By Scott Lowe – MYHockeyRankings.com

In our MYHockey Rankings world, which includes a small staff and limited hours in a day to tackle our yearly mission of ranking more than 20,000 youth hockey teams, we rely on countless volunteers and literally thousands of club board members, coaches and team managers to provide our services and keep our website up to date.

Many of those amazing folks donate some of their valuable free time to help us get the job done, and for that we are forever grateful.

In 2024, with all the technological advances we have seen during the first quarter of the 21^st century, being able to access up-to-date information on club and team websites and via their social- and digital-media accounts also has become a critical component of our operation. Clubs that provide current and accurate information on their websites and other digital-media platforms make our lives much easier and allow us to provide our users and followers with all the data they have come to expect.

There is nothing more frustrating than searching high and low for a club’s website to locate some important missing information that we need to keep our site current only to find that the website has been neglected or ignored and doesn’t provide even the most basic information about a club or its teams. If that’s frustrating for us, we can only imagine how annoying it is for parents of players in the program, opposing team coaches and administrators and scouts who might be interested in finding out who a player is or when and where a team or player of interest plays next.

It's truly disappointing how many poorly designed, managed and maintained youth hockey websites we see on a regular basis. If you consider how much people are paying for their kids to participate in youth hockey, it’s actually more embarrassing than disappointing.

A 2019 study by Aspen Institute found that hockey is the most expensive sport for families of the kids who play. The study determined that the average annual cost for a kid to play youth hockey was more than $2,500. Compare that to the estimated average cost of $1,200 and $1,000 to play youth soccer or basketball, respectively.

Surely four years after that study was conducted in our post-COVID universe that cost has increased considerably, and the reality is that the study likely considered many types of youth hockey programs, including house and recreational levels as well as the more expensive travel programs, when determining that number.  

Although the number Aspen Institute came up with was higher than any other sport, the truth is that $2,500 probably is on the low end of what hockey families pay. It seems unlikely that the study considered the large number of ultra-competitive AAA programs that exist and the exorbitant fees they charge.

In. my  area of the United States, tuition alone for the younger AAA teams is between $5,500 and $6,000, and that number climbs to as high as $8,500 to play at many clubs We have heard of some AAA tuitions being as high as $13,000, and those fees often don’t include travel expenses incurred by families for overnight stays during several required tournaments per year; a low-end estimate of $1,200 for equipment; tryout and other offseason program fees often required to play on these teams and team gear such as jerseys; socks and travel apparel.

Suffice to say that no matter how you slice it, playing hockey at that level for players between the ages of 13 and 18 is likely to carry an annual price tag of at least between $12,500 and $15,000. And while the families paying that amount are in the minority, when you consider that many Tier 2 programs charge between $3,000 and $5,000 for tuition alone, that $2,500 number from the study has to be too low.

Regardless, there’s no question that hockey is the most expensive of all youth sports, and for the investment required to participate, it is reasonable for anyone who might need to access a team’s website to expect a fully operational site that at least provides the basic necessities and information for all potential visitors.

Not long ago I visited the website of one of the AAA organizations in my area. This was about 10 days before they were scheduled to open their season. I run a summer league and training program in my area and have been helping kids from here get exposure and advance to higher levels of hockey for about seven years now.

The club’s 18U team was scheduled to play in a large New England Showcase during Labor Day Weekend, and I wanted to reach out to my junior hockey contacts there to let them know that some players I knew would be playing and were worth watching. So, I hopped on the team’s website to locate the schedule and find out what numbers the players would be wearing.

No dice.

“Under construction; come back soon” was the message that popped up on my screen.

Okay, I thought to myself. Most of these teams rely on parent volunteers or even coaches who also have fulltime jobs to update websites and handle other administrative duties, so I’m sure it will be online soon. Sometimes rosters and schedules aren’t finalized until late in the summer, so this is understandable.

In the meantime, I contacted one of the coaches I know at that club and asked him what was going on with the site. He told me that the person who updated the website previously had left the organization – apparently it wasn’t a pleasant divorce – and was refusing to turn over the passwords and information needed to access and update the site.

Luckily, I was able to locate the team’s schedule on the tournament website and passed it along to my contacts. Out of curiosity I returned to the site after the tournament had started and got the same message.

Teams from our area don’t only get to play in New England in front of college and junior coaches a few times a year – if they are lucky – so it’s disappointing to see that one of the few AAA clubs in our area didn’t at least have a team roster readily accessible on its site. Any scouts who were interested in seeing the team play and who hoped to obtain the roster and schedule probably just gave up and moved on to another team.

There are plenty of other fish in the sea playing for clubs that are eager to get their players’ information into the hands of higher-level coaches and scouts. The more time people must spend searching for basic information that they should be able to find in a few minutes, the less likely they are to go see the team play. There were a few old news items on the site, but nothing had been posted since August 2023.

After that I cruised over to another local AAA club’s website and at least found a functional site that had some relatively current information, but there were no schedules or rosters for any of the age levels, which range from 11U to 18U. There were some contact forms, tryout information, biographies of the people who run the program, registration pages for spring and summer programs and some alumni and other information that hadn’t been updated recently. There was a 2024 marketing video, which I couldn’t get to play, on the home page, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and blame the Starbucks WIFI for that snafu.

My next stop was the website for a local nationally ranked Tier 2 “AA” program. This is the biggest club in our area and currently the top Tier 2 organization. I found a few rosters there, but those didn’t include player numbers. The schedule pages, ironically, stated that team schedules could be found at MYHockey Rankings and on the various league websites.

Nothing like making it easy for end users to find what they are looking for.

