Scrimmages - Leddy Price Hike

[Geoff Stirling]

Good morning, all -

First, a bit of history and then some fun facts... 

For about 10 years, I had the opportunity to play hockey with my dad after I ran out of youth hockey leagues to play in as a teenager in Montreal.  The group was called the Beaconsfield Gentlemen's Hockey League and was run by a guy named Stuart Doak (R.I.P.) who was 50 years older than me.  At first, I had to earn my ice time by playing goalie when they were short one but eventually received honorary member status... most likely because of how good I made everyone feel by how many goals I let in.  One of the Montreal daily newspapers ran a story on Stu and the photo accompanying the article was him poke checking the puck away from me and making a point of mentioning the age difference.  His motto was "The puck or the player... only one is getting by me".  Those memories of skating with my dad are priceless.  

Our scrimmage group started on the Leddy studio ice as an opportunity for me to skate with my kids and some teammates from FullStride.  The skates got popular enough to the point where we able to make the jump to the larger ice surface, often running two skate a week.  On a few special occasions, my dad came down from Montreal and skated with my kids and I... three generations on the ice at the same time!  Over the past 16 years, I've had the pleasure of seeing other parents get to skate with their kids and hopefully they've been left with the same great memories that I hold dear.  My dad skated into his 80s... those are big skates to fill!

Since we went live with the online system in April 2009, we've had 1,148 scrimmages had have had 27,371 signups.  The active skater that holds the most registrations based on spelling their names consistently is Jim Sundquist at 432, and by email address Jamie LaScolea at 386 scrimmages... both signing up for over a third of all the scrimmages!  There are 60 skaters in the Century Club having signed up for 100 or more scrimmages!

Thus endeth the walk down Memory Lane.

Effective July 1st, Burlington increased their price for an hour of ice at Leddy by $25.  I am going to hold off deciding whether scrimmage fees need to go up until the end of the summer.  If the price does go up, it will be the first price hike in 10 years.  With the new price hike from Leddy, our margins are extremely thin (one missing skater or payment puts the skate in the red), however as a whole, you guys have been really good at keeping up with payments.  So far this year, through 20 scrimmages, there are only two non-regulars on the unpaid list.

In addition to the obvious expense for the ice time, there are additional expenses such as web hosting fees, replacing pucks, and time spent keeping us booked with ice time regularly, making sure both nets have a goalie, administrative tasks, etc that go into keeping the scrimmages happening.  It's a labour of love and it is truly a pleasure to see all of you each week.

Thanks to all of you for keeping this group going strong!

Geoff