Shelburne Shooters kick off new season with opening games

Written By BRIAN LOCKHART

The ice is gone at the Centre Dufferin Recreation Complex, which means goodbye to winter sports and hello to summer activities.

While a lot of kids lament the end of hockey season a good majority of they also look forward to the start of ball hockey season.

With minimal equipment required, you just need a helmet, shin pads, a stick, gloves, and a lot of energy.

The Shelburne Shooters kicked off their 2019 season on Wednesday, April 17, at the CDRC.

Ball hockey is played pretty much the same as ice hockey with a few exceptions. Instead of a blueline, the offside line is white and is farther out to compensate for the fact that the ball can bounce and quite often get away from a player.

Since the Shooters is a house league they try to balance out the teams as much as possible to create a fair and competitive environment.

“We did equalization on Sunday,” explained Shooters executive member Kerry Young. “All those kids went out and we ranked them for each age group. “We want ever game to be a game. There are kids out there that are at rep level and kids that just play ball hockey for fun.”

Players are eligible to try out for higher level teams at the provincial level. Quite a few Shelburne ball hockey players have gone on to big things in the sport.

“We have a squirt program, which is learn to play,” Ms. Young said. “We have a tyke / novice, novice / atom, pewee / bantam, and major bantam junior divisions. We have six divisions with four teams plus the squirts. Around 75 to 80 per cent of our players also play ice hockey. It's a very popular sport. The best part about house league is that kids who don't play hockey can come out and compete in this. These first few games are interesting to see how our ranking system worked and how evenly we can do it.”

The Shooters season runs through to the end of June with games on Wednesdays and Sundays.