This site only had a few team pages listed even though the club offers rec and Tier 2 teams at various levels from mites through 18U. The club traditionally has more than 1,500 member families. Most of the practice pages only had spring practice and tryout information.

Unfortunately, these examples are not isolated.

A quick survey of websites in various other areas of the country led to similar findings. Of course, there also were some very comprehensive and professional-looking sites out there. It’s just a shame – and unacceptable – that there are so many youth hockey sites that come up woefully short when it comes to providing even the most basic information.

Thanks to the internet and everything that comes with it, any organization large or small has a powerful means to market and promote itself as well as any idea or product. This is true in the youth hockey world, too, and failure by clubs to take advantage of this opportunity can have a drastic negative impact on the public perception of a club and does a disservice to the families that pay thousands of dollars to be part of that organization.

While it is true that many youth hockey clubs rely on the efforts of selfless volunteers to perform many of the functions that allow the club to operate, it is imperative for clubs to present a strong and professional brand image, facilitate efficient internal and external communication and be an accurate source of information for those inside and outside the organization. Failure to do so can be detrimental to the club’s image and bottom line – and ultimately to its performance on the ice as well.

A sharp-looking, informative and regularly updated website is essential as any club attempts to establish its brand and public image. And while it does take time to update and maintain a website, there are many third-parties such as Crossbar that provide ready-made web templates and other club-management tools that can be tailored to an organization’s needs and are designed to be easy for anyone to maintain and update.

Once a site is created, the offseason can be used to enter all the basic organizational information that will remain mostly unchanged. Information about the club and its mission, values and programs; the facilities the organization owns or uses; the coaches, hockey director, board member and other important contacts; the history and club alumni; pricing and how to register; and any programs the club offers should be standard on most websites. A news section that can be updated easily with announcements, accomplishments and other important happenings should be part of any site and can be updated at any time.

After the site basics are added, it’s just a matter of inputting or uploading rosters and schedules, duties that can be split up among team managers and other volunteers, and keeping that information current throughout the season. Finding parents or other family members of players who can pitch in to assist with various potential needs such as writing, taking photos, keeping statistics, shooting video and providing emergency technical support can allow an organization’s website to flourish without overtaxing any one person.

If volunteers aren’t available, if the basics are covered and the team information is current and accurate, the site provides a means to facilitate communication within the organization, the look is clean and professional and the site is easy to navigate, that is more than enough and would be better than what many clubs have right now.

The companies such as Crossbar that serve youth sports community allow any organization to build and design a professional-looking site that requires little or no programming knowledge and is easy for even a technology novice to navigate and update. Because these companies cater to the youth sports industry, they have encountered and solved nearly every conceivable issue, concern and obstacle that might arise. Their customer support and experience also will ease the burden on whomever runs the site.

Remember the adage “You never get a second chance to make a first impression?” For most youth sports organizations – well, really for pretty much any entity – thanks to Google, a club’s website is going to provide that first impression for most people.

For the parents of a child who is interested in playing hockey, the ease of finding the information they are looking for on an organization’s website and being able to have most, if not all, of their questions answered by going there, likely will play a big role in helping them decide if that may be the best fit for their family. While the club website doesn’t have to be the most cutting edge or fancy site in an area, it should be pleasing to the eye, clean, professional, easy to navigate, current and inclusive of all the basic information any parent of a prospective new player would need to know.

The continued existence of any youth sports organization is dependent upon its ability to draw in new members and limit member attrition as much as possible. A well-designed website can go a long way toward accomplishing both.

Externally, the website is a club’s best marketing vehicle and should draw prospective families in and provide them with everything they need to be comfortable making a deciding. Internally, if the site provides current members with all the updated information they need to navigate the season easily, that can lessen the chances of families having a bad experience and becoming disgruntled.  

The basic essentials – contact information, important dates, schedules, directions, locations of games and practices, etc. – are necessary for a club to function efficiently. Additional touches such as updated results, game recaps, interesting articles about players and teams and features such as players or plays of the week and coach spotlights can enhance the overall experience for a family. Parents attend games, have their phones available and often are using them. How hard is it to ask someone to take some photos, shoot some video and post it on the site along with a brief story about a win, a player or a performance?

One of the goals in creating a website is to help a club grow. If a family at another program is having a bad experience and is disenchanted, they might be swayed to come on board in the future if they “Google” a new club and are impressed with the website.

In addition to helping draw new members to your organization and keep its current membership happy and engaged, as mentioned previously, a professional and updated website can help market players as they get older and look to continue playing at higher levels beyond 18U or 19U and high school.

Higher-level coaches who are looking to attract players to their programs may see a player during a game and then do a web search to learn more. The easier it is for a coach or scout to locate information about player, the more likely it is that the coach will continue to follow that player’s progress and potentially want to reach out directly. Coaches also may download the roster when they know a team is playing in their area and take it to the games so they know exactly who they are watching.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that some players lose opportunities primarily because their clubs don’t do a good job of promoting them or making team information available on the web. An organization's website is the easiest and most effective way to expose players for those higher-level opportunities as they progress up the hockey developmental ladder.

It seems like this article has come full circle and that we are back to where we started.

So, what happens when a club’s players ultimately move on to higher-level programs or to play junior and college hockey from a club that then is able to promote the player’s achievements on its website?

The club is marketing the organization effectively externally, showing its current players that it cares about helping them advance to higher levels and generating more overall interest in the organization.

Everyone wins.

Happy players and families are likely to stay with the club and promote it to other potential families, while coaches and scouts who have a positive experience dealing with the club are going to continue to show interest in the organization’s players going forward.