How a hockey association can divide its ice time

The problem: dividing ice you already bought

An association can handle ice in two steps. First, the association buys or is allocated ice from a rink or a municipality, often under the rink's or the city's own allocation policy. Then the association divides that ice among its own teams. This guide is about the second step: the one the registrar or ice scheduler owns, and the one families argue about.

That step is hard because the ice is not uniform and the teams are not equal:

• Slots differ in value. A weeknight 5:30 pm sheet and a 6:00 am Saturday sheet are both "an hour of ice", and nobody thinks they are worth the same.
• Teams need different amounts. A travel team with a full schedule and a house team that practices once a week are not asking for the same thing.
• Some ice is shared. Younger teams often practice on part of a sheet, so a single hour can serve two or more teams.
• The season changes shape. Tryouts, evaluations and the regular season need ice in different patterns.

The approach that works is the same as for any scarce practice time: write the rules first, publish the order, and keep a record. Ice just needs a more careful unit of measure.

Turn contracts into sheet-hours

Before talking about who gets what, list exactly what the association has. Count it in sheet-hours: one sheet of ice for one hour.

Subtract games and reserved ice first. What remains is the practice pool you are dividing.

Equal ice, or weighted ice

Associations usually choose one of a few ways to size each team's share of the practice pool. There is no single right one; the right one is the one your board adopts and publishes before the schedule is built.

Whichever you choose, show the arithmetic. Our free ice time calculator counts the practices your weekly ice holds and gives them out evenly or by the number you set for each team, in whole practices. Publishing that table settles most "why do they have more ice" questions before they are asked.

Then deal with value as well as quantity. A team that gets its fair hours entirely at 6:00 am has not been treated equally. Two common fixes are to set separate shares for prime and non-prime ice, or to let teams pick in turns so each team takes some good and some bad slots in order.

Full ice, half ice and cross ice

Not every practice needs a full sheet. Younger players in particular often practice on part of the ice: USA Hockey's American Development Model has long promoted cross-ice and small-area play for players 8 and under, and some programs extend small-ice formats into 10U. Check your district and your affiliate for what applies to your teams.

For scheduling, the important part is to count shared ice correctly and stop double-bookings:

• Charge partial ice as partial ice. A team on half a sheet for an hour has used half a sheet-hour, not a full one. Otherwise sharing looks like a penalty.
• Decide which levels may share. Put it in the policy: which ages practice on part of the ice, and which need the full sheet.
• Book a shared practice once. Two teams practicing together on one sheet is one booking that appears on both schedules, not two bookings for the same ice.

Goalie ice

Goalie development is easy to forget in a team-by-team allocation, and it is one of the first things families ask about. Decide before teams pick:

• Whether goalie sessions come from a separate pool of ice taken off the top, or from a share of each team's practice.
• Which goalies are eligible (by age, level or registration as a goalie), and how many per session.
• Whether goalie ice can share a sheet with a team practice, for example in one end, and how that is counted.

Tryouts season and regular season

The ice you need in late summer and early fall does not look like the ice you need in January. Treat them as separate allocations:

Travel and house programs often run on different calendars too. If travel rosters are set months before house teams form, give each program its own sign-up rather than making house teams pick from what travel left behind.

Early mornings and late nights

Every association has slots nobody wants. A rule for them avoids a season of individual negotiations:

• Rotate them. Every eligible team takes a share of early and late ice over the season.
• Assign by age. Keep the earliest and latest ice off the youngest players, and give it to older teams who can drive themselves or stay up later.
• Discount them. Count a non-prime hour as less than a prime hour when you total each team's share, so a team that takes early ice gets more of it.

Pick one, write it down, and publish it before the schedule is built.

Publish the order and run turns

1. Publish the policy and the numbers. Hours per team, the weights or table behind them, and the prime and non-prime rule.
2. Publish the pick order. By level, by tier, by rotation or by a draw done in front of people. Settle tie-breakers before you know who benefits.
3. Cap each round. One block per team per round, then the next round in reverse order, so first pick does not take every good sheet.
4. Run ordered turns. Each team picks when its turn opens, from what is left. An open spreadsheet turns the published order into a race.
5. Announce the missed-turn rule. A coach at a tournament should not lose the season. Opening the next turn while the late team stays eligible keeps things moving.
6. Keep the record. Every pick, swap and returned sheet, with the date, so a parent's question has an answer.

Questions