MYHockey's popularity continues to rise. The volunteers are doing great job and now number over 200. A special thanks to all. Over the past month, however, one issue has been getting worse. Email. At around 300 per week, email has definitely become the number one issue for managing MYHockey. Nearly half of the email is responsible for improving the accuracy of MYHockey and is absolutely great. I get informed of a team's games scores, or even a tournament that we might not have known about. Some mail informs us of mistakes. They happen and everyone seems to be understanding. A few emails ask "why?" and the answers, while complex, are almost always found in the FAQ. Over half the email is to report scores that volunteers have already or will shortly take care of without any prompting. These emails take hours of time to wade through and process.

With that background, MYHockey is making some tweaks to the way it works in order to improve the site and set better expectations.

• MYHockey will continue to make weekly updates on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning
• MYHockey has asked its volunteers to have the site updated before Tuesday morning - in some leagues this might not be possible because scores may not be posted for days, but this works for most volunteers covering most divisions
• MYHockey has published a MYHockey Email Scores Submission Guidelines that must be followed by those who email missing scores
• Tuesday will be the only day MYHockey will accept emailed scores - emailers must validate that scores sent in have not already been entered into the system
• Only missing scores should be emailed - please do not send in the list of all scores for the season
• Please do not send a link to a team or league website, send only the missing game scores with age level, dates and clearly identified opponents
• Emailers are asked to understand that it is unlikely that all games for a team will qualify for MYHockey - the most common issue is teams play opponents that do not qualify to be included in MYHockey
• All errors are to be mailed to a new email address - errors@myhockeyrankings.com
• MYHockey will make a weekly update to correct the rankings for previously entered errors - these updates will occur every Thurday night/Friday morning.
• General inquiries will still be accepted and, when appropriate, responded to as time permits. If it is clear that the emailer has not read MYHockey's FAQ, the odds of a response are greatly diminished. General inquiries can continue to be sent to director@myhockeyrankings.com

MYHockey has been struggling under the weight of the email issue. Hopefully, these guidelines will enable MYHockey to focus on improving the timeliness and accuracy of the website while responding to your questions and information.

On a related note, MYHockey volunteers are a diverse group. Most are absolutely great and as dedicated as anyone could hope for. Some, however, see their interest fade as the season progresses. These "retired" volunteers are definitely part of the reason for the large volumes of email. As a result, MYHockey has recently implemented a program to automatically suspend the registrations of volunteers who do not regularly update the system. This means that on an almost daily basis during the season divisions that previously had a volunteer will become "available" for a new volunteer. Please check the MYHockey Division Availability List on a regular basis to see if your favorite division is looking for a new volunteer.