Leagues Vote to Sell $25 Memberships to Hockey Players

On Monday Edmonton's community leagues passed a motion that will allow the Edmonton Minor Hockey Association (EMHA) to sell special $25 corporate community league memberships to every hockey family in Edmonton.

The new agreement is designed to address a long-standing logistical nightmare for hockey registrars. Some folks in the EMHA were ready to drop the requirement that hockey players must be members of community leagues because of very serious problems finding the right leagues, with people filling in fake community league membership numbers and even people just leaving the membership box blank.

Pictured are Allan Bolstad, EFCL Executive Director and David Gibbens, EFCL President

Under the new agreement (soon to be ratified by the EMHA) the hockey association will sell every single hockey family a community league membership when they register for hockey. This will mean every single family of the 7,000 hockey players in Edmonton will have a community league membership, guaranteed. 

The EMHA will send the money and a list with complete information for each new member to the EFCL for passing on to leagues.

The new system is a change, but the vast majority of community leagues in Edmonton will benefit since they will capture every single hockey player from their community league. In the old system people got away with not buying memberships, buying them from other leagues or even by entering fake membership numbers. This arrangement also reconfirms the relationship between community leagues and hockey. The community leagues started hockey and have a long time affiliation with hockey people many of whom have served on community league boards.

Some leagues from the west end were not happy with the arrangement because their membership fees are higher, many around $40. The $25 corporate rate was chosen as the average rate and with a view to not increasing hockey fees too much.

The Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues Annual General Meeting was Monday, April 19 at Athalone Hall.

As a footnote, I write today the "acting District B representative"  since our district did not have quorum on at the April 19th meeting! We have a special meeting of District B communities planned for May 4, 2010 to elect or re-elect a representative.