Scheduling Details

Scheduling the league is intense! 

First we form a baseline for what we consider a good time, an okay time, and a less desirable time. We assume the majority of our players work or have family commitments Monday - Friday. We understand every team and player has different days off and different hours but for obvious reasons, we need to work with a baseline definition. So we categorize it this way:

1.  Before 10pm starts - good!
2. Friday and Saturday nights after 10pm (excluding Sooke and 11pm start times) - okay
3. 10pm and later starts - meh

Our league tries to group teams based on fair competition across the board AND variety. Because we adjust where teams fit and the size of tiers through the season, it creates a barrier to scheduling too far in advance. In past seasons, doing this limited our ability to reshape tiers into the best groupings. Limited scheduling also means sometimes a team will have an imbalance of early/late slots. This gets balanced over the course of a season, not the first 10 games. If we add in dates teams can't play, home ice slots for teams who have secured their own (pre-10pm start) times, arena cancellations, team forfeits and and other factors like weather, it starts getting very complicated.

Some arenas are pushing ice times later each year. Both Pearkes and West Hills Arena have an 11pm slot. First time we've seen it. This year is specifically tough Sept-Dec due to Archie Browning closure pushing all their users into other arenas. 

We play in the league too and every season we request all the ice times teams are asking more for but we will never displace minor hockey and internal recreation programs but we will never stop trying.

It would be easier from an administrative standpoint not to try and balance and adjust and take requests, etc. so we hope that your patience matches our effort to make it work. We love providing fun hockey and we're glad you're a part of the league!