[jestrem]

This isn't my place, because I have nothing to do with making it happen, but there's a lot of chatter about it, so I thought I make a thread about it, have Barb give us the logistical reasons for adding or not adding a 2nd level 1 night each week.

Perhaps this discussion will put the feelers out there to properly gauge weather or not a 2nd night is justified.

If you have something to say on the matter, here's the place.

[bgarn]

jestrem, on 11 January 2012 - 03:44 PM, said:

This isn't my place, because I have nothing to do with making it happen, but there's a lot of chatter about it, so I thought I make a thread about it, have Barb give us the logistical reasons for adding or not adding a 2nd level 1 night each week.

Perhaps this discussion will put the feelers out there to properly gauge weather or not a 2nd night is justified.

If you have something to say on the matter, here's the place.

I know I have explained this many times to folks who have since moved on in their JMS levels, but I love you newbs so much I will explain again. You can help explain to folks next year, okay?
But do let's not get into a "defend your decisions" mode -- there are a lot of JMSers out there and each one wants something different from the program. Imagine having your choices second-guessed in a forum by a committee with hundreds of different people, ai yi yi.

The chatter probably started due to my comments here. Oh well.

I always want to say, "Relax... it's far more complicated than you think..." Each aspect is complicated and they are all interrelated, hence the long explanation for this intricate subject compelling official answers from JMS.

1. When people are talking about starting a new session, we need more than just a vocal minority. Three guys can generate a lot of buzz, but we need a lot more than that to make a game work. To have enough skaters to play, we need not just 22+ goalies, but a POOL of players to cover when people are sick/work late/have a date/car trouble/out of town etc. We need a lot of people to make a new session work.

2. Even if we have enough interested people, are they all available? If we have 100 interested people, not all of them can play on the same night, and the ones from Blaine won't want to drive to Bloomington, and the ones from Roseville won't want to drive to Eden Prairie. So we have to pick the BEST thing for the MOST people, and THEN we see if we have enough. Wednesdays are a problem due to so many Level 1s participating in the AHA beginner school. Thursday ice is hard to get--and we've had criticism as well when we schedule back-to-back nights ("I get tired! You should let us recover!"). Monday seemed ideal, but didn't work out--more on that below.
There are a LOT of factors to line up for a LOT of people--level, night of the week, location and start time; with so many that need to all fit, we could have 100 interested people and still not be able to get a game going.
To help address this, we have come up with the Lower Level Community Sessions, which are Level 1s and 2s with a limited number of 3s. If we don't have quite enough skaters for any one level, a Community Session still creates an opportunity for people to play.

3. And even if we have enough interest on a certain day or days, there has to be available ice. Some things to remember:
A. Hockey season ice must be booked many, many months in advance. Even non-season ice is booked early; JMS is already booked at several rinks through September of next year. Know what you'll be doing then? Probably not. But JMS has to take a flyer and sign a contract that there will be enough of you willing to pay for games at Start Time X on Night Y at Rink Z--and Level Whatever.
B. Kids get the early ice. I've had a lot of newer folks say, "I'd love another session, can you do an 8 p.m. start time?" No, sorry. Youth associations get first dibs and then us adults all fight over what's left.
So if the only ice available is a 9.45 start, some people close to the rink would still say no, because it's too late... further culling our pool of available skaters.
And then of course, what other JMS sessions are on that night? Bob may want ice in St. Louis Park where he lives, and Jane might want ice in Hopkins, but we can't make both of those work for the same level--too close together. So calculating the proximities and overlap is important, too.

And thus, to make a second Level 1 session work, we need to book the ice months in advance and on a night that doesn't interfere with other beginner opportunities. And it needs to be in a central location, as early as we can get it.

Which is what I did.
Back in June, I booked the hockey season ice and I deliberately selected Monday nights for Level 1. And we did not get enough skaters to make it work.
Do you remember the pleading e-mails I sent out? Do you remember how many sessions were canceled? Many. And, having contracted for the ice, we were still obligated to pay for it. Ouch.

So, responsibly, we decided that if it's not working, then we're not going to force it, not going to nag people to sign up. I removed the option and gave that ice to Level 3. JMS is on the hook for the session and we have to have a game there to pay the bill. If we don't have enough Level 1s, okay, then we'll try something else there. Breck is a favorite rink and I'm relieved we got a Level 3 going there.

