Minnesota Special Hockey Albums: 2006 to 2011 including Alexandria Tourney and 2011 Disabled Hockey Festival

This post includes links to the albums that are currently available online, starting with the 2006 Spring pre-season skates.

• 2011 Disabled Hockey Festival April 1-3, 2011 - @280 pictures, Eagles, Wild and teams we played from Opening Ceremonies through Sunday.
• 2011 MNSH Alexandria Tourney
• 2010-2011 Eastern Eagles season album
• 2010-2011 Eastern Eagles team photos
• 2008-2009 Stingers
• 2007-2008 Stingers
• 2006-2007 Stingers
• 2006 Minnesota Special and Sled Hockey: In spring 2006 there was one team and we practiced with sled hockey at Richfield Arena

How to download a full sized version of a photo

You can download a full sized version of any photo. Simply view the photo, then click the download menu item as shown below. If you install the free Windows or Mac (Intel Only) Picasa software you can download an entire album at once.

Open Skate at the Mariucci Arena – October 25 2009

The start of our 2009-2010 season is quickly approaching and to kick it off we will once again be having our Open Skate.  It is scheduled for Sunday, October 25 from 2:00-3:30 at the Mariucci Arena (home of the Golden Gophers!)

We encourage you to share this information with anyone you feel would be interested in joining our program.  The more people we can give this opportunity to the better!

A couple of important notes regarding anyone who will be on the ice during the open skate and for the season:

1. All returning players must have completed and turned in their USA hockey and special hockey registration forms before the open skate.
2. Any new skaters on the ice at open skate will need to sign a liability waiver before going on the ice.  After that, if they choose to play as part of our regular season, they will need to turn in all USA hockey and special registration forms prior to the first practice.
3. All coaches must register with USA hockey before the open skate.
4. Any volunteers and parents who plan to be on the ice at open skate will be asked to sign a liability waiver that day.

All skaters must wear a helmet to be allowed on the ice.  No hockey sticks or gear will be permitted.

I hope you are all getting as excited as we are!  Look forward to seeing you soon!!

For questions please call Jane at 612-581-4483 or email her at jocashin@comcast.net

Calendar update and the MN Hockey site

We now have an introductory MN Special Hockey page on the MN Hockey site. I've added this link to our web site reference and links page.

At least for now we're expecting to use the MN Hockey page for outreach, and the www.mnspecialhockey.org site for program information.

Along with this page we got some calendaring software. Toni Boelter is working with it. The good news is that I've integrated the calendar from the MN Hockey site onto the top of this news page and into our web site calendar page. Any changes made to the MN Hockey calendar will show up in these pages as well.

If you're technically savvy these web calendars can also be delivered to your desktop computer (Outlook 2007, OS X iCal, Google Calendar) or your iPhone or Palm Pre. The "web address" you need for that is shown on our MN Hockey calendar, it's:

webcal://www.minnesotahockey.org/event/ical_feed?tags=85015%252C85013

For example, I access all my calendars (about seven including this one) using Google Calendar and on my iPhone.

MN SH summer events and the kick-off skate Oct 25

I’ve added most of these to our Google Calendar which can be seen on this news site and on our web site.

This summary is from a Toni Boelter email (I’ve omitted events that have passed) …

Friday, July 24 - 2nd Annual, MN Special Hockey Saints Game. RSVP by July 1 and Board Meeting

NOTE: The annual board meeting will take place at Midway stadium starting at 5:45 pm.

Join us on Friday, July 24th, 2009 as we enjoy a picnic dinner and then sit back to watch our St. Paul Saints take on the Lincoln Salt Dogs. Dinner will be served inside the park beginning at 6pm, with a game time start of 7:05pm. Please RSVP if you would like to attend and the number of tickets you will need to your respective team coach. Cost for this event will be $8 per person, which will include your meal and ticket into the game. Hope to see you all there!

Eagles: Toni Boelter tboelter@minnesotahockey.org
Polars: Chris Winkel Christopher.Winkel@target.com
Stingers: Cheryl Caffrey chery.caffrey@target.com
RSVP’s must be received no later than July 1st. For further questions, please contact Toni Boelter at tonib@dakcom.org or by cell at 651-307-0660.

August 1 - Equipment swap. Minnesota Hockey will be opening up its storage shed to Disabled hockey only on Saturday, August 1st from Noon to 4pm. Come after our summer skate (see next item) and browse through the shed for new and used equipment. I have seen it...it is a gold mine! More information will be posted on the Minnesota Special Hockey website in the next few weeks.

August - Summer skate! We will be skating 3 times this summer.
http://www.mnspecialhockey.org/2009SummerFlyer.pdf
We hope to see as many of you there as possible.

August 22 - Section 108 Golf Tournament, information will be posted soon. http://www.section108golf.com/. We will need volunteers to help with registration and selling raffle tickets.

Sunday, October 25th - Mark your calendars for our kick off skate on October 25th - 2 - 3:30 p.m. at Mariucci. More information to follow.

President Susie email – Board meeting

My name is Susie Miller. I am the President/Executive Director of MN Special Hockey.

