When it comes to pickup hockey, no one wants to be skater #21. The perfect number, as we all know, is 20 Skaters. Ten per bench, two full lines. Currently all our games are soldout once we reach 20. Done, closed for business, no others allowed in.
All of our organizers have full timers. Their full timers pay for the entire season, can attend any games and we always invite them in first. Currently, if a full timer tries to attend a soldout game, they aren’t able to. That’s bad for our organizers. All of our organizers would prefer that full timers can choose to join a game at anytime.
Our goal, however, is to sellout each week’s game. It’s difficult to do that if we have to allow for full timers to respond last minute or change their mind. This summer we’re making changes to allow a full timer to attend a game at any point. The only time this should result in 21 skaters is two scenarios:
- A full timer, who previously declined this game, changed their mind and decided to attend last minute.
- A full timer didn’t respond at all until last minute.
There’s always a chance life gets in the way and you end up being skater 21. We’re not looking to be heavy handed here but we also don’t want to open up a hole here that results us consistently overselling games. We want to find the optimum level of shame and peer pressure to gently encourage all full timers to reply in a timely manner. 
An idea?
We get some lovely pink funfur skate covers made with the #21 on them. We provide a pair or two for all our organizers. In the case that week’s game has a skater #21, we email the organizer to let them know. They offer the pretty covers to skater #21 to wear for that night’s pickup game. Maybe we also decorate their avatar on the game page with some funfur?
Too much? Just enough? Not enough?