JMS Hockey

Just wondering if the Monday night skate at St Thomas Arena has always been open to all levels.....I guess I havent played enough using this site, but I could have sworn the very first Monday night game I attended was way faster and upper level. could be wrong of course.

There used to be an elite JMS session at St Thomas, might have been Monday I forget.

Ryan - The Monday STIA skate is open to levels 4,5, and 6 only. - Eric JMS Admin

It seemed to be dominate of Level 4 this past Monday.

My understanding is that there aren't a lot of level 5's and 6's in all of JMS. Maybe someone can confirm? But yeah the quality of the skate kinda just depends on who shows up. Ideally there would be a skate for 5 and 6 only but again, it might be hard to fill that and the ppl who run JMS don't want to eat the cost if/when enough people don't sign up.

There was only 4 L4 skaters at that game. That is more than usual at that game.

No to offend but those 4 spots couldnt have been used for 5 or 6 and made the skate much better.....it's all about cost, I understand. But that doesnt hide the fact at points of the skate it was a bit boring....honestly, just posting my opnion, my 2 cents isnt worth anything.

I agree Ryan, I was quite disappointed in the skate last Monday. From a goalie standpoint (because really we're all that matter ;)), it is really hard to stay interested in a slower moving game. In the past that skate has been very good, but last week seemed like the pace was way off. Not to mention the passing wasn't very crisp and the play as a whole was not what I would expect from an elite level. Hopefully tonight's skate is better.

I gotta say the elite session at St. Thomas has been a mixed bag for me in the past. There were definitely some skates where you had 6 or more guys that could reasonably be a level 6 and I'm guessing the rest were level 5. This made for a good game where the level 6's skated hard and were challenged and actually put in some effort. Even towards the latter part of the game the effort level and pace was relatively high. Other times you would get some guys that are really level 3 but say they're level 4 and it's very noticeable. The whole skate slows down a lot and the higher level guys just stop trying and go out of their way to pass the puck instead of shooting because it's just too easy. As a L5/L6 goalie it's kind of frustrating because this is the only elite game there is, at least as far as I know. The 2 goalie slots fill up 6 weeks in advance and there's no guarantee that the higher end guys will be there. Now that I play 3 days a week I generally don't have time for JMS games but there just don't seem to be that many options to begin with.

I always think it is interesting the same goalies are often at the Elite skate. I am looking forward to the potential of new goalies but lately it has been the same ones. I like a challenge of a different goalie style. Get's old when you learn how to cook the same goalie over and over. :)