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Students pumped for hockey season Indoor version of sport proves popular
Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, October 3, 2013
INUVIK
Forget the start of the NHL regular season this week. East Three Secondary School's floor hockey league might be the hottest ticket in town.
Brandon Day, the captain of the Stings team in the East Three Secondary School's floor hockey league, keeps an eye on the action Sept. 27. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo
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The league began on Sept. 27 with a series of games in the afternoon after the Terry Fox Run festivities.
It runs weekdays at lunchtime through January, when indoor soccer starts up, said Kenzie MacDonald, one of the organizers. It's open to students from Grades 7 through 12.
MacDonald said there are approximately eight staff members who organize and run the league, which is taken very seriously at the school.
Statistics on everything imaginable are recorded, he said, from the top scorers to the top goalies and teams.
The league is run very much as if it's the NHL, he said.
"The league runs four days a week, Monday to Thursday," MacDonald explained. "There are two games every lunch of about 20 minutes each."
The games are kept short to ensure the students have some time to grab something to eat, he said.
"We have six teams in the league. The kids will sign up, and they have to pay $10 to play in the league that goes toward t-shirts and equipment.
"Then we pick six captains and do a draft. A schedule is drafted from there, and we play until around the Christmas break."
It's a 72-game schedule. There's a championship final and a students versus teachers game.
"We're talking between 50 and 80 students playing most years, and a lot of years we do a re-draft partway through the year," MacDonald said. "It's like an expansion draft of students who maybe didn't want to play at the start of the year and then change their mind."
It's the ninth year for the league, which has been one of the major successes locally as an education initiative.
"The biggest thing is that it gets a lot of students to come to school," MacDonald said. "That's always a plus. If there's something fun for the kids to do, they're going to want to be here."
The league runs the gamut from players "who might never have held a hockey stick before" to skilled and highly competitive players.
"You'll see some guys and girls who don't know what they're doing, and then you see guys and girls alike who are really good and experienced."
Deklen Crocker is one of the veteran players in the league.
"This is my third year," he said. "It's a lot of fun. It's even fun to watch it."
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