BTHL Survey Return Summary

BTHL Survey Summary Report

Surveys Received = 29

Your Position: 1-Board Member , 4-Coach , 5-Team Manager , 1-Team Scheduler , 18-Other
- If other, please identify: parent
  player
  Parent
  player
  Club Treasurer and Team Treasurer
  Todd Smith
  Team Coordinator (hotels, parties, etc)
  parent
  parent
  Travel Player Parent
  parent
  Parent
  parent
  Granmother of #11
  parent
  parent
  Asst coach
Your Association/Team: 3-Cincinnati Amateur Hockey Assn, 1-Dayton Bluehawks Youth Hockey, 1-Fort Wayne Youth Hockey, 1-Indianapolis Youth Hockey Assn, 1-CAHA Bluejackets, 2-Columbus Chill Youth Hockey, 7-Butler County, 1-Athens Youth Hockey Assoc., 1-Louisville Youth Hockey Assn, 6-Dayton Gems, 5-Easton Youth Hockey
If representing a team:
- Your age classification: 3-Mite, 8-Squirt , 7-PeeWee , 4-Bantam , 2-Midget , 5-None
- Your level: 11-A, 12-AA , 6-None
Overall, how would you rate your experience with the BTHL? 6-Excellent, 17-Good , 2-OK , 3-Fair , 1-No response
How would you rate the overall competition within the division during regular season play? 2-Excellent (well balanced), 15-Good (Overall good competition) , 9-OK (Some good/some not) , 3-Fair (Many uncompetive games)
- Additional comments: Some teams should have been AA....
  associations that only have one travel team should be made to play AA a good example is Butler County Squirt A team. This year they lost 1 league game all year and won most games by blow outs. They also won AA tournaments they played in and it was not fair to the other A teams.
  Butler County had no business playing Squirt A. Seed the teams into strong and weak to improve league play.
  Teams need to play house B instead of wanting to have the status they clearly brag about and plaster all over their clothing to be "travel hockey" when they are not worthy of the challange. If they want to play it then do not whine. Also Cincinnati Squirt A that whined the loudes(especially the coach after being beaten in the league tournament......and the parents that publicly stated that we had 4 good players,no defense and weak goalies) had the SAME number of second year players. Butler had a kid out with a broken collar bone and started the season with 8 players. Most(including Cincinnati) had THREE lines. Suck it up when you are beaten. STOP the whining .....When you are outplayed behave like a grown up. What example are you teaching your kids? That someone CHEATED you to win? Also parents (Ie Cincinati) Should never be a ref in a league game
  teams were pretty weak
  Good but we were a first year team in AA.
  to many non competive games
  Overall, very good. Seeing the kids over-come a very short bench with hard work and HUGE hearts to become a very good team was the most rewarding part. People may complain, but NO ONE knew what this season was going to bring given that we barely had enough kids to field a team. Being shorthanded taught these boys to stay out of the "Box" and to become the most selfless group I've ever seen. I think this a good life lesson for them and one that should be emulated by others (especially whining parents).
  In Read the results of your survey I cann't believe how some people complain. The first thing about playing should be team play and sportsmanship. I wonder how many other teams if they were going into a season with only 9 skaters and two goalies what would they be thinking. No one had a crystal ball for the tear end results. At any one time one or more player could have been out with an injury. How many young men could skate the whole time on the ice. This group of young men and their parents are the most unselfish folks I have been around I am very very proud to refer to the as "Grandma's Boys". I did not once see our coaches or boys refuse to shake hands or did I see our coaches wolk off the ice and leave the boys out there by themselves. Grandma for #11 and proud of it!
  AA teams should not be playing in the A division (Butler County)
  This was our first year as a travel Mite team and I think we learned valuable lessons from playing against good competitive teams.
Scheduling:
1. Overall, how would you rate the Scheduling, when games scheduled, length of season, etc? 4-Excellent, 18-Good , 6-OK , 1-Poor
2. Did you attend the September 16, 2000 Scheduling Meeting in Dayton? 8-Yes, 21-No
3. When are you team tryouts/selections held? June 2001
  Mid to late August
  Late April
  This year they are the end of April but last year they were in August
  April-May
  may
  june
  June
  for the first time, they are being held at the end of the regular season in March
  june
  june/july
  May-June - Easton Chiller Hockey Arena
  late summer in the past--earlier this year (June)
  June-July
  June
  Registration takes place in May, tryouts begin in June and final cuts taking place in August
  May 1,2 midget May 20 peewee
  August
4. If there were a perfect date for the Scheduling Meeting, when would it be? Aug 2001
  1st week of September
  Early September
  Unknown
  Early September
  early sept
  na
  N/A
  September
  There is no such thing as a perfect date!
5. Other comments on Scheduling: I would strongly suggest that each team turn in their open ice before the scheduling meeting. These open ice times for all of the teams should be put into a spread sheet. This would help to expidite the scheduling process and eliminate some of the rescheduling and cancellations. If a template can be made, you could have one scheduler in each bracket fill in the open ice times. I would rather see the scheduling meeting pushed back to accomplish this!
  Don't make a team travel 2 hours for 1 game,try and play at least 2
  require 2 league games per visit...tthere's too much travel to just play one
  Since this was our first year, our ice scheduler went in cold, however I think he did the best he possibly could. I liked seeing 2 scheduled games a day because it made the trip worth it!
Tournament:
1. How would you rate the end of season Tournament? 2-Excellent, 14-Good , 6-OK , 5-Fair , 2-Poor
2. How would you rate the fees? 2-Below average (Good), 12-About average (OK) , 2-Above Average (Bad) , 13-Don't know
3. Tournament location/weekend. Do you... 17-like the tournament in one location, 4-like spreading out , 8-No preference
4. Plans for the Tournament were discussed at the September Scheduling Meeting and were discussed at subsequent BTHL Board meetings. Updates were posted on the BTHL Web page with brackets, game times, hotel information, fees, etc.
  - Did you check the Web page for updates? 24-Yes, 5-No
  - Do you think you were sufficiently kept informed about the tournament? 19-Yes, 10-No
5. Other comments on the tournament: Our team did not know that we had to pay for this tournament. We thought it was in the fees paid at the beginning of the year. Alot of money for single elimination tournament (two games).
  tournament needs to be in a central location and you need to check to see if there are other major events taking place in the same area before selecting a place. hotels were very unfreindly towards hockey families
  louisville was a bad place to hold the tournament.
  Centralized location(s) could be used year to year in order to keep travel time down to a minimum
  Seemed like apirings took awhile as did the pricing and details. The Tournament was organized and fun.
  Buckeye needs to revisit high school players coming back for the end of year tournament. I believe the state requires those players to atleast play 8 league games to be eligible for the tournament. Also the way the tournament is seated should be 1 format passed down by the buckeye as a must use format and any deviation be approved by all parties involved but ultimately Buckeye calls the shots. What happened to us in Louisville this year was unfair, unspeakable, and unforgettable by each player who played hard all year to gain their seat in that tournament. 1vs3 and 1vs5. We won the league went to the tournament tied and won and were out! It broke those boys hearts and was very unfair to them. Although the same thing happened to the host doesn't make it OK it was wrong and buckeye should have been more proactive in making sure it didn't happen that way!
  the year end tournament should be held anywhere but cincinnati. its hard to compete with 2 skaters wearing stripes. gary gamble
  forget Louisville......Dayton is more central to all the teams in the league, its where the silversticks regional is held and there are plenty of rinks.
  Lack of representation on behalf of the league staff and presentation of awards for Championship game was awful. The teams should have been announced individually and runners up should have taken home at least a medalian as recognition of their hard work. It was not easy to stand around on the ice receiving not even a pat on the back while trophies were passed out for the first place teams. No other tournament our kids participated in left them feeling as if they'd finished last, as opposed to finishing second in a very competetive tournament. As a parent, I'd rather you decrease the size/cost of first place trophies and provide all championship players an award, or increase (by a small margin) the tournament fee to accomodate extra cost. At any rate...someone needs to fix the totally inadequate championship trophy recognition process for the whole tourney-noth just the lower age brackets.
  Didn't mind the travel to Louisville...like moving it around. Wouldn't seem fair for 1 team to be home every year and have everyone else have to travel.
  In response to 7C, I have no problem with one area hosting tourney (ie. Cincinnati/Oxford/Hamilton, Dayton Area, Columbus Area, or Louisville area) as long as there are enough sheets of ice. Would not like a Dayton/Cincy area combo, etc.
  Scheduling of games less than optimum. For example, our first game was Friday night. If we had lost, we then would have played Sunday morning, yielding two nights hotel for two games. Totally disagree with suggestion to limit teams in tourney. We were an A team playing AA, but were competitive. In our second game, as the 8th seed, we lost 2-1 to the regular season champs and tournament runner-ups. The winning goal came with 3.4 seconds left in the game. Thus, an 8th seed came within a few seconds of going to a shoot-out with one of the top teams. We had also previously beaten the team they then played in the semi's.
