Fear the North Rebrand
Hello,
On behalf of the Fear the North Committee we would like to share the following:
Due to our successful pilot of our Fear the North concept at the U15 age level, OMAHA along with BC Hockey approval have decided to expand the regional program across all associations. The OMAHA District Zone program will now include U13, U15 and U18 age groups at the Rep level.
Why is this happening?
Our committee has fielded a lot of questions as to why these changes are happening (last year and going forward). Below are the main reasons for these changes.
BC Hockey Open Border System Proposal
- BC Hockey was looking at moving to an open border system similar to other parts of Canada. This would mean that any player from any association could go anywhere they choose to play competitive hockey. This has now created what they call “Super Teams”. Most players chose to go and play in the larger centers, creating these Super Teams, which then left the smaller associations much less competitive, or completely without a team.
- Executive members from each of our 4 associations felt that this is not a system conducive to our leagues and associations as we want to keep our players close to home, as open boarders would decimate our smaller associations.
- A Fear the North committee was formed, comprised of Executive members from each, local association (Salmon Arm, North OK, Sicamous and Revelstoke) which then approached BC Hockey to allow us to run a regional pilot program (Fear the North), to prove that a regional concept would be more beneficial than an open border concept. The pilot was a success and has now been green lit across OMAHA.
Provide More Opportunities
- All minor hockey associations are growing at a rapid pace. Our goal is to provide opportunities for players to play at the level they should be playing at. Players that choose to play competitive hockey now have the opportunity to play in a league that best suits their current skill set (Tier 2, 3 or 4)
Create Balanced, Safe Recreation Teams and Leagues
- Our recreation hockey leagues should be balanced and safe for all players. Unfortunately, this is not the case across OMAHA. By not providing more opportunities for players to play competitive hockey, they have no choice but to play recreation hockey. This has essentially created Rep like hockey teams within the recreation leagues. These leagues are drastically unbalanced, which is unfair for those players who enjoy playing recreation hockey.
- Outside of dominating their respective recreation divisions, this situation has also reduced the amount of quality puck time for recreation players that want to improve their game.
- We want a safe recreation division for ALL players. We’ve seen an increase in injuries within the recreation division with the mix of competitive and recreation players. We have players in recreation that haven’t played or aren’t interested in playing competitive hockey before, haven’t played hit hockey before, some players may have developmental issues. Every one of these players (your children) should feel safe playing recreation hockey. By providing more opportunities for these competitive players outside of recreation this will even out the recreation divisions and make it much safer.
The OMAHA District Zone program will consist of the following zones:
Thompson Zone
Central Zone
Upper North Zone (Our Zone)
Lower North Zone
Upper South Zone
Lower South Zone
**See Zone Map in Appendix A
To align with the new OMAHA District Zone program, we have decided to rename/rebrand our zone. Fear the North will now be renamed to Upper North Zone (UNZ) and will include the following new logo:
Upper North Zone Committee:
A committee has been set up to represent the Upper North Zone. The committee consists of board representatives from each of our 4 associations (Revelstoke, Sicamous, Salmon Arm and North OK).
Upper North Zone Committee Members:
| Association | Name | |
| Revelstoke | ||
| Grusky Layco | gruskylayco@gmail.com | |
| Natale Stagliano | natalestagliano@hotmail.com | |
| Sergio Spataro | spataro14@hotmail.com | |
| Sicamous | ||
| Terry Wood | thegibfin@gmail.com | |
| Salmon Arm | ||
| John White | president@salmonarmminorhockey.com | |
| Liam O’Brien | vp3@salmonarmminorhockey.com | |
| North Okanagan | ||
| Albert Blackwell | president@nomha.com | |
| Jim Soper | vp@nomha.com | |
| Warren Lightfoot | Vp2@nomha.com |
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to any of our committee members.
Stay tuned for more information to come:
- Coaching applications
Appendix A:
