Pickup Hockey in Oregon

Last month we helped organize our first games in Oregon, specifically Eugene Oregon. That got us curious about the hockey scene in Oregon in general and Eugene specifically. Eugene is the second largest city in the state of Oregon with an estimated population of 159,000, which makes it just a bit larger than our home city here in Guelph, Ontario.

We asked our organizer Jake about the hockey scene and here’s what we learned.

There are 16 rec league teams with three skill divisions. About half of the teams in this league are apparently sponsored by local breweries. Those sponsorships often include beer for the team each game. Jake’s sponsorship includes four growlers each week for his team.

So a quick tangent here to peek at the beer situation in Eugene. This city has more than it’s fair share of beer and microbreweries. I’m starting to think a roadtrip is going to be required.

generalBack to hockey, Eugene has a tier three junior team named Eugene Generals. The University of Oregon also has a club team.

While our home city here in Canada sports eight busy ice surfaces, Eugene manages to survive with one. Their rink is a converted horse arena on the city fairgrounds. Previously called the Lane Center, it now goes by The Rink Exchange.

As with most cities, the age range for hockey and pickup play runs the gamut from 18 to late 60’s. Having grown up in a one rink town myself, I’m sure the hockey community is a tightknit one. We look forward to contributing to it in our own way by helping them run their pickup hockey. At the time of this post, every game we’ve helped run in Eugene has been a sellout!

 

How Team Selection Works

We have a new optional feature that has us selecting teams for your weekly game. Our hope is that this will save you and your crew time each week. You won’t have to pick teams and every skater coming on the ice doesn’t have to count up darks and whites before stepping on the ice. I also have a dream that it cuts down on the number of yellows and reds! As well, hopefully it allows the games to start quicker and make good use of your ice time.

Selection_111Currently, it’s random but as an organizer, you can adjust the lineup behind the scenes if you want. We have a lot planned for this feature, including having captains pick teams and even the ability to make some trades. For now we’re keeping it simple, I wanted to share some details on how it works today.

Game Page

Every player is assigned to the white or dark team when they join a game. They can immediately see which team they’re on based on the white or dark jersey by their username on the game page.

Changing The Teams

Selection_113As an organizer, you can go ‘Behind the scenes’ on your game page to see the current numbers for each team. Under the team column, you can see which team each player is currently assigned to. Clicking on “change team” flips them to the other team.

That’s it, simple as pie. When we send out our gameday reminders to the people playing in your game, we let them know what team they’re playing on.

Let us know if you want it turned on for your game?

Automatic Team Selection for Your Pickup Hockey!

Our goal at 20Skaters is to make lives simpler for our pickup hockey organizers, saving them time and money each week, while making the experience for their players better.

We started with taking over their weekly game admin work, setting up a game page each week, handling all of their emailing and reminders, collecting sub payments etc. We’ve been working our way towards some of the more interesting and fun features, including the following which are rolling out this week….

Team Selection

Selection_110At most pickup hockey games, team selection is effectively random and requires ongoing balancing as folks are coming onto the ice. That means that every skater stepping on the ice has to count up the dark and white jerseys to decide which they should be. It’s not complicated but it’s annoying.

Starting this week, organizers can have us pick teams for them. As each skater joins a game, they are assigned to dark or white team. The organizer can adjust and balance the teams behind the scenes if they’d like. When we email our gameday reminder to each skater, we’ll remind them what colour they are wearing today.

For our games that do select teams which span multiple games, we will soon be adding the ability for you to assign a default team to each skater in your lineup.

Hopefully this results in less counting, less balancing, and we can get games started sooner, which means more icetime!

My Scheduled Games

20Skaters brydon | 20Skaters - Chromium_109One of our organizers, Tom from Ottawa, recently sent us a wicked list of his dream features. In that list, he mentioned that he bookmarked his upcoming games page and often started from this page. We’ve now added a “My Scheduled Games” link to our main navigation to make this simpler.

Note that for some of our organizers, we’re still generating your game each week so this list could be short.

Attendance Change Notifications

Another one we’ve heard from Tom and others is that they’d like to know when previously accepted skaters decline. Currently we email organizers when a new player chooses to attend your game. We’re expanding that definition so that we will now notify you when the number of attending skaters for your game changes, either up or down.

By the way, if you don’t want these ‘attendance change’ emails at all, we can turn them off for your game.

Want To Run Pickup Hockey?

12212806926_3029f871ef_zObviously the main thing we do is help others organize their weekly pickup hockey game. I also book my own ice now and again and run pickup. I’ve recently had a few folks ask if I’m going to run regular pickup. My answer is always no….

but you should rent some ice and I’ll help you run it and fill it!

I figured I should make a wider offer along those lines. If you want to run pickup hockey, I’m happy to help you do that. In our popular cities, we have a large set of skaters who have already filled in our “Find More Hockey” application. I can invite all those folks to your skate. If we’re not yet busy in that city then we can actively work on finding more players before you actually book your ice.

Bottom line, we love pickup hockey. If you’re contemplating running some, we’re here to help so don’t hesitate to ask! It may be easier than you think!

Drafting Pickup Hockey Teams

Something fun that we’re working on is allowing our pickup hockey organizers to pick teams for their weekly games. We all know that the way to pick teams for pickup hockey is the age old tradition of tossing sticks. Everyone puts their stick into a pile and someone closes their eyes and tosses sticks one at a time towards either net. Whatever side your stick lands, welcome to your new team!

Tossing Sticks

This first step is simple, just let each player know whether they’re wearing black or white for today’s skate. This is just random team selection, tossing sticks. We’ll include that information when we email our gameday reminder to each player on the day of the skate. It should cut down on each person having to count up skaters before they decide what colour to put on.

