Ice Allocation and Scheduling
The Smiths Falls Girls Hockey Association (SFGHA) negotiates annually an ice contract with the Town of Smiths Falls to secure conditioning, tryout, practice, tournament, training, and game ice for its teams in the Memorial Community Centre (MCC) and Youth Arena (YA). Ice costs are the largest budget item for SFGHA. Ice at other locations (e.g., Westport or Perth) may also be sought depending on needs.
Registration fees for U9 to U18 teams cover up to 40 hours per team for games and practice. Any ice time beyond this 40-hour allocation will incur charges based on the standard youth rate set by the Town of Smiths Falls, which is $152.00 per hour. Teams may also look to purchase their own ice but should work around ice assigned by SFGHA as much as possible. Collaborations or exchanges with other teams should be communicated with the Ice Director for confirmation and tracking.
The SFGHA understands that ice needs vary among teams depending on tiers and age groups. Every effort will be made to ensure that each team receives their 40-hour ice allocation throughout the season targeting at least 1 game (home or away) and 1 practice per week. The Ice Director will work closely with coaches and managers to meet ice needs, make adjustments for inclement weather rescheduling, and accommodate playoff and playdown season requirements.
Practice ice allocations will include a combination of shared-ice, split-ice, and full-ice as explained below:
The weighting (in brackets) will be applied to the ice-time duration for calculating each team's weighted ice allocation. For example, a 1-hour shared-ice practice is counted as 0.5 hours and 1 hour of split-ice as 0.75 hours. All home games are calculated as full-ice.
For home game ice, efforts will be made to allocate ice in the MCC. Teams will receive options for scheduling in advance of the scheduling meeting, and any unused ice times will be returned to the Ice Director for redistribution. In some cases, game time adjustments may be considered to group games on the same day, if feasible, to facilitate referee scheduling. For example, immediately following the scheduling meeting, if there is a 1-hour gap between two games on a Saturday in December, the start time of one of these games may be adjusted to eliminate the gap. Any such changes will be communicated as promptly as possible during the scheduling window.