Just a little history about our program. We started in the Spring of 2006. We held a 6 week mini program at Richfield Ice Arena. We had 27 skaters register. We were thrilled with the interest. That fall we started our first season. We had two teams. The South Stingers, out of Edina, and the North Polars, out of Blaine. The Stingers started strong with many of the spring session participants signing up. The Polars had less than 10 players attending on a regular basis. The 2007-2008 was the year we added the East Eagles. We had just a handful of players, but at this point the Polars and the Stingers both had nearly full teams. For 2008-2009 we did not add another team. We wanted to make sure all three teams were successful. Last season we found success with all three teams, so this fall we will be starting another team. The West Wildcats. They will play out of Albertville and Rogers. We are also planning on adding a team in International Falls this fall.

With the growth of the program MN Special Hockey organization has also grown and changed. As of March, 2008 we officially became a 501c3 Non Profit Organization. We are an organization with a 8 Member Board of Directors. Each year we are to have an annual meeting. At this meeting we will hold elections for our board of directors, as well as have a mini summary of the past year and receive a treasurers report. We are holding our Annual Meeting on Friday, July 24 at 5:45 p.m. at Midway Stadium in St. Paul (immediately before our summer Saints game celebration). We hope you are able to attend…

Summer and Fall 2009: Hockey camp, Wild funfest and more

Toni Boelter has sent us reminders of summer events, which I've revised and included below. I've also added them to the MN SH calendar, which is now atop this news blog.

MN SH Summer Skating Camps (PDF) will run twice this summer for current and potential players. There are two camps - North and South. The North camp at the Rogers Activity Center will run for 3 Saturdays, August 1-15. The South camp in Eagan runs for 3 Saturdays from August 8-22. Click this link (PDF) for more details.

Minnesota WILD Funfest: June 25th, 2009. 5p-9p. This year Minnesota Hockey will have a tent at the WILD Funfest that will be dedicated to Minnesota Disabled Hockey. We are looking for family members and players who would be willing to volunteer at the tent this year. Come for a 2 hour shift and enjoy the funfest the rest of the time. Please e-mail me by June 10th to let me know if this is something you would be interested in doing. It is held in Rice Park and there will be players, food, and lots of fun!!

Equipment swap. Minnesota Hockey will be opening up its storage shed to Disabled hockey only on Saturday, August 1st from Noon to 4 pm. Come after our summer skate (see next item) and browse through the shed for new and used equipment. I have seen it…it is a gold mine! More information will be posted on the Minnesota Special Hockey website in the next few weeks.

Mark your calendars for our kick off skate on October 24th! Can you believe it!

Saints game! Back by popular demand, we will have a Special Hockey Saints game again in July. More details to follow.

Google is going to make a mess of our main site in June

Google has sunset a product and will move this site to a different product in June. I expect the move will be painful and that the main site will be messed up for a while.

This blog will not be affected by the move.

Fortunately it's not September yet! I do have a site backup.

There's nothing we can do now but wait and see.

Remington featured on Fox 21 News

A very determined MN SH athlete gets some media attention ...

Tonight at 9: efforts to bring Minnesota Special Hockey north | FOX21Online.com

INTERNATIONAL FALLS - In the State of Hockey, everyone plays. But, it’s not always easy to find a team.

This Thursday and Friday on FOX 21 News at 9, join Nick LaFave as he travels with a family from their home in International Falls all the way to the Twin Cities, just so their son can play the game he loves.

He’ll also explore the Minnesota Special Hockey program, and look at it’s efforts to expand to the Northland.

Unfortunately the Fox video clip was only transiently available, we don't have a copy at this time.

End of season game and banquet - TIME AND LOCATION CHANGE

We've changed locations and times for the end-of-season game.

The new location is Breck Ice Arena is at: 4210 Olson Memorial Hwy, Golden Valley. You can see it in this Google Map view. There's parking in back of the arena.

From the new announcement:

Join us for the Final Games of the Year and the end of the season banquet!

Who: All MN Special Hockey Players, Families & Guests
When: Sunday, March 15, 2:30—4:00 p.m.
Pizza Party immediately following.

Where: Breck Ice Arena, 4210 Olson Memorial Highway, Golden Valley, MN

PLEASE NOTE TIME AND LOCATION CHANGE!!!
Questions, please contact your coach or call 612-325-3392

I've revised our web site calendar.

Pictures from Polars v Stingers Feb 15, 2009

Our online album now includes Images from the Feb 15 Polars vs Eagles game. The link takes you to the first picture in the series. As always the token password is "mnhockey".

Great teams, great pictures.

Eagles - Practice time change

The East Eagles will practice at 9:05 AM on March 1st instead of 6:40pm. The late practice was troublesome for our players so Toni worked to change it for us.

Game photos: Stingers, Eagles and Polars

We've posted photos from 3 games so far this season. As usual you can view them by entering the password "mnhockey" when requested. You can also order prints from this web site, save a full resolution version of any image to your local computer, and add comments (such as the name(s) of your favorite players!).

