As part of Sackville Minor Hockey Association’s commitment to providing an accessible, inclusive and fair tryout process, families will have the option to indicate through the SMHA tryout registration form that their player will opt out of body contact during the U15 body-contact portions of the tryout process.
This option is intended to allow players to participate meaningfully in the evaluation process while respecting individual comfort levels with body contact.
How the Process Will Work
Skills Evaluations
All players, including those who have opted out of body contact, will participate fully in the skills-based portions of the U15 tryout process. Players will be evaluated on the same skills and criteria as their peers during these sessions.
Body Contact Game Evaluations
Players who have opted out of body contact will not participate in the body-contact tryout games.
Instead, these players will participate in a separate, designated non-body-contact inter-squad game. This will be a fully non-contact game, with body checking and intentional body contact prohibited for all players participating in that game. This provides players with the opportunity to demonstrate their hockey abilities in a competitive game environment while ensuring that they are not placed in a body-contact situation.
Evaluator Neutrality
Importantly, evaluators will not be informed which players have opted out of body contact.
Players will participate in the skills sessions without being identified as having opted out. Evaluators will therefore assess players based on their performance and abilities without being influenced by whether a player has chosen the non-body-contact option.
Following the evaluation process, players will be appropriately filtered into the applicable groups and teams based on the contact requirements of those teams.
Eligibility
Because U15 A and AA hockey requires players to participate in a full body-contact environment, players who opt out of body contact will not be eligible for selection to U15 A or AA teams. Their participation in the tryout process will instead be considered within the non-body-contact pathway. This means, players who opt out of U15 body contact will only be eligible to make either a U15 B team or a U15 Rec team.
Purpose of the Initiative
The purpose of this approach is to ensure that a player's decision to opt out of body contact does not influence their skills evaluation or how they are perceived by evaluators.
Players who opt out will have the same opportunity as their peers to demonstrate their skills during the skills portion of tryouts, followed by an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities in a fully non-contact inter-squad game.
This initiative applies
only to the U15 tryout process.
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