It’s an exciting time to be a sports fan in Minnesota. The Vikings are off to an impressive start despite a series of injuries to key players. The Timberwolves have a young, promising core and a new head coach that’s respected around the league, and the Wild brought in one of the most successful coaches in recent NHL seasons to reignite a team with the players to make a deep run.

For Mike Zimmer, Tom Thibodeau and Bruce Boudreau, times like these are probably cherished. The fans, the media and entire sports community in Minnesota are extremely supportive and excited, which isn’t always the case when it comes to coaches in the college and professional ranks.

Today’s society places very high expectations on coaches, and they typically put in daunting hours in order to meet them. You can bet it’s a labor of love for them or they wouldn’t be doing it.  

In youth hockey, we also place high standards on local volunteers. While they may not be subjected to the same type of public criticism, many volunteers willingly take on major workloads in order to make playing hockey the best sports experience possible.

“It’s not easy work, but it’s very rewarding,” said Greenway Amateur Hockey Association board member, Traci Gangl. “When you see the players progress through the various levels, when you see them go from using a chair to stand up to doing stops and starts on their own, when you see them battle adversity and eventually succeed, that’s what makes all of the effort worth it. Those moments are just so rewarding.”

In honor of the time and energy these people put in, we wanted to highlight a few thankless jobs that are critical to the success of our community programs.

Before we get started, we ask you to keep a few things in mind.

1. This is far from an all inclusive list. For other examples, click here.
2. Every volunteer position plays a key role in the success of each team and association. 
3. These people love what they do and would do even more if they could.
4. The best way to lessen the workload for current volunteers is for you to join them!

Hockey Director

This time of year is a tough one for Hockey Directors. For most of the state, associations are in some portion of their tryout process or are just finishing it up.

No matter how fair, efficient and effective tryouts are, there are going to be hurt feelings. Some kids are going to be disappointed and a few parents will be upset. There’s no way to escape it.

Trust us. No volunteer set out to purposefully exclude, punish or impede a kid from having success. In fact, the exact opposite is typically true. Hockey Directors spend a big portion of the summer and early fall evaluating how to make the tryout process better, hiring great coaches, debating how to split teams and creating new player development opportunities.  Their primary goal is to help every single kid reach their potential on and off the ice, and with a focus on age-appropriate training, the quality of coaching and hockey programming is continuing to improve every season.

Volunteer Coordinator

Have you ever sent an email out to a group of people looking for help on a project and wondered why no one responded? Motivating people to take time out of their busy live to do additional tasks isn’t easy, but many of the state’s volunteer coordinators are absolute pros.

Youth hockey (and all sports for that matter) is filled with small tasks like running the scoreboard for a game or helping at association fundraisers.  Associations rely on parent contributions in order to complete those duties, and volunteer coordinators oversee the scheduling process to ensure nothing gets forgotten.

Tracking people down to fill roles can be hard, and to make it tougher, volunteer coordinators often deal with no shows that require quick substitutes.  Yet, they always find a way to get the job done so the concession stand stays open, kids can hear their name announced at tournaments and so much more.

President

You know that saying, “The cream rises to the top”? Well, it usually refers to people or ideas which stand out for positive reasons. Unfortunately, problems also tend to rise to the top of an organization’s structure. Since presidents are in charge of leading youth associations, some of which have over 1,000 players, they typically serve as the final destination for any issues that arise.

The role of president goes far beyond that though. They make a critical difference to the success of each association. Whether it’s setting the organization’s culture, guiding the board of directors in fulfilling its mission or performing long range planning, presidents have a number of duties to fill that players or parents may not see on a day-to-day basis but make a huge impact on their experience.

As we mentioned earlier, these are only a few of the roles filled every year by volunteers.  Team Manager, Registrar, Secretary, Treasurer, Tournament Director, Ice SchedulerChr, Recruiting Chairperson….the list is endless!

We hope you will take the time to recognize one of the fantastic volunteers in your association by nominating him or her for the Total Hockey Volunteer of the Month! Each month of the season we acknowledge one volunteer by highlighting their efforts and providing them with a couple of thank you gifts, including a $100 gift card to Total Hockey.

Thank you to everyone who volunteers for the hockey association in their community!