A message from the LJK President, News (London Junior Knights)

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Aug 25, 2011 | Joe Fonti | 4998 views
A message from the LJK President
A message from the LJK President

It's hard to believe that summer is almost over and another hockey season is fast approaching.
 
With the introduction of spring tryouts, the 2011-2012 hockey season for the London Junior Knights will have a much different feel.
 
Gone is the stress and apprehension that inevitably accompanies REP tryouts.
In its place is a focus and energy as teams reconvene in anticipation of the upcoming hockey seaason.
 
The only tryouts that will take place are for the Midget aged players in our community (Born 1995 and 1994) beginning in early September.
 
The 2010-2011 season had many sucesses and our Midget program, coached by Chuck Dufton was in the forefront with an Alliance Championship, All Ontario Championship, and a second place finish at the Telus Cup - Canada's National Midget Championship. 
This season Chuck anticpates an extremely competitive camp with the goal on a return visit to the Telus Cup on his agenda.
 
The entire Jr Knight organization is very excited to continue hosting some of the top tournaments in our area.
The tourmaments we host are as follows;
 
Earlybird AAA Tournament from Sept 23 - 25th
Green and Gold AAA Invitational from Oct 14th - 16th
Triple 20 AA from Oct 21st - 23rd
Tim Hickman AA Memorial from Nov 18th - 20th
 
Our Tournament Director Christianne Russell has once again put together a top notch field of AAA and AA teams from across North America, so mark your calendars and come out and enjoy some great minor hockey.
 
Our Communications director has spent the summer updating our new website with the goal of helping our entire community track any of our LJK teams. All scores, standings, team links, organizational calendar, and the latest news can be found at
http://londonjuniorknights.com
 
Finally we are pleased to introduce a few programs that we feel will continue to move our program forward.
 
Firstly, we are pleased to introduce our Junior Junior Knights program with plans to begin in October. This skills based development program will focus on the Major Novice aged hockey player, and serve as a reference point for those players hoping to tryout for our association in the future. All of our AA and AAA coaches will be involved in this non-profit program and we are also planning to include some special guest instructors.
 
We see this as an opportunity that not only will benefit the up and coming young hockey players from our city, but also will allow coaches from our organization to work together and learn from each other. Every coach brings a different skill set to the table and by bringing them together in this program they can share the skills they've learned over the years.
 
Coaching is a skill that continuosly evolves regardless if you coach at the introduction level, rep level or professionally... so with that in mind we are always looking at developing programs such as the Junior Junior Knights program because it can only be a win win for all those involved.
 
Continuing on our theme of bettering our Coaching Staff, we have some of our senior coaches attending a High Performance Coaching Program that Hockey Canada and Alliance Hockey have put in place.
 
Chuck Dufton Midget AAA, Rob Simpson Minor Midget AAA Gold and Dave Warren Bantam AAA Gold will be attending these sessions not only to advance their already impressive resumes, but with the intent to run inhouse programs to cascade the information to the other coaches in our organization. Also part of the training involves a Goalie Mentor Program in which Jeff Hogg will attend and become a resource to the other goalie coaches in our organization.
 
As minor hockey continues to evolve and potentially come to the point where the model involves open borders, the LJK continue to evolve and move forward to position themselves as an organization that our community can be proud of.
 
As an organization we feel the key to building a strong foundation is having solid coaching in place...our coaches should be held to a higher standard and with these programs in place we think it's a move in the right direction. The Coach has impact on many aspects of how the game is played, they provide direction for players on how they play the game, they can have impact of refs on how they call the game, and finally they also impact parents on how they view the game and in many cases how they conduct themselves at the game.
 
As mentioned earlier, coaching is a skill that needs to continue to be nurtured...by making these programs available to our coaches, and giving them every opportunity to gain and pass on these skills, we feel that we as an organization can also move forward towards our goal of providing players, parents and coaches an environment that they can continue to enjoy and participate in the greatest game around.
Sponsors
Desjardins Insurance
Providing car insurance, home insurance, life insurance, business insurance for over 34 years in London and area. I have been involved in minor hockey for over 30 years and currently VP of Hockey for the London Junior Knight's and 2018 mayor's volunteer award winner. Chair of the Drew Doughty Atom Invitational Hockey Tournament.
AC Camera Canada
AC Camera Canada are the official photographers of the LJK
CCM Hockey
Official Supplier of the London Junior Knights