Low Numbers in the Summer Heat

The summer heat has finally entered the land of morning calm and with it has brought the idea of summer fun and summer plane rides to far away lands. From the dawn of the first Chiefs skate, we have had a very difficult time filling summer rosters and this year has not been any different.

The team has been steadily losing money for some time now. It is a bit of a concern as we can’t afford to lose much more or else we’ll be in the red. Unfortunately, we don’t have a bank to bail us out if that ever occurs. Our only alternative would be to cease one of our ice times and hope that we can get it back come September. That said I believe we only need to make it through this month and then we can hold a fund-raiser in September to help keep us afloat. We will also hold an inter-squad tourney in mid to late September (at least that’s the plan) which will also help the team (not to mention that it’ll be a blast.) One of the ideas mentioned has been to have business cards made so everyone on the team can help recruit some skaters. We’ll see how it goes.

Last Wednesday was a tight skate reminiscent of early Chiefs outings. We had one sub, four skaters and two skinny goalies called Iron and Pipe. It was an amazing skate, fast paced and filled with nice rushes. Iron put up a good fight but was no match for the dark team who repeatedly hit him between the eyes. First star was awarded to the subs who gave everyone time to catch their breaths. The Second star was awarded to all ten players who showed up for the skate without them we wouldn’t even have a team right now. The third star was awarded to Pipe for playing that much better than Iron.

Sunday was a game of first. The numbers were again disappointing (down to 9 skaters) but we did have two brave souls strap on the pads; ‘Stand-up Tommy’ at one end and Aaron Geddes at the other. That’s right Ryan, you missed your chance to wind-up and slap one right to Aaron. For a guy who refused to play nets, Aaron played pretty well. He had a few lapses when he forgot where he was and started skating around the net as if he was playing D. He then quickly realized that goalie skates don’t have any edges and flew all over the ice. Still, he was definitely in the top tier of first time goalies for the Chiefs. This was his second try at stopping pucks; the first of which was back in Atom hockey. First Star: Aaron for getting over his fear of the puck. Second Star: Tommy for being a trooper and tending nets even though it aggravated his knee. Third Star: The stalagmites that are ever growing on the downstairs ice.

The big story of the past few ice times has been our very low numbers. Hopefully we can find a way to remedy this before it gets out of control.

I haven't heard anything about the August ice times yet...