Belleville Minor Hockey Association
Local League Formation and Registration Information
2010-2011 Season

Over the past two years BMHA has been striving to maximize the amount of ice available for the use and development of our Local League players. We have done this by securing and committing to more ice with the City of Belleville. We have also added additional ice in the form of the Tournament of Champions at year end and removed time allocated to playoffs during the regular season thereby extending regular season play.

The result has been an increase in the amount of hours on the ice for Tyke through to Bantam from approximately 30-32 hours three years ago to approximately 45 hours today. Timbits is remaining at about 32 hours and the Midget Division remains less than the other divisions because they do not utilize practice ice.

The City of Belleville has reached its limit in terms of ice availability. In turn BMHA has also reached its limit in terms of the ability to supply more programming. Therefore, the BMHA Board would like all of our families to know that we will be structuring our Local League according to the following limitations in terms of Numbers of Teams. BMHA is able to support the running of 44 Local League teams. The below chart reflects an example of this structure per division, Numbers of players per team and the total available spots in Local League. Actual teams will be formed based on registration numbers to a total of 44 teams.

The above numbers of teams per division is the common experience of BMHA over the last number of years. We will only run an even number of teams in order to maximize playing time for each team and to ensure that all players are given the opportunity to play the same number of games and practices. Only slight or moderate modification will be made to the above structure after registration is closed and we have an exact database of players.

Registration will begin on August 1, 2010. You may register online, or at the BMHA office or at one of our two scheduled registration nights August 12th and August 24th (See Web Page for time and place). Registration will officially close on August 31, 2010 at midnight. During this period of time all players will be placed on teams as they are received. Once one team is full the next registrations will be placed on the next team in that division. This process will be followed until all teams are filled. There will not be a draft night for any divisions this year. (The building of 1 team is based on number of registered not actual physical registration forms, teams will be built after the close of registration)

Any registrations received after this time will be placed in a "waiting list file” in the order that they are received. From September 1st to September 22nd final team lists will be produced from the registrations received prior to September 1st and the waiting list file. Our office needs this time to solidify the base registration and prepare team rosters for coaches and to adjust for players successful at moving to the Representative Hockey Program after tryouts. Either during this time frame or as soon as possible after the 22nd of September any players still on the waiting list may or may not be able to be placed on teams with respect to availability of space limitations outlined earlier in this document.

Once the office has prepared all the team lists, a coaches meeting will be held with the Convener of the relevant Division, the V.P. of Local League and the Executive Director to make any minor adjustments to team lists for valid reasons like keeping a father coach together with a playing son or daughter. These minor adjustments to team lists will be solely approvable by the V.P. Local League, the Executive Director and the Convener.

Please get your registration done early to avoid disappointment!