Parents of Team Excalibur Atoms,

I am very excited to start another season with Team Excalibur Atoms.

First of all I would like to welcome the new families to Team Excalibur. I can see the spark in both the parents and the kid’s eyes. Be prepared for an exciting season!

I would also like to thank the families continuing their commitment to Team Excalibur. These families, like any other, have made it through thick and thin and have shared many great experiences along the way. Best of all our kids are developing new friendships along with playing on a great team.

The Excalibur Atoms will be competing in the 10 Club Silver league this season. This schedule starts tomorrow, Nov 17, at 9:00am vs. the Firebirds. Please try to be at games a half hour early and in the designated locker room 15 minutes before the game suited up ready for ‘chalk-talk’. Until we finalize practice jerseys please bring a light and dark to our games. Do not wear the travel pants to our club games as they are for tournaments only. Travel gloves can be worn anytime.

I created the website http://www.az-hockey.com/ to coordinate and share information with the various hockey teams that I am involved with. At this site you will find the Team Excalibur 8's page that we are associated with. On our Home Page I have our roster, club schedule, tournament information and such. As part of the main site I have created a Practice Drills page of drills that we will do during the season to enhance both individual and team skills. Here I textually and graphically explain what and why we are working on. I am always open to new drills that clearly enhance skills. I often watch other teams of various ages practice to see how the kids react to certain drills and what skills are worked within the limited amount of time. We will begin with basic individual and team skills and move on to more complicated skills as the team is ready. On the site I also store photos. There is a of Photos page which contain shots of the previous season's Excalibur Atoms. Here you can see some of the places we traveled and the kids in action on and off the rink. I would appreciate if any parents have a decent camera to take photos of our team throughout the season (both in house and on the road). I will create a photo page for this season’s Excalibur Atoms and put these photos on the site. It really makes for a nice historical picture of the team.

The coaches have spoken to the kids after the first practice. We told them that all of the kids on the team were selected and have earned their position on the team. We will succeed or fail as a team. We will support each other when mistakes are made and learn from them and celebrate any glory together. Sportsmanship is key. The work ethic at practice must be strong. When the drill is focused on specific skills then these are the skills that we want demonstrated. All of our kids can skate around cones so we don’t need to practice that. We have 1 hour a week to prepare for tournament play. Every successful iteration of a skill increases the chances of success for the individual and the team. This includes all forms of skating, passing, puck handling and shooting. We will break bad habits that may be successful in Rec play and develop skills that make the team better.

For club play all team members will play close to equal time. The purpose of club play is to practice for tournaments. We will develop and perform as a team. I may have the kids perform certain team breakouts or attacks that may not be successful in the beginning instead of focusing on winning club games. I will create specialized teams for penalty kills and power plays. These teams will know their positions and responsibilities. For club games I will move kids around in various positions and lines to find out who best matches with who and discover skills that I may have previously missed or have recently been developed. At tournaments, we are there to do everything we can to win as Team Excalibur. My hope would be that all team members get a fair amount of play-time. There will be times when I specifically have certain players on the rink. They will be setup to perform a specific task and when completed play is back to normal. The Atom level seems odd in that skill levels vary greatly of the teams we play. We will dominate some teams and work to survive playing others. When there is a disparity in play-time I will make it up when other opportunities arise. My goal is that all of our kids increase their individual, team, and hockey knowledge skills and get the chance to show it.

Again, thank you all for committing your time and loyalty to Team Excalibur. Please contact me with any questions or concerns throughout the season.

Greg Era, Coach, Team Excalibur Atoms