Starting a League for +40

[MonkeyNuke]

Looking for tips/advice in starting a league for +40 with the local rink. Want to make it a Draft league to keep talent even amongst teams. What can the rink do to help promote a new league? What can players do to help themselves?

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[SouthpawTRK]

At Sharks Ice in San Jose, they have two different adult recreational leagues; one that is for 18 and over and another league that is strictly for those that are 35+.

The latter league plays on one specific day per week and has a gathering before the season starts to draft players to focus on having balanced teams for the season.

Even though I'd easily qualify for the +35 league; I elected to join the league for the 18 and over. The league I play in has a good mix of skilled and unskilled players; and there are guys that are easily 10-15 years my senior that play in that league.

 

[Ribosome]

I think a website is the best thing a new league can have. I'm currently looking for a league right now and it's incredibly frustrating to find any information on these websites with no information or out of date info.

When I was at school, we found the league we played in via the rinks website and it was neat and put together well. It wasn't professionally done or anything like that, but looking at it made me think... alright this leagues got their **** together.

So a neat website and maybe posters on the front doors. I know a bunch of rinks put large posters advertising things on the windows of the front doors. Literally everyone is forced to see/read them.

Note: I've never started a league, and never intend to -- these are just some observations as a player myself. Good luck, I think once you find a core group of guys then you can build around that. Seems like every rink has those 10-15 guys that show up all the time, play with all the teams and are buddies with everyone.

 

[mbeam]

I know a guy who started a beginners league in a city that really didn't have much going on for anyone wanting to learn, or just looking for low level players to play with. What he did to start was get a website made and actually just go around to all the local bars and pubs and post flyers in the washrooms. Word spread and for their first season they had an 8 league team. Fast forward a few years and I believe they have around 50 teams through six tiers with a huge range of skill levels.

I think what really helped them is that they ran it for fun and always made themselves accessible. It really showed that the operators of the league absolutely cared about feedback and suggestions and, most importantly, FUN.

I think starting a draft league might be a little more difficult. Usually people have friends they want to play with and such so mostly you'd be appealing to single registrants? Might be more difficult to generate a lot of interest. (I personally would love to play in a draft league. It could be like a fantasy league. LARP Hockey )

 

[Rink Bum]

http://prohockeynetwork.com/

I was looking into joining about a couple of years ago but Monday nights didn't fit with my schedule at the time. They have a draft system and also a try-out night to determine the skill level so teams can be evenly distributed. I think they started with 4 teams and have expanded to 8.

I contacted the guys running the league and I have to say they were great with responses and information. You could try contacting the guys for some advice.

If you don't have a core group of people to make it work it could be tough. Better to start a 40+ pickup every week and try to see who can be committed on an idea of starting a 40+ league with a mix of talent via draft.

As others have said, get a website up for sign-ups, information, and be accessible to answer questions.

 

[Trojan35]

At Sharks Ice in San Jose, they have two different adult recreational leagues; one that is for 18 and over and another league that is strictly for those that are 35+.

The latter league plays on one specific day per week and has a gathering before the season starts to draft players to focus on having balanced teams for the season.

Even though I'd easily qualify for the +35 league; I elected to join the league for the 18 and over. The league I play in has a good mix of skilled and unskilled players; and there are guys that are easily 10-15 years my senior that play in that league.

I'll add to this:

It does not keep track of stats, to try and keep things friendly.
It has a much stricter penalty standard. No touchy!
In the regular leagues, 4 penalties in a single game is a misconduct. In over 35, 2 penalties means you're done.
It lets goalies 30+ play because goalie is tough at 50 :p. Considering your league is just starting out, you might want to take whatever you can get at goalie.

The 35+ league isn't just no-check, it really is close to no-contact. And I think that's the niche 40+ or 50+ leagues fill.

 

[mooseOAK*]

Looking for tips/advice in starting a league for +40 with the local rink. Want to make it a Draft league to keep talent even amongst teams. What can the rink do to help promote a new league? What can players do to help themselves?

I think that you need to work with the people that run the existing leagues and determine how many players are interested by doing an e-mail poll or something similar. There will be some guys who aren't interested in chasing 20 year olds around but the day of the week and times are an issue also. Time slots need to be open.

My rink has ten 40+ teams split up into an A and a B division and play by the same rules as everyone else.