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Northern Berkshire Youth Hockey Looking To Build Participation
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"No kid has ever been turned away based on their ability to pay," U10 Coach Guy Cariddi said recently. "You can get [the cost] down to almost nothing."
The program's attendance numbers have been dropping since the beginning of the recession but Cariddi says the expenses of the "house league" can be defrayed by participating in fund raisers for the organization. The cost to join the league is about $280, but children can work in the concession stand, sell raffle tickets, work spaghetti dinners or other fund raisers to reduce fees, sometimes down to nothing.
The equipment can also cost nothing. The rental shop at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Skating Rink will rent the equipment for a deposit of $50, a cost the parents can get back when the equipment is returned.
While Cariddi concedes that the higher level leagues and travel teams the program offers can get more expensive, the house league provides youngsters all they need from learning to skate to game play.
"The primary goal is to teach kids to have fun playing youth hockey," Cariddi said. "We have a rule that all the kids on a team play. So, if there is 15 kids on the team, 15 kids play. It's pretty much equal time across the board ... if you don't play all the kids, they'll never get better."
Despite the efforts of the non-profit league's volunteer board of directors and coaches, the program is struggling to attract youth players. The program had been up to 300 players at one point but is now near 100, which is actually a one-year bump in enrollment from the last few years when it was low as 80.
"I think the economy has hurt the attendance," Cariddi said. "We've seen the numbers go down. This year, we had a little upswing."
Cariddi has seen the peaks and valleys of the program from years when there were enough players for an all-woman's team to years when the program has just scraped by with enough players to run the minimal amount of teams.
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"We're in a building mode and trying to get those numbers up," he said.
Cariddi's pitch to parents harks back to an old bumper sticker the organization used to sell that read "keeping kids on ice and out of hot water." The hockey program has created close friendships for Cariddi and he hopes the next generation can experience it too.
"This is why I do it," Cariddi said when the interview was interrupted by an older player asking if he could help teach the younger ones skate.
Tags: hockey,