Success leading to Palmer hockey growth

MAT-SU — State championship wins, upcoming Palmer Ice Arena renovations, and the launch of a new website, new events and new teams are easing the Pioneer Amateur Hockey Association into a more advantageous position for growing its program, PAHA officials say.

“We’re tailoring the programs to the kids that we have, and it also allows some attraction to kids who are currently in other associations,” PAHA board president Kirk Payne said.

The nonprofit association recently added comp Tier II Peewee and Bantam teams, developed a girls program, restructured its Mite hockey offerings and will launch a three-on-three Squirt-age tournament.

PAHA’s Peewee C and Squirt D White teams brought home top honors from the Alaska State Hockey Association Tournament in March, while PAHA’s Bantam C and D and Squirt C teams took home second-place honors from the tournament.

That Peewee C win convinced Brian Fish and Tim Popowski the time was right to launch Tier II comp hockey teams within the PAHA program. The two coaches will manage a Bantam comp team, while Chris Diltz will coach a Peewee comp team. Both teams will be coed.

The Alaska State Hockey Association oversees comp teams throughout the year and keeps track of players and player points online. ASHA directors in April approved PAHA’s plan to create the comp teams.

A July 19 meeting is scheduled at the Palmer Ice Arena for parents interested in obtaining information about PAHA’s comp program. Coaches at the meeting will answer questions about comp expectations for parents, ice bills and plans for the season. A time for the meeting had not been determined by press time; people may visit palmerhockey.org for updated information. Tryouts for comp teams are set for Aug. 1-3 at Palmer Ice Arena.

Comp hockey requires more commitment from players, coaches and parents, Popowski said. Its season starts sooner and the cost to participate is slightly higher than in recreational hockey.

Popowski said he wants to include kids not only from within PAHA, but from other hockey programs in or near the Valley. PAHA hasn’t had a comp team before.

“We wanted to do it last year, but we just kind of ran out of time,” he said. “All the pieces fell into place this year. We have our numbers up now. As an association, it allows us to kind of reach out there a little bit, see where our kids are as far as their ability as hockey players. We want our kids to develop more skills — skating, stick-handling — have more time on the ice and coaches there all the time to help. We just wanted to stick our foot in the door and try it.”

More is expected of players on comp teams.

“In comp, you don’t miss practice, you don’t miss games, you’re there every practice, on every sheet,” Popowski said. “There are kids in rec who are there to have a great time and play hockey with friends, and there are kids who want to step it up a notch.”

The new comp teams would play against Mat-Su Amateur Hockey Association, Junior Avalanche and Eagle River’s Alaska Blue Devils teams.

“The main assumption is that comp teams have a higher ice bill every month than the rec teams do,” he said. “We just want to be smart, keep that down by sharing ice with other teams. We want to make sure we don’t reach too deep in anybody’s pockets, keep the ice bills down as much as they can.”

Palmer Ice Arena improvements

A second round of construction will happen at the Palmer Ice Arena this summer after the city awards a design-build contract for an approximately 25-by-140-foot single-bay extension of the existing facility.

The project will include earthwork, demolition of parts of the existing pre-engineered metal structure, a concrete slab on grade, a mezzanine with concrete on a pan deck, interior renovation, locker rooms, restrooms, electrical and mechanical work, upgraded fire alarm system and other improvements. The restrooms will be available for people using the arena and adjacent soccer fields.

Sealed bids will be opened publicly and read at 4 p.m., June 17 at the Palmer City Hall council chambers, 231 West Evergreen Ave.

Palmer City Council last July unanimously approved spending more than $800,000 on the first phase of renovations, which resulted in a new raised viewing platform, fabrication of structural support for new bleachers, assembly and installation of city-supplied bleachers and clearing and grubbing for parking lot expansion.

At press time, city officials were awaiting word about whether $400,000 intended for this year’s phase of renovations would remain in the state capital budget.

“The reason for the renovations is to complete and fulfill that ice rink,” said Brad Hanson, a Palmer City Council member and longtime hockey and football coach. “We want to make it more of a multiuse facility, get to 1,100 seats. A lot of people don’t understand the history of this ice rink. We started with a bare minimum, far from complete. When you have a house that’s almost done you kind of want to complete it all. This is that case. I hope this draws a conclusion to it.”

New website

PAHA now has a new, more nimble way for its participants and others curious about the association to access team news and other information online.

“The old website wasn’t user-friendly,” said Colleen Waltz, PAHA board secretary. “We couldn’t easily update information. It was inefficient.”

The new PAHA website — palmerhockey.org — offers possibilities the old website couldn’t provide, Waltz said.

“PAHA is now offering online registration for the upcoming skills clinic, something we weren’t able to do in the past,” she said. “We just wanted information to be readily available not only to people within the association but also people in the community.”

Girls on the ice

PAHA is currently nurturing a girls program, building on the girls Peewee team it put in place last year.

Kirk Payne, PAHA board president, says his vision of the program this year is for girls who are currently rostered on coed teams and want to have an opportunity spend at least some time playing hockey with all girls.

“Girls can be girls for an hour on the ice,” he said.

Payne said a group of about a dozen PAHA girls between the ages of 8 and 13 has been moving up through the Mite and Squirt ranks.

“It is an opportunity for those girls to develop through the years as a core group and they can feed into high school teams if they want to take it that far,” Payne said. “PAHA would welcome other girls from other associations that would want to be part of that group to come and participate with our girls.”

Anyone interested in learning more about the PAHA girls hockey program may visit palmerhockey.org.

3-on-3 Squirt tourney in the works

Pioneer Amateur Hockey Association is launching a new three-on-three Squirt-level (ages 8-10) tournament at the Palmer Ice Arena this summer. The new event is set to take place in late August during the Alaska State Fair.

“It was actually building on suggestions that (Palmer Ice Arena manager) Steve MacSwain had about what he had seen in Europe — a festival-type, three-on-three hockey tournament wrapped into a community event,” said Leslie Senden, the PAHA board’s vice president. “Having it during the fair, it would be a fun atmosphere and give people another reason to come to Palmer.”

Arrangements have not been finalized, Senden said, but the tournament is likely to feature three cross-ice games at the same time, each hour.

“The players will get to handle the puck a lot more, shoot a lot more and we’ll get more kids on the ice,” Senden said. “Each team would have three skaters, one sub and a goalie. From that, there are any number of different ways to structure the tournament.”

Tournament dates, times and other information will be available in the coming weeks. People may visit www.palmerhockey.org for updates.

Mighty Mites

PAHA is restructuring its 2011-12 Mite program, following guidelines established in USA Hockey’s American Development Model.

With ADM in mind, coach Nick DeCovich suggested instituting a mid-October start date for skills clinics and practices; delaying scheduling of games until late November; preventing gaps in divisions; allowing Mites below the C level to play only cross-ice or half-ice games; allocating 50-60 sheets of ice for the year, including all practices, games and tournaments; striving to have all Mites share the same sheet of ice for practices; recruiting five to six coaches and defining Mites as players 5 to 8 years old, with at least a year of experience and the appropriate skills and maturity.

“It makes hockey more accessible to more kids,” DeCovich said. “It’s simple. The more kids you put on the ice at one time, the cheaper it is. Also, it makes it more fun for the kids and speeds up their development because they touch the puck more, get more stick-handling time. It emphasizes skills versus emphasizing rules. I can’t see a downside to getting more kids involved in hockey.”