning tentatively scheduled 10am-noon. Level I, II and III coaching clinics being held in conjunction same weekend. More details to follow, go to cshlhockey.org and midamhockey.com for updates. We are asking for outstanding attendance from our league members, this is in our backyard and is also our anniversary celebration.

Select League: Season wrapping up, two teams will be participating in State playoffs. Looking for host program for next season, probably will be forming independent teams rather than continuing format of players able to play on both select and home programs.

Discipline: Game misconduct list distributed. No coaches or players accumulated number of game misconducts to require immediate suspension pending a hearing, although some are close and bear watching. Effective end of playoffs all players and coaches have clean slate. Game misconducts acquired in spring league games will count against their 06-07 totals.

Two protests heard by Board; one involving calls by officials, denied; $50 protest fee never received, Board cannot review protests concerning referee decisions; second was curfew protest of an 8pm Monday night game at North Olmsted. There have been numerous complaints by several teams during the season of this ice slot; zamboni drivers force issue by insisting on doing ice cuts at specific time, even though next two ice slots are contracted by North Olmsted program. This petition would have been allowed excepting once again $50 protest fee not received. North Olmsted is aware of ongoing problem with city workers and will take steps to resolve.

Croatian Bantam team is coming to Cleveland April 24-26, several programs expressed interest in playing a game, biggest need is to find host families to billet players during stay. Anyone able to assist please contact Terry.

Motion to adjourn by Mike Cordish. Second by Ron Short. All in favor, motion approved, meeting adjourned. Next league meeting will be Tuesday, March 14 2006, 7pm, Garfield Civic Center.