Community Corner

Little Hawks Hockey League Leaves Officials Thin on Ice

Youth league, which plays out of Darien Sportsplex, has doubled in size since 2009.

A boon in the number of kids joining the Little Hawks Hockey Club has officials trying to do some creative scheduling to make sure everyone gets a turn on the ice at the the .

“The Little Hawks in-house program has doubled in size over the last two years,” said Matt Henderson, general manager of the Darien Park District Sportsplex at 451 Plainfield Road.

Although the Little Hawks Hockey Club program, which is run in cooperation with the Chicago Hawks Hockey Club, was a popular draw prior to 2009, Henderson attributes the more recent spike in participation to last year's Winter Olympics and the success of the Chicago Blackhawks in winning the 2010 Stanley Cup.

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Henderson also attributes the program’s success to the professional coaching staff and the ice programs run by the Chicago Hawks Hockey Club.

“The program has grown at a rate much faster than we could have ever hoped for,” he said. “The session that just ended had 140 players in the in-house program. The same program in 2009 had 66 players.”  

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Officials are working hard to accommodate everyone.

“With the increase in our in-house numbers and the continuous growth of the Hawks Hockey Club we are definitely getting to the point where practice times are getting much earlier for the younger age groups and finishing up much later for the older age groups,” Henderson said. “We have had to get creative with scheduling some of programs.”

But it’s all been manageable, he added.

“I don’t believe we have reached a point where we would need to put a cap on the number of players in the program,” Henderson said.  

The Little Hawks Hockey Club offers a number of programs for children, including Learn to Skate classes to help students develop their skating abilities and steer them toward the first steps of learning to play hockey.

Learn to Play classes teach the natural progression of skating and hockey fundamentals including shooting, passing, scoring, checking, team play, and more, through competitive drills designed with the student in mind.

Scooter Pond Hockey teams help students develop an understanding of team and game play, as well as puck handling, shooting, passing and checking skills at the team play level. The basic rules of hockey are not yet taught at this level.

Drills for Skills clinics are designed to develop and maintain the skills of the player. The re-enforcement of skating, stick-handling, passing, shooting, checking and game skills are continuously taught in these clinics.

Little Hawks in-house teams are offered for players who are ready for team play. Participants are drafted on in-house teams which play against one another once a week throughout the session.

The Darien Sportsplex offers three National Hockey League-sized ice surfaces.
Henderson said the recent jump in numbers is not prompting park officials to consider expanding just yet.

“At this point this is not something that has been discussed at either the staff or board level,” he said.


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