All the photos are in one album, these links take you to the start of each game. You can also start from the beginning and page through:

• Stingers vs. the Eagles: Dec 7, 2008
  
• Stingers vs. the Polars: Dec 21, 2008 new
  
• Eagles vs. the Polars: Jan 18, 2009 new

If anyone has other photos they'd like to contribute or share, please email John Faughnan at jfaughnan@gmail.com.

Stingers and Polars news posters wanted

If a Stinger or Polar person and you'd like to help post team news here, please email me at jfaughnan@gmail.com and I can help get you started.

I can post Eagles' news, but if any other Eagle wants to help too there's room for more.

John Faughnan
(Tim, Ben)

Clothing orders due by JANUARY 19th

Jane Cashin is taking orders for MN Special Hockey clothing.

This older (stingers/polars) flyer shows what the gear looks like and helps with sizing, but don't use it for ordering.

Please see these directions for ordering advice (Jane Cashin):

We will be taking orders for sweatshirts and skating pants until Monday, January 19th.

Costs:

• Crew Neck Sweatshirt (adult S-XXL, youth M-L) - $46
  
• Hooded Sweatshirt (adult S-XXL, youth M-L) - $50
  
• Skating Pants (adult S-XL, youth S-XL) - $38

Email your order to: Jane Cashin at jocashin@comcast.net. She will confirm that she received your order. If you do not receive a confirmation email call her at 612-581-4483.

Please email Jane the following information for EACH apparel item ordered:

• Team name
  
• Apparel type: Crew or Hooded or Pants
  
• Size (include Youth or Adult)
  
• Athlete name (optional)
  
• Athlete Number (optional):
  

Please send a check made out to Minnesota Special Hockey for your total items purchased to :

Jane Cashin
7009 Weston Circle
Edina, MN 55439

Photos - Section 108 and Wild game

This week's Section 108 gift event and the program sales and Wild game attendance were a very big deal for my son Tim. (Ben opted out of this one.)

It would have been big even without the surprise seating in Suite 11, but that really took it over the top. A big thanks goes from us to Susie, our Special Hockey volunteers, and Section 108.

There was an official photographer at the event. I took some of my own photos as well. My photos are available in our Minnesota Special Hockey 2008-2009 album.

As in past years the album is password protected to discourage inappropriate use. The (obviously not top secret!) password is "mnhockey". All the photos can be downloaded or printed as desired, including downloading full sized images.

MN Special Hockey schedules are available

Several teams have schedules up:

• The South Stingers: First practice is Nov 16.
• East Eagles
• North Polars

In addition to these official schedules there's an unofficial Google Calendar version. I've entered Stingers data to this calendar; if anyone would like to add Eagles or Polars data I can explain how to do it. I did the Stingers because my family uses Google Calendars so the data I enter here also shows up on our family calendar.

Season kickoff at the Mariucci Arena Oct 11

Our kickoff announcement is on the main page:

MN Special Hockey - Minnesota Special Hockey

The 2008-2009 Season is about to begin. Join us for our Season Kickoff on Saturday, October 11th.

Follow this link for additional information about the Season Kickoff.

Saint Paul Saints game Tuesday 8/19/08, Open Skate 8/24

Tomorrow is our special summer Saints outing. The web site lists Directions or you can use this Google Map to find your way.

The Saints have been losing lately, but we'll cheer 'em up.

We're to meet by the "will call" desk at 5:50pm to pick up tickets, and to pay for 'em too. (Some people have already paid). Then we go for a picnic (food is included). After the game, we will all go out onto the field for a group picture.

Toni is handling questions at 651-307-0660 or e-mail at tonib@dakcom.org.

Rick and Susie ask if any players can join the Section 108 golf tournament on August 23. We'll be out of town unfortunately - otherwise Tim would be there with his golf clubs. Susie writes ...

We just found out that Mark Parrish would like our players to be one hand this weekend…

-We need some of us to hand out signed hockey gloves (Sometime  between noon and 6pm Saturday, I will find out specifics)

-Some players to putt at hole 9 & 18. The players would buy a putt from the charity and see if our players sink it. (Saturday, 1:30pm - 6pm (approx))

-we would also need a players to be at a dinner function Friday night. (5,6, or 7 - 9p.m.) we need everyone at 9 p.m. the earlier part of the day can be flexible.

I am sorry for the short notice, we just found out we need a lot of people…we can even take siblings if they will wear a jersey.

There will be a ton of NHL players at the events ...

Rick will be out of town too on business travel, but AJ will represent him tomorrow.

Susie also writes about an open skate Sun 8/24 at 6:30p. I've asked for additional details, we'll be away alas.

Known ticket list:

Tom and staff:  2 tickets

Susie Miller: 4 tickets

Jane Cashin: 4 tickets

George and Allie:  2 tickets

Helen 3

John F. 5

Cindy M 4.

Lil and Andrew  2 tickets

Joe Kelly  4 tickets

Bryan Thorn  5 tickets

Abby Hirsch 2 tickets

Stephanie Abel  4 tickets

Rick C  2 tickets

Lindebergs  5 tickets

Bohrmans  3 tickets

Chris Winkel: 4 tickets

Toni B: 8 tickets