Should I take the Monday night Breck game away from Level 3? You wouldn't like it if your session was re-appropriated for another level. But where to find consistent ice during the hockey season, when most was booked months and months ago? That is the problem: we don't know demand until NOW, but we can't book ice NOW, we have to book ice A Long Time Ago. It's guessing--and I guessed about Level 1 last summer... and guessed WRONG.

It's certainly possible to find odd icetimes here and there, but a Monday at SPA followed the next week by a Wednesday in Blaine and then Northeast on Tuesday the following week, is hard for skaters to follow. Invariably someone gets the session wrong, shows up at the wrong place and sends me a note asking for their money back (yes, this does happen). And figuring out the "available skater pool" is just about impossible with changing nights and locations.

One way to handle this is to just book the ice and hope. But that's not fiscally responsible--we all saw what happened earlier this year when those many sessions had to be canceled and still paid for. Until the Icetime Fairy offers to subsidize this "book and hope" approach long-term, we are going to have to play it cautious.

As I wrote on the game comments last week, I'm working to find a solution to help more Level 1 players skate. It's very, very hard in the middle of the hockey season. You DO have the Lower Level Community Sessions and I hope those are providing ice for some of you.

To ascertain interest in another Level 1 game, send an e-mail to support at JMShockey and include:
1. what nights of the week you can play--not a few, but reliably
2. your top three arena choices
PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE--I will not count those replies.
I will take a little time each day to track the replies and make posts here about the interest. When we get enough for a certain night/location combo, I'll start investigating with the rinks.
I know it seems far away, but do note that mid-March is usually when the youth associations back off on their mondo ice demands... so if nothing else, hang in there for another two months and then the situation loosens up considerably.

Really, I want to give you what you want. But it is very, very complicated and the timing on all sides is not orchestrated for an immediate solution or even answer. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

[jestrem]

My apologies bgarn, and I appreciate the full explanation of the logistical nightmare involved with making this happen.

I posted because for the 2nd week in a row, the level one game filled up very early and that resulted in comments about adding a second night. So I figured why not make the discussion official knowing that you'd likely come by with the official position on what makes this so difficult. I remembered your comments from last week where you essentially said the same thing as you did above, although not as detailed. Apparently, many people missed your explanation, and that's why I thought it may be a good idea to have an easy to find account of exactly what you have to go through to make it happen.

[bgarn]

Thanks for the note, I hate that it's so complicated, but it involves a ton of factors and somebody's got to captain the ship...

I know it's not the greatest answer, but I AM working on this, in the time I have available. I have a full-time job that has nothing to do with hockey and then about 100 JMS e-mails to get through every night. Not complaining, but finding time to --gauge interest, --investigate rink availability and --rework aspects of the huge, tangled JMS schedule, means things get done in increments. (I would love to sit at home and work on JMS all day, but I don't want to have to charge skaters what it would cost to pay me a full salary! So you get me on a basically volunteer basis. :-) )

There are other things to think about that I didn't mention above--think about this: For every session that fills up, that means there are people who wanted to play but couldn't.
Does that mean we should automatically book another session? Actually, no. Because even if five people really wanted to play in a certain game, but didn't get on the roster, that's still not enough for another game. But those five people who really wanted to play can get vocal about their situation.

Folks will say, "But you should try Level X at Rink Y, I really think it will work!" Well, we appreciate the enthusiasm, but we need to use more data than "I think it will work."
It's really easy for someone to demand that JMS book the level they want at the rink they want (I know you're not doing that here, thanks--but it does happen all the time). To be absolutely blunt, when someone says JMS should start this new session he wants so much, he has no commitment and no way for us to hold him to his promise that he will play every week if we only give him the session he wants at the rink he wants.
He's not risking anything, but is expecting JMS to make a big gamble based on his wishes, with zero consequences for him if it doesn't work out. It does get a bit trying when folks get mad that JMS won't risk a bunch of money for their personal schedule/location wishes, but usually they get it when we explain. We ARE working on ways to better gauge interest (argh! the time issue again! need more time for JMS!) but for now we reply on our heatmaps showing skater populations and rink locations.

It's all so, so complicated. That is just about all I have time to write--shame, I am late for work. But I'm really glad that JMS appears smooth and easy on the surface--that means things are working as they should!

[bgarn]

Update!

I think I have a line on some Monday night ice, fairly central. More details soon--

[HutchJohnson]

I've been with other groups of people trying to keep a regular schedule of ice time so I totally get the difficulty involved in it. I agree you need a good number of bodies to keep it going on a regular basis. I really do appreciate JMS and am grateful there is enough interest to keep all this going. Keep up the good work.