SSWHL Meeting Minutes
Teams Present: Assabet, Bears, Black Ice,
Challengers, Chaos, Crush, Demolition Divas, Eagles, ECW B, Hell’s Belles, Lightning,
Menotomy Rockets, New England Pride, Nighthawks B,
Nighthawks, Noreasters, Outlaws, Pirates,
Board members present: Laura Bowser, President; Jenn
Devlin, VP; Louise Cardinale, Treasurer; Judy
Sheldon, Secretary
1.
Laura Bowser led a discussion on discipline
problems from last year. Laura tried to
look into every complaint, including complaints from fans, about bad behavior
that they saw on the ice. There was one
team and one player in particular that caused a great deal of problems. Comments from the teams included “we have
been lucky that so far no one was seriously hurt”; also suggestions for more
restrictive rules for suspensions after multiple dangerous penalties. The league needs to have assurance from teams
that they will be able to control their players.
2. Elections: Laura Bowser was unanimously
re-elected as league president.
3. Treasurer’s Report:
Louise Cardinale presented a
proposal from Nick Cardinale that the officers should
receive a $250 stipend plus expenses for all their work for the league, and
that the stipend for the scheduler should rise by $100 to $600. We will vote on this at the August meeting.
We will have the total league cost for the year for teams
once all the ice contracts have been negotiated. We have added the Northstar
Youth Forum rink in Westboro on Sundays from
The suggestion is to not get any Saturday ice for this
coming year, only Sunday ice.
The rinks are asking for payments earlier in the
season. The Treasurer needs to raise the
August payment to $500 per team, and the September payment to $1500. Subsequent payments will be similar to past
years.
4. New teams:
The league should be able to get sufficient ice to
accommodate the four new teams that have applied to join the league. At the August meeting, the new teams need to
pay the $200 league buy-in fee, the $500 deposit, and the $150 escrow forfeit
fee. Any teams that used up their
forfeit fee last year need to replenish it.
New teams must also submit team rosters at the August meeting with 13
players plus a goalie.
The following new teams were unanimously voted in to the
league pending final confirmation that additional ice is available.
Menotomy
Rockets – D
Challengers – C1
Crush – C2
Teams that we have not heard from on whether they are
returning for next year:
5. Scheduler’s Report
Cynara Wu will send out a survey for teams to complete and send back
ASAP on home rink and other preferences.
She is not sure that “weekend off” requests will work – all teams want
the same weekends off and we still have ice paid for. The Darcy tournament in September is one
example, but this may be ok as
6. Referee in Chief’s Report
Bill Paulsen explained that this is a Rule Change year at
USA Hockey and described some of the important changes:
• Boarding, High Sticking and Charging – have been changed
to Minor Misconduct penalties. This
means a
• Head Contact – if hands slide up from chest/shoulder hit
to contact the head – Minor Misconduct penalty also. (Direct Contact to Head –
still a Major with no changes.)
• Misconducts – If a player receives a second misconduct
penalty in a game, they will be assessed a game misconduct (thrown out of
current game and must miss the next game).
• Rules will not change again for four years.
Bill’s summary of last year: went well except for a couple
of problems, also some teams just seem not to like each other. Please don’t argue with the refs – if you
have a problem with a ref, contact Laura after the game and she will contact
Bill.
7. Registration
report
Judy Sheldon explained that new teams need to register
with USA Hockey, and if they don’t already have access to USA Hockey’s Cybersport software, she will create
Registration details will be sent out in an email shortly.
Next meeting: