Now that the 2025 Sackville Minor Hockey Tryouts have come to an end I want to first congratulate all of the players for all of their hard work over the past 4 weeks. Tryouts are a stressful time for everyone but particularly the players in the association who are the ones who step on the ice for evaluations. There are many ups and downs in a tryout process along with moments of joy and disappointment. There are always more players trying out at each position then there are positions on each team so not everyone can make the teams they hoped for. This does not mean you don’t belong at that level. Go out and work hard and play your best and represent Sackville with pride.

I would like to say thank you to ALL of the volunteers and people who stepped up to help with the tryout process. Coordinating almost 400 kids over 4 divisions at 2 different ice surfaces is no small task but we did it and we did it for the kids. 

Thank you to the tryout committee who spend countless hours this summer making minor changes and tweaks to the current process. Thank you to the evaluators for making the commitment to come to the rinks each and every session to evaluate our players. Evaluating 26-30 kids on an ice surface is no easy task so thank you for your time and commitment to this. Thank you to the members of the executive for your support to the competitive program. Thank you to all of the on ice coaches and shooters for getting us through the skills sessions and to the officials and timekeepers for taking care of the scrimmages and exhibition games. 

Thank you to the division coordinators, Morgan Spicer (U11) and Mark Gagnon (U13, 15 and 18) for your help and assistance dealing with jerseys, checkins, coach selection and complaints. Thank you to Helen Scammel who quarterbacked the transition to the Grayjay evaluation software and was able to navigate all of us through the challenges of transitioning to this new platform.  

And a very special thank you to the Tryout Facilitators, Heather Doucet (U11), Angela Pennell (U13) and Paul Burke (U15 and U18). You all navigated a new evaluation system on the fly and made sure the scores were entered correctly, were accurate and the outliers were fixed. This was no easy task and you kept everything on track throughout the tryouts.

Best of luck to all players, managers and coaches as you embark on a new competitive season with Sackville Minor Hockey. 

Go Flyers go

Brad Aucoin

VP of Competitive