Lethbridge Minor Hockey Association sees a player increase

By Lethbridge Herald on October 3, 2022.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge Minor Hockey Association is pleased with amount of registrants for the 2022-2023 season.

“For the first time, we’re going to be over the 1,000, towards the 1,100 kids again,” said Keith Hitchcock, LMHA general manager.

“Which haven’t been for almost four years now. We’re up in just about every division; we’re up in the female category too by one or two teams there. We’ve got a team in every division in female  right from the Junior Eagles right down to U7. So we’ve got 10 female teams.”

Additions are coming to the U9 program this season.

“We’re going to add some power skating, we’re going to add some skill training for the kids,” said Hitchcock.

“We’re going to see if we can partner up with our branding with the Hurricanes, see if we can get some Hurricanes out on the ice and just add some components. (We want) to work a little more with the coaches and get them a little more (familiarized) with practice plans and everything like that … We’re pleased with the program. We’re moving along, we’re coming to the tail end now, we expect to be all done before the long weekend in Thanksgiving.”

 LMHA has started its new programming at the U13AA level where Hockey Alberta has moved to just one team at that level.

The U11 development program through Hockey Alberta, which is almost top-tiered team, is just in the midst of selecting its roster.

Coaches have been secured at every level except for the U11 city teams.

The Association will run 12 tournaments this year.

“We just ran the U13 AA exhibition tournament and we have our big one coming up in October, our U17AAA, which is a new program,” said Hitchcock.

“It used to be a U16AAA. It’s the Logan Boulet Memorial that’s in the middle of October and that’ll be our big start to all of our tournaments.”

The U17AAA tournament will be on Oct. 14-16,  U18AA tournament on  Nov. 25-27, U15 Tier 1 from Dec. 9-11, U12 Tiers 1 and 2 on Jan. 6-8, 2023, U13 City Jan. 13-15, U15AA from Jan. 20-23, U11 City Jan. 27-29 and Feb. 3-5 will be the weekend for U9 City event.

“Put the fun back in the game,” said Hitchcock, when asked about what LMHA is looking forward to the most this year.

“There’s been a lot of talk obviously about other things outside the game and we want to take that out of the game and just put the fun back in. We’re working on our elite side right now. We’re working on a new program through the Movember group on the mental aspect of the game and mental health. We start that in October through our teams and we’re just trying to become aware of what’s out there.”

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