A tournament of their own
Annual Mike Mulvaney Memorial tourney provides a taste of tournament action for house league players
The Mike Mulvaney Memorial Hockey Tournament gives house league players the opportunity to have a tournament of their own.
The fourth annual tournament put on by the Peterborough Hockey Association kicked off on Friday at three city arenas. There are 37 teams, eight from the PHA and 29 from out of town, competing in novice, atom, peewee, bantam and midget divisions.
Rep players are accustomed to playing in multiple tournaments a season but for house league players it can be a novelty.
“We want to give all the kids, whether it’s rep or house league the opportunity to have that tournament experience,” tournament convener and PHA vice-president Scott Seabrook said.
One change to this year’s tournament mirrors a change the PHA made to its house leagues this year. After about five seasons of operating minor and major divisions within each age group the PHA and the tournament now operate one division at novice, atom, peewee, bantam and midget.
“We used to have two ages in each age group but we changed that about five years ago for the sake of development. We wanted to have kids all in the same birth year competing against each other. Unfortunately, with dwindling numbers in hockey it just wasn’t sustainable anymore,” Seabrook said.
Tournament numbers are down by 10 this year and Seabrook attributes it in part to an ongoing challenge local sports organizations find when running tournaments.
“We find it’s a common theme with tournaments that we had more than 37 register but teams have trouble getting accommodations they are comfortable with here in Peterborough and they end up withdrawing,” Seabrook said.
“They might be able to get something in Cobourg but Peterborough fills up. That is part of the issue. This is a recreational tournament and if you go into the rep world, rep teams are probably more inclined to do a little bit of travel and stay in Lindsay or Cobourg to compete. I also think Family Day weekend is one of the reasons, getting back to the hotels, that Peterborough is a tough market this weekend.”
Seabrook would like to see more buy-in from PHA teams. To encourage their participation the PHA teams get a registration discount of $500. They pay $700 compared to $1,200 for visiting teams.
“I’d like to see more of our house league teams participate in it, absolutely,” he said.
“On the other side of it, we don’t wan to force people to have extra expenses to go into tournaments because it is already costly to play minor hockey. It’s a team commitment. They all have to want to do it. You can’t have half a team wanting to do it. You have to have everybody on board and I understand that can be challenging.
“With it being Family Day Weekend some of the teams that are local have other plans where some of these teams coming in from Ottawa, which is where a lot of them are coming from, this has been on their radar since September,” he said.
“This is what they’ve planned for. Not so much the local teams where this is not a holiday or going away to a hotel for the weekend with the kids.”
The tournament continues through Sunday using all four city arenas. The finals are all at the Kinsmen Civic Centre on Sunday starting at 11:20 a.m. with the novices.