JMS Hockey

The reasoning was numbers were dropping, but I don't remember seeing short benches the last four weeks - even around the 4th of July week/weekend. Now I'm totally bummed since I just re-org'd my summer so I could skate on Monday nights and then it gets moved. I also know several of the skaters on the East side won't drive that far to the West side. I figured if this skate got cancelled, I could go to the Maple Grove upper level skate, which looks like it got moved too. Or are we still waiting to see how much interest there is in that session too? Ugh, summers suck. I understand Barb is trying to maximize skater interest and make sure she's not losing money, but it seems like a lot of the upper level skaters (the 5's and 6's) tend to get the shaft when these things are getting shuffled.

We'd love to extend this game until the exact point where attendance drops off, but unfortunately most of our ice is purchased in bulk and not à la carte. Although the games the past few weeks had enough players, when we looked at the rate at which the games filled we noticed a tremendous slowdown the past few weeks. Some other factors are that August is the worst hockey turnout month of the year and the pool of top-end skaters is smaller. When we were faced with the decision to continue purchasing games through the end of August, we had to make a yes or no call earlier than we would have liked but we're pretty confident this was the right decision based on the data we have available to us. As noted on the games page, this game will be back in September. Another thing to note - Barb doesn't make any of these decisions independently. That may have been true many years ago, but our entire administration reviews and tweaks our game schedules and makes decisions as a group.

JMS is becoming less and less attractive to me, as an upper level player in the south metro. Hope you guys can get some stuff figured out, really liked the option of the monday night game at STIA.

Skaters and goalies need to get it figured out and commit to playing EARLIER... not the day of a skate, 3 hours prior. Successful businesses do not function that way. Does it make sense to be on the hook for $250+ for an ice time that is showing a slow down in interest? Not really. I'm not on the "administration" as Andy puts it... but common sense can tell you these things. It's the old adage... no skaters sign up with 0 or 1 goalie and goalies don't tend to sign up with less than 10 skaters. Again, sign up earlier. Prove to JMS the skate is worth keeping. Sure, lots of ice times are "great skates"... but there is responsibility to be dealt with in scheduling it in the first place.

How many "Interested players" does there need to be for a session to not be "on hiatus" . My usual skate had 23 players interested and was not booked this week. Very frustrating... And I agree with Michael, it seems like all the upper level sessions are in the west metro...

First time at Monday night STA Elite skate, last week, and really enjoyed it. Was looking forward to coming every Monday and was sad to see that it was canceled. I get it that #'s and money drive games, so totally understand the cancelation. Lets keep it as an option, at least from an interest perspective so we can hopefully drive more to this game and it will get scheduled again. I also agree with Michael in that there are no high level skates (like that) in the south metro outside of that skate.

Joe, It's not a simple calculation unfortunately. We've booked games that have over 28 "interested" players that ended up failing. Some of the things we look at is the rate that "interest" gathers - if the game placeholder is posted and we see 10+ responses the next day, this is a good sign. If it takes three weeks to get ~20 responses, it doesn't quite hold as much weight. Interest is a good indicator but its just one factor of many that are considered when booking a game. Clif, we book where the demand is. If enough demand is in the south metro for a high level skate, we'll book it. The demand has to be there though. On the plus side, Monday's STIA game will be back in September, so you don't have too long to wait.

Booooooooooo. :) off to another skate somewhere else I guess then.

boooooo. was just about to sign up and saw the session was canceled. understand the reasoning but still disappointing!

Ugh, worst part about this is that now there's only one elite level session. This is especially crappy if you're a goalie since now there's only 2 elite slots per week instead of 4, and it was near impossible getting to these games when there was 4. I don't know that there is anything different that can be done but this is frustrating.

>>>>Does it make sense to be on the hook for $250+ for an ice time that is showing a slow down in interest? Not really. This depends on what the purpose of JMS is. If it's just purely to make money, then sure, it makes sense to protect your profit margin at all costs. If you're trying to build a community and have a place where skaters want to go, then I would dispute it and say what you're doing isn't very reasonable. It's also easy to say, "Don't worry guys, the Elite skate will be back in September." But you've just given all of these skaters who are pretty upset more than a month to find another skate, somewhere else. Are you really that confident they're all going to come back this time?

Here we go again with "profit margin". I'm pretty sure a lot of the "profits" from filled skates go directly to make up for the drastically unfilled ones. In any case, this IS Summer afterall, and games going on hiatus like this happens every single year. There is a decade of history to back it up. I'm just as frustrated... 10 sessions TOTAL for the entire week this week. It's sad, but even THOSE sessions are not filled. Point proven for putting other sessions to rest for now. Will skaters come back? Most likely, because the product is good. Will some find other non-JMS ice times? Sure. But it is what it is.

Is it conceivable to do an actual sign-up for phantom ice? So instead of clicking an I'm interested button, skaters commit their money for a Monday night phantom ice time, location unknown. On the Friday prior, if there is a full session, then the ice gets booked and the session is on. Of course several things come into play. Is ice available at all and location. But, if you REALLY want to skate... You'd drive wouldn't you?

From my perspective, the rate at which people signed up for this game has always seemed to be slow , but I don't ever remember having small benches. On the other hand the Thursday night skate at STA seems to fill far in advance with the same end result. The time people sign up in advance probably correlates with the age and skill bracket to some extent. 5's and 6's aren't planning their lives far enough in advance to keep the confidence of the JMS booking. If the end result bore out lower actual attendance it'd be easier to swallow. Seemed like a popular skate to me.

Guys, the program has to be sustainable. The ice is expensive and we have to be able to pay for it. And if we're booking in advance, we have to be sure we can continue to pay for it. Given the dwindling turnouts and game fill rates, we determined the Monday STIA game was not a financially responsible risk for JMS operating funds. The admins' jobs are to keep the program sustainable. This thread has a bunch of reasons why the Monday STIA game is on hiatus. I hope in time folks can process them. Sorry guys, we have to pay the bills. The money has to come from somewhere. If you are certain this game is a sure thing and want to talk about ways you can help minimize the financial risk, please use the Get Support button on the right. We are always looking for creative solutions to keep prices down while offering lots of sustainable games. Thank you very much to the folks who understand the big picture.