  For our team, Louisville was a great distance for a single elimantion tournament (especially since we had to pull our sons and siblings out of school to make our game!). Our hotel was HORRIBLE (the Radisson)!!! They were not friendly, the hotel was dirty (we had one family walk into a "cleaned" room where the toilet was filled with waste! and it took the hotel 3 hours before someone came to clean up the clogged toilet!) and they were not flexible! Our team will NEVER stay at that hotel again!!! Too much going on in that town to make the stay enjoyable - hours wait for restuarants! Please plan a tournament when a city isn't hosting a city wide convention!
  The only problem is if someone does not have access to the net then they can not get the information.
BTHL Home Page:
1. Have you visited it? 27-Yes, 2-No
2. If yes, how would you rate it? 13-Excellent, 11-Good , 2-OK , 3-Haven't seen it
3. What have you liked about it? Information posted on time, I like that you have all the points of contacts posted on there with e-mail addresses...
  The ability to keep updated on other league games. I like the fact tha:t you can see everyones schedule
  Very informative and kept up to date.
  keeping track of the games around the league
  Usually up to date and current.
  Great website
  information availble
  Updated standings,and suspensions
  very up to date with scores
  more timely updates on the weekend scores...there wre times when they lagged some
  Great way to view team rosters
  Kept up to date pretty well, at least as long as the teams all post their updates and scores. Enjoy the forums, always get a kick out of those that spend all their time whining when it could be better spent on the ice to improve their skills.
  Rink locations, standings, forum.
  Good source of info, lists latest standings, great links to other leagues and organizations
  Good upddated information and scores
  As a parent, it kept me very well informed and I encouraged all our parents to check it out. With each visit to the web page I was learning more about this organization.
  information updated links to many hockey related sites
  The information is very good the standings, schedule contacts rinks and rosters are very helpful to get info out to parents.
4. What could be improved? Would like to see team pictures put on.
  There were a few glitches when reporting scores and stats on line.
  all teams should be made to send in game results and keep thier team statistics up to date
  statistics pages
  Len did a great job updating I can't think of what else would improve except for maybe a message board. Where teams can post available ice for pick up games, and grpies throughout the year where people can vent and give feedback about teams, refs, etc.
  Not all teams keep accurate stats.
  quicker standings postings
  League board meeting minutes posted late or never. Teams should post results of all games, not just league games, and should be required to post their league games promtply. One team in our league had numerous results not posted, presumably because they did not turn scores/scoresheets in.
  I'm not sure what you could improve. I think an outstanding job was done!
5. Other comments: 7 is one more than the "Standard" rule for BTHL/......same number that Cincinati had that is doing most of dtthe complaining. Funny thing is the teams that were at the bottom of the standings were polite and their parents/kids did not or were not whiners. Its the teams that feel they were"cheated" and had the SAME number of second year players plus about 10 more that are whining. The issue is they got LUCKY(if you want to call playing an largely uncompetive division luck or a waste of money) and got a split in their division where they got the lot of the weaker teams and also had the same record and were basicallyt afraid to play Butler on their own ice(ie cancelled said the weather was not good even though they played there as home ice for years)they took 8 players in one year and absorbed them into their organization. Butler has a very good work ethic......try it.....it really works as evident by their record.When they lost in their last game they never whined like some of the 2nd best teams do
Communication:
1. During the season did you receive the BTHL mailings? 3-Yes, 26-No
2. Have you read/seen the minutes of the BTHL Board Meetings? 12-Yes, 17-No
3. If yes, are the minutes helpful in learning what's going on within the BTHL? 11-Yes, 1-No , 17-Didn't see them
4. What do you believe is the most helpful way to receive information about the League? 18-Web page, 3-Mailings , 1-Other , 6-No answer , 1-No response
  - If other, how? direct email
    also from BTHL rep
    Mailings too expensive, local rep cannot get to all teams easily
5. Do you know who your BTHL Representative is? 18-Yes, 11-No
Have you seen/read the BTHL Rules & Regulations? 21-Yes, 8-No
