Virden Minor Hockey is continuing to put a strong emphasis on promoting balance of development for all kids in hockey, and as an association it has seen some very strong numbers over the past several years. Developmental hockey programs are in place to support all kids with all skill sets to ensure everyone has a place to play and have fun to the best of their interest and ability.
This year the Virden Peewee A team had a strong developmental year where kids of similar skill sets who were interested in trying out, came together, worked hard, developed and had fun. The Peewee A group took a different approach this year and decided not to enter into a league so they could focus their efforts on playing teams of similar parity and skill.
Because Virden is situated on the corner of essentially four regions or leagues, they felt they now had a pretty good idea of the caliber of most teams in the regions that surround them. (Southwest, Yellowhead, Saskatchewan, Brandon East).
With this knowledge, the Peewee A team believed it would be better off not going in a league that would limit them to a wide range of parity in competition and instead focus on entering tournaments and playing teams throughout all four regions they knew they would match up well against. It’s a little hard to develop by winning or losing by large margins. So in their case they took it upon themselves to ensure they had control and played competitive teams that more closely matched their skill set and allowed all their kids to develop to the best of their ability and ultimately have more fun, which is what it’s all about.
“Leagues in the eastern regions of Manitoba have developed their own tiering system that seems to work quite well where teams are placed in either gold, silver or bronze categories based on their caliber. This helps with parity and ensures more competitive games at all skill levels. Leagues into Saskatchewan have a regional AA program at the Peewee level that helps with parity within their leagues which seems to have some merit as well,” says Daren Bryant, co-manager of Virden Peewee A.
“Each year things will change and some towns and teams will be stronger or weaker than others which is fine,” he explains. “It would be great if our leagues in this area could find a way to work together in order to offer more parity for the teams, but in the meantime we felt it was better for our kids to find our own parity and competition. And for us this year, not going in a league seemed to work quite well.”
PROVINCIALS
Because of strong VMH numbers, fantastic for a small center, the Virden Peewee A team got moved into the AA provincial category in Morden. This put them up against the best Peewee age players that small cities like Portage, Thompson, Winkler, Steinbach, Flin Flon and Morden had to offer.
Virden Peewee A finished strong in the round robin with a record of 3 and 1 and lost a tough one in the semifinal which put Virden up against the Portage Terriers for the Bronze Medal game. The Virden kids managed to pull off a hard-fought win over Portage for the Bronze medal.
It is believed that this is the first time Virden Minor Hockey has competed in Peewee AA Provincials and all of VMH should be proud of this accomplishment.
VMH president Scott Fefchak said, “We're proud of the ground-breaking outside-the-box season our Peewee A team had this year. We acknowledge and commend the team's engaged coaches and managers who did a lot of work and networking to make it happen. As an organization, we remain open-minded and interested in any new ideas that will get our kids developing their skills and playing against teams of similar parity.”
Congrats to Virden Minor Hockey and the Peewee A team for their AA Provincial bronze medal!
Submitted by Daren Bryant
