Special Stingers practice Dec 22! Hockey Training Center in Chaska

Coach Rick has a special holiday treat for the Stingers (note original mentioned 12/29, but it's only 12/22):

We have an opportunity to do some off-ice training at the Hockey Training Center in Chaska. I have reserved indoor training time for December 22nd at 10:30am for one hour.

HTC is owned by Chris Erickson, head coach of the Chaska Varsity Girl’s Hockey Team. Chris and a few of his players will be on site for helpful instruction.

This is a great opportunity to have some fun, learn some off-ice training techniques, and work on hockey skills without skates. They have a net to shoot at along with a radar gun to check the speed of your shot (I will take on all challenges).

The location is 888 Arbor Drive, Chaska. It is a few miles away, but I think worth the drive. Check out their website at www.thehockeytrainingcenter.com. Please RSVP to Coach Rick if you can attend ether, or both dates, or if you will not attend.

Coach Rick
rcarlson@veeco.com

Directions are here and a map is here.

Equipment care: helmet screws

Our References and Links page points to a nice equipment guide, but I don't remember it saying anything about helmet care.

The tricky thing with helmets is the darned hardware. It's constantly loosening, probably because of temperature extremes expanding and contracting the hardware.

I repaired a player's helmet today, that inspired me to check ours. Every one had loose screws, and I was missing one. Happily I had a few spares.

I think it's a good habit to tighten all the helmet screws every time the helmet is used, as a part of routine post-skating gear maintenance.

Oh, and skates should probably be sharpened after every 4th time on the ice. A lot of places do a bad job, so ask serious hockey players where they go. We use Boehm's on Selby, we have a sharpening card there.

Stingers Pizza Party - Jan 20th

The Stingers Pizza Party is scheduled for 1:30 to 3:30 pm on Jan 20th at Davannis Pizza in Edina.


View Larger Map

There will be prizes! See the poster for cost and RSVP information.

Stingers news: team photos and schedule

I've added our team photos and Anna's "head shot" photo to the 2007-2008 album. The password is "mnhockey" as always. Our current and older albums are on this page.

The team picture is now on our team page, along with a link to the new schedule. The schedule now shows a "pizza party" on 1/20/07, Coach Rick is firming up times for that.

We're into the season now and everyone is doing very well. We're open to new players, so if you know of any interested persons please send them our way. Remember there are teams in Blaine and Woodbury also accepting new players.

Easy donation for non-profilts

I was told recently we don't yet have our non-profit paper work completed. When we do I'd like to put a donation button on our web site ...

Official Google Checkout Blog: Introducing Google Checkout for Non-Profits

Google Checkout for Non-Profits -- with this launch, U.S. non-profit organizations (IRS-certified 501(c)(3)s) now have an easy way to accept online donations, and donors have a fast and secure way to support their favorite groups. The best part: it's completely free for the organizations. Through at least the end of 2008, non-profits will pay 0% + 0 cents in transaction fees for each donation they accept through Checkout. And that means donors can support these groups knowing that 100 percent of their donations will reach their charity.

Besides being free, Checkout for Non-Profits is designed to make the entire donation and collection process more efficient. For donors, it enables you to complete a donation with just your Google login, and it helps you track your giving in a convenient and central place (a feature that should be particularly useful for those of us who tend to start our tax returns on April 14). It also helps to drive more donations to non-profits by making it easier for donors to give, and it makes collecting funds as easy as pushing a button. With Checkout for Non-Profits, we hope to do for donations what we're currently doing for e-commerce: increase the volume of transactions by making the process as simple and secure as possible for everyone involved.