With our first rankings of the 2023-24 season having gone live last week, that can only mean one thing: It’s time for the return of our MYHockey Rankings Play of the Week and Peak Performer features!

Last year, for the first time, we received enough potential Play of the Week vide clips to have our Twitter and Instagram followers help us select a top play for 26 weeks via online voting. That also provided us with more than enough candidates to coordinate the Play of the Year and Save of the Year contests that ran throughout the summer. 

That is our goal again this year as we head into our first week of MHR Play of the Week voting. 

Last year, we also instituted a Peak Performer feature for which we honored several outstanding individual performances that occurred throughout the 2022-23 season. It is our hope to ramp up that feature this season and to honor even more young players from around North America for their efforts.

We can’t do any of this without your support, however. 

Although we rank nearly 20,000 amateur North American hockey teams on an annual basis, we rely on our members, volunteers, coaches, team managers, league contacts and other interested parties to enter the data necessary to keep our rankings up to date. Likewise, although we do get to see a lot of great games, players and performances every season, there is no way for our small staff to compile the video or statistics necessary to honor a Play of the Week and Peak Performer on a regular basis without the assistance of the North American hockey community.

So, once again we are asking and inviting you to help us honor top plays and performances that occur during the 2023-24 season by submitting nominees for both Play of the Week and Peak Performer.

We already have received enough Play of the Week candidates to hold our first vote of the season later this week. Please keep the submissions coming, though. Even if your nominee isn’t selected to be part of this week’s vote, any play that is submitted can be included at any point during the season.

We will consider any great goals, assists or saves we receive for weekly recognition, and any submitted clips also will be considered for the Play of the Year and Save of the Year voting.

It is extremely important that all Play of the Week submissions follow the guidelines outlined below or they may not be considered:

• Email the actual video file or files to scott@myhockeyrankings.com.

• Include the player or players’ names, the team’s name and the age group or birthyear.

• Please DO NOT send a link to social media posts or videos that are posted online unless the link is to an actual downloadable file. 

• Keeping the natural rink sound on the video is fine, but please DO NOT include music or other special effects such as slow motion, inserted graphics, logos, etc. If you are pulling the clip from a service such as LiveBarn and their logo is on the video somewhere, that is acceptable.

• Feel free to send more than one angle of the nominated play in one or two video files if that provides a better view of the nominated play.

Please understand that because of the volume of emails we receive, it is not possible for us to reply to the entries that are submitted. There also is no way that we can search for plays that are posted on the internet or pull video of plays that are submitted via social-media direct messages, especially if the information we need is not provided.

The only way to ensure consideration is to follow the procedure outlined above.

For Peak Performer consideration, please follow the guidelines outlined below when submitting candidates:

• Email the nomination to scott@myhockeyrankings.com

• Include the player’s name, the team’s name, the age group and any pertinent statistical or other information that would support the nomination. 

• Providing a quote from a coach is fine. However, we will not be able to track down a coach to get a quote, so there is no need to provide a coach’s contact information unless you think there may be a larger feature story we might want to consider. 

• Attach up to 45 seconds of highlights from the player’s performance. This can be several plays included on one attached video file or a few different plays on several different attached video files.

• Keeping the natural rink sound on the video is fine, but please DO NOT include music or other special effects such as slow motion, inserted graphics, logos, etc. If you are pulling the clip from a service such as LiveBarn and their logo is on the video somewhere, that is acceptable. 

• Please DO NOT send a link to social media posts or other videos that are posted online unless the link is to an actual downloadable file.

Please understand that because of the volume of emails we receive, it is not possible for us to reply to the entries that are submitted. There also is no way that we can spend time searching for the information or video we have requested if it is not included in the email. 

The only way to ensure consideration is to follow the procedure outlined above.

Also, there is no need to continue submitting plays made by the same player throughout the season once a player had been included in a vote for Play of the Week. A player will not be included more than once in a Play of the Week vote or selected as a Peak Performer more than one time.

We look forward to receiving your nominations and honoring more players than ever this season!