So where’s the fun? We want to move beyond random team selection. I wanted to share some ideas we’re playing with. I’m hoping to get some feedback and thoughts on where we should go with this? Please comment below or email me directly with any thoughts.

Balancing TeamsumHockey1920d

With this approach, we randomly select teams for week one. After the game’s over, we find out which team ‘won’. Each player on the winning team is assigned a point. We randomly select teams the following week, however, over time we start to factor player point totals into the team selection. The hope being to balance teams over time.

Obviously this requires keeping score in some fashion each week. That could be as simple as the organizer choosing a winning side.

Captains

Each week we select two captains. Those captains pick teams, pretty straightforward.

Fantasy Sports

This one’s a bit out there but could be fun. We randomly select teams as skaters sign up. Each attending player is then allowed to make one trade each week. That trade allows them to swap a player on one team with one of the other team. We could either allow that trade to happen immediately. Or we could build in an approval model. Maybe the organizers have to approve trades or the players being traded?

This one’s obviously a bit more involved but provided we build the UI so it’s light weight and fast to interact with, it could be a lot of fun.

Gift for Pickup Hockey Player

_NOB3903If your significant other, kid’s, or parent’s are trying to find that perfect gift for you, send them to this page!

We’ve whipped up the perfect gift for the pickup hockey player. It includes your black/white pair of practice jerseys so you’re no longer the guy wearing red that no one passes to at pickup hockey. As well, we’ve included a coach’s pack of tape and some pucks.

We only have a few of these left so contact us directly if you’d like one. We’re selling them for $80 + HST and shipping.

20Skaters Holiday Package includes:

  • 1 white practice jersey
  • 1 black practice jersey
  • 6 rolls of clear tape
  • 1 roll of white tape
  • 1 roll of black tape
  • 2 hockey pucks

Practice Hockey Jersey Sets For Sale

2014-12-10 16.18.54We have the perfect Christmas gift for that person in your life who shows up to every pickup game sporting a yellow, red or grey sweater! Buy them a pair of 20Skaters practice jerseys, one white and one black!

For a short time, we’re selling these in pairs for $60+HST, includes shipping in Canada. If you’re interested, just email us directly! If you’re in the US, there will be a small additional charge for shipping.

If you’re a 20Skaters organizer and interested in a team set, we can help there as well.

Free Hockey Equipment?

We help you organize awesome weekly pickup hockey games. We take over all of your admin work. We invite your skaters in, in rounds, and your subs pay online ahead of time to secure a spot. Our goal is reasonably simple, do everything we can to sell out your weekly game of pickup hockey.

“Their product has saved me countless hours organizing this year’s skate, it has simplified the process of collecting money from subs, and it has ensured a better turnout for us overall at our games this year”, Danny

Selection_076After quietly building up our platform, we’re now ready to work with more organizers. To that end, we’re developing a referral program as we realize it takes time on your part to talk us up.

If you know someone organizing weekly pickup hockey, tell then about us! Email them a link to our How It Works page, tweet about us, and like our Facebook page. Once they’ve organized a few games with us we’ll send you one of the following, your choice, as a thank you.*

  • Twelve rolls of clear shinpad tape.
  • New Tron visor.
  • A 20Skaters practice jersey (your choice of black or white).

We’ll also send the organizer you referred a new puck bag with 10 pucks. As they say in survivor, “worth playing for?”

Selection_077* Currently only within Canada because of shipping restrictions.

 

Finding Goalies for Pickup Hockey

goalie-picBeing short a few skaters on the bench is tolerable but we all know two goalies is a must! If you’re organizing pickup hockey with us, our advice is always to grow your goalie sub list as much as you can. Once you have two goalies registered for your next game, we stop emailing and inviting your sub goalies. So there’s no drawback in having as many goalies on your sub list as possible.

If you find yourself chasing last minute goalies often, there are a few suggestions to help.

  1. Ask for help from your skaters, let them know you want more goalie subs. Send a quick email to your lineup asking for their help. From your Manage My Players page, click your yellow Email all players button and ask your skaters to help you recruit some more goalies.
  2. Rent a goalie. If you’re in a larger city, renting goalies is always an option. Prices tend to range from $30 to $50 per hour. As well, Mike and the team at Goalies911 are offering 20Skaters organizers $5 off if you need a tender. Make sure to mention that you’re a 20Skaters organizer when you phone Mike.

As requested by our organizers, longer term we plan to build deeper integrations with services like Goalies911. This will allow you to easily rent a goalie through your dashboard or have us do that automatically if you still need a goalie close to gametime.

Filling Your Pickup Hockey Game

Last week one of our organizers asked us if we could “serve up a Mack Daddy Super Duper banana split?” The banana split he was referring to was a feature he wanted us to build.

KITCHEN-STUFF-PLUS-BANANA-SPLITFor our weekly games, the first thing we do is invite in your full time, paid for the season skaters. They can accept or decline directly from that email. After a couple of days we start to invite in subs who are able to purchase spots in that week’s game if they are available.

 

Currently if your weekly pickup hockey game is soldout and someone then declines on the day of the game, our team at 20Skaters is notified. That allows us to take some action to get your game back to 20 skaters.

What Rick asked us for was, sorry if this starts to look like pseudo-code….

  • If there are full-timer, paid skaters in who have not yet replied for this game
  • And someone drops out last minute, moving the game from being soldout to having room for skaters

Then we send an email to those full timers saying something like “Hey, this week’s game just had a spot open up. Quickly accept now to reserve your spot before a sub grabs it!”

The tricky balance we have is trying to fill all our weekly games while ensuring your paid full timers have spots if they can make it out. This new ‘banana split’ should help and we’ll be releasing it in the coming weeks.