Mid-Am Meetings:
1. Did you attend the June 2000 Meeting in Columbus, OH? 1-Yes, 28-No
2. Do you plan to attend the June 23-24, 2001 Meeting? 2-Yes, 6-No , 21-Don't know
BTHL Board Meetings:
1. Most of the 2000-01 Meetings were held via conference call. Did you participate in any of the calls? 3-Yes, 26-No
2. Did anybody from your association attend any of the calls? 8-Yes, 21-Not sure
3. Do you think this is a viable medium of conducting the business of the league? 10-Yes, 2-No , 17-Not sure
4. Additional comments on BTHL Meetings:
Volunteers:
1. Returning officers for the 2001-02 season are filling most board positions. However, please indicate if you might be interested in filling a board position, volunteers will not be turned away. Committees are always in need. 1-Tournament , 28-Not interested
2. If interested please provide a phone# or some other way to contact you: Tracy Ballog and Jon Barron (614) 759-0810
3. The BTHL is run solely with volunteers from member organizations. In some cases, board members don't have players in the league. Do you have any suggestions on how the BTHL can better identify volunteers for board positions and committees? i wonder if any of the people whining in cincinnati are the same people who wanted to join the butler co. squirt team after their season was over to stack a team for year end tournaments. i was told their was 4 of them.but alas we kept our original 9 skaters and 2 goalies. and did fairly well without them. gary gamble #11 dad
  Can't volunteer for a position I know nothing about. Could you list the positions that are needed to be filled with a "job" description? Maybe you would get a better response from the parents in the league who really don't know much about this organization....like myself!
Any general / other comments: Great experience! My son really enjoyed playing travel hockey. This was our teams first year playing travel. Can't wait till next year. Over all great job!!
I think the BTHL needs to be a little more careful giving exceptions to teams with mostly second year players allowing them to play in an A division. I had no problem with the Pee Wee division but heard a lot of complaints about the Squirt A division. I read in the board minutes where a coach said most of his returning players went to another organization thats why he wanted to play A even though almost all his kids were second year squirts. Using the BTHL website archives and the current rosters, it took me about 5 minutes to see that none of that was true. Every one of his players(about 7) came back except for two. My point is that maybe you shouldn't just take one coaches word without doing some research first.
Longer game time by periods as the age level increases.
This season 2001-02 in the bantam age group brings some interesting twists. You have the talent and desire for AAA competition. You are going to lose anywhere from 3 to 5 teams in this age group to AAA little ceasers or other. Someone should consider putting a AAA division in the Dayton Cincinnati Area possibly COlumbus. The commitment and talent is thier. Nkentucky,2 gems teams, Columbus, Toledo if done right it would be a hell of a league that would get the buckeye the recognition that Litlle Ceasers gets now. We as a first year bantam AA team beat 2 teams in the little Ceasers league that were 2nd & 3rd year teams with 15 yr olds on the Burlington ON team. It would take awhile to get it going but their is a desire and need for it. And it will add to the buckeye where as now you stand to lose some teams next year. Just my thoughts.
I hope to the program grow. I don't know if more publicity would bring more boys and girls in or not.
As a first time "travel" parent I must say we had a pretty good year. I must admit it was an eye opening experience in regards to behavior on and off the ice. We experienced some very friendly parents (and truly enjoyed the hospitality offered by some) and then we experienced some who need to take a class on behavior and manners! The zero tolerance rule should be enforced much more!
We had a few games with three on ice officials. The one ref/two linemen system does more harm than good when linesmen can't make penalty calls. The the NCAA final four they designated the liensmen asst refs, and all three could make calls. One ref cannot see the entire ice surface.Td
Your Name/Address/Phone/e-mail (optional): John Banzhof 6590 Spruce Drive Columbus, Ohio 43217
Mike O'Connor, 317-574-1928 (h), 317-844-8990 (w), msoconnor1@aol.com
Mark Barry (mbarryclan@aol.com)
kowalskir@prodigy.net
Mike Fairbanks 8167 Fox Knoll Dr West Chester, Ohio 45069
Todd Smith, smitht@erinet.com
Coach Brian Hyland 465 Jamestown Circle 937-436-1787 brian@hylandmach.com
Christine Manning cpmlou@aol.com
tracy.ballog@oh.ngb.army.mil or harvey@copper.net
hwjdm@aol.com
ray finnegan CAHA (Columbus)
Tim Breininger 3337 Collegiate Ct. Fort Wayne In 46805 219-484-2707 hckydad42@aol.com

Generated: April 15, 01

BTHL Survey Summary Report

Surveys Received = 29

Generated: April 15, 01

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