WMHA Families,
Myself, and the board of directors at Windsor Minor are
pleased to announce the approval by the OMHA, for WMHA to have our base
category changed from ‘AA’ to ‘A’. With this designation, we hope to provide
our travel program a more compatible skill based level of competition. This has
no impact on our house league program, as it only effects the travel portion.
Our application was reviewed by and approved by the OMHA
board of directors at their March meeting, and will be effective for the
2023-2024 season. I would like to personally thank the committee that helped
prepare the application, which included life member Mario Pennesi, board member
Derek Treverton, travel VP Kipp Van Kuren, and especially Jenna Providenti for
all her hard work on the application.
This is a great move for the WMHA, and one that will
hopefully bring more success to our travel program. Below we will try to answer
some base questions, however, please feel free to send us an email if you have
any further questions or comments on the matter.
What
does this mean for the Travel Program?
This
means that outside of our local league, the division we will compete in at
tournaments and playdowns is now ‘A’ instead of ‘AA’. As stated, we hope this
will bring more success to our travel program, who has been struggling to
compete at tournaments and in OMHA playdowns.
Why
change from ‘AA’ to ‘A’?
In short, the thought process behind this was strongly
based on our associations record outside of Bluewater. We took a 7 year average
of our win loss ratio both in, and out of the Bluewater league, this includes
any AA tournaments, as well as OMHA playdowns.
While we had relative success locally, our teams general
W/L (win to loss) ratio was anywhere between 50%-70% within Bluewater. Outside
of Bluewater however, our W/L ratio was anywhere from 18%-55%. If this was a
mark in school, we would graded between failing miserably to a barely passing grade.
The change to an ‘A’ center only impacts us at tournaments
and OMHA playdowns. Locally nothing will change. We will be competing against
the same teams within Bluewater. At tournaments we will be competing in ‘A’ divisions
which should see our W/L ratio be increased significantly, as well as at the
OMHA playdowns.
Another large factor was the number of members in Windsor
declining over the past 10 years. With other centers seeing large housing developments,
and young families move into their municipalities, Windsor has seen the
opposite and as a result, our membership has seen a steady decline over the past
decade. Our membership is much closer to that of the rest of the ‘A’ centers in
our area, where other ‘AA’ centers boast 1.5 to 2 times the amount of
registered members each year.
How
will NRP’s work with us being ‘A’?
The same structure Bluewater uses will be followed here. ‘AAA’
will host their tryouts, where you can obtain a permission to skate form from
your home center. ‘AA’ will happen approximately one week after, which you can
obtain an NRP card from Windsor minor to any One ‘AA’ center. Those now include
Belle River, Lasalle, and Chatham. Next, Windsor, along with all other ‘A’
centers will host tryouts roughly one week after ‘AA’ started. At this point,
anyone that is home to the ‘AA’ centers may obtain an NRP card and tryout for
Windsor, or any other ‘A’ center in our league.
Again thank you to all those involved, and congratulations
to all the players that will now have an opportunity to be more competitive
down the highway in the future. We look forward to this change, and if you have
any further questions or comments please email me at [email protected]
Sincerely,
Josh Pinese
WMHA President