HOLIDAY THOUGHTS

A very Merry XMAS to all.   We hope that you have a great break and enjoy the time off with family and friends.

We will have the opportunity to do some “recharging” over the holidays, and will be working on several projects for the coming months.

We are in the process of developing host websites for Provincial Championships.  This will mean less work on the part of the host school/zone, as well have templates developed, as well as a hosting server.  The hosts will just have to add information to the site, and all host sites will have a consistent look and design to them.  We are hoping that this will be set for the March Provincial Championships.

We are also working on our “Call me Coach” program.  This is an initiative that will be created with the co-operation of Coaching Manitoba and Coaching Association of Canada.  It will be a 3 hour workshop, primarily aimed at the beginner coach, but will be beneficial for all.  We will be kicking off the program next Fall.  We are also working with the Alberta Interscholastic Administrators (athletic directors) Association to being some of their new coaching education courses to Manitoba.  We are looking to have these at SAG 2011.  Many more details to follow.

The Board of Directors will be working on the MHSAA strategic plan, and as well, we will be trying a new wildcard format for AAA Basketball.

Thanks to all for your terrific support of high school sport.  Enjoy the season.

Morris Glimcher

Provincial Championships

Provincial Championships are always fun and a great experience for the student athlete participants.  Our member schools hosted some great events during the last two weeks of November.  It is always great to see schools that have their elementary students ‘adopting’ a team and cheering them on.  Some schools asked the teams to come to classrooms and read to students, while others studied the home towns of participating schools.  Live webcams were at many of the championships, along with some super Opening Ceremonies and motivating speakers at the banquets.   Getting other students involved in the hosting of the Championships, from scorers and timers, to announcers, to school bands, and web developers, to canteen staff, all bring a sense of unity to the school as well as a sense of Pride.

The MHSAA website received over 1.5 million hits in November, and most of those were looking for Provincial results. 

The participants will long remember being part of the Provincials, and it is a credit to the coaches, athletes and hosts for all making it happen.

Sportsmanship

As We head into Zone and Provincial Volleyball playoffs,  concerns regarding sportsmanship arise.   The MHSAA office has received a couple of phone calls and e-mails regarding Fan behaviour, as well as “trash talking” between teams.  High school sport is a great part of the school life, and adds to the spirit and pride of the school.  Alumni and parents come out to the games and cheer on their friends, relatives and classmates.

This seems like a great opportunity to remind everyone about cheering and team support.  We completely support and encourage positive support for your team.  Cheering, noisemakers (within reason) painted faces are all part of the experience.  Negative cheering and taunting, do not have a place at High School sporting events.  Garbage can lids and loud air horns are not acceptable, nor are signs with negative messages.  Let’s  all cheer, but do so in a positive way.  Cheer on your team!!!  Show your pride!!  Please do not show disrespect to the opposition or to officials.  School personnel should encourage positive cheering, and should not be leading students with negative chants or demeaning comments aimed at opposition players.  Let’s make sure that the play-offs are a great experience for athletes and spectators alike, both on and off the playing field.

Best of luck to all.

ENTRY FEES

There has been a great deal of discussion concerning Funding formulas for high school Provincial Championships.  Opinions have ranged from increasing Zone (membership fees) to having an entry for each Championship.  There are pros and cons to both.  Some schools that rarely advance to a Championship, have said that they should not be facing increased fees, when they never or seldom make it to provincials.  Others have said that by charging entry fees, we are penalizing those schools that qualify by levying an additional fee on them. 

Another approach can be a team fee- say $30.00 per team for every team that a school has.  That is a minimal cost on a per team basis, but could add up for a school that has a large number of teams.  Most Provinces do charge entry fees for Provincials, and the cost takes into consideration the operating costs, including a banquet, refs costs , awards etc

Following is the cost for one Volleyball Championship in another Province

Entry Fee (Per Team)  $400

Banquet Fee (Per Individual)  $25

Provincial Participant Fee (Per Student-Athlete)  $2

We are used to paying entry fees and membership fees to community based sports, and we have always tried to ensure that school sport is affordable to all and within reason, however times are changing.

I welcome your thoughts….

Wildcards and Rankings

The MHSAA recently conducted a survey to ask for feedback on wildcards and rankings.  Several invitations were sent to coaches via MHSAA Updates.  A total of 88 responses were received.  The results were very interesting. 

Seventy- seven per cent felt that Zone winners should not automatically be ranked ahead of others in final seeding.  This means that Wildcard winners can be ranked ahead of Zone winners, depending on record.  Another question posed was regarding an upset in a zone championship.  67% felt that  if a team wins the Zone Championship, then they should always be ranked ahead of others in that Zone.

Seventy-seven% felt that Wildcard spots should be open to Zone semi finalists and finalists, while 72% preferred that we have a wildcard tournament set up with a pre-determined site and entry fee.

We presented some different options to selecting wildcards and 94% agreed that they preferred the current MHSAA model.

We also presented several 'real life scenarios' that we have dealt with, and the responses to those are quite varied, showing that wildcards and rankings, are indeed difficult to determine and there are different thoughts in the selection processes.

We will discuss the possibility of trying a wildcard tournament as a pilot for Basketball.  This will be presented at the December Board meeting.

Wildcards and seeding-ranking are some of the most contentious issues that we deal with and certainly garner a great deal of interest from parents, athletes and teacher-coaches.

Cross Country Provincials

It sure was a nice day on Wednesday, as Zone 6 hosted the Cross Country Provincials at Spruce Woods Provincial park.  Around 1000 student/athletes participated.  All went well, except for the fact that several zones did not fill out their entries properly, and this created a fair bit of confusion and affected the results.  We must ensure that the student athletes are not negatively affected when the teachers make these errors, and we must ensure that Zone convenors are a bit more careful wit the ir entries, as are coachs when handing out the numbers.  All in all- a super day.  Thanks to everyone for participating.