All skates at Ponds of Brookfield Ice Arena. 

These sessions are for U10-U14 only.

U6 & U8 season will start October 7th with practices. U8 Evaluations are held in end of October

• Each skater will be given a jersey with assigned number and color
• Players are allowed to arrive up to 45 minutes prior to their assigned session on their first session to get their jersey.
• Jerseys will be turned in upon completion of ALL evaluation sessions
• Please note - if you wait closer to the 15 minutes mark to get your jersey - you are at risk of being late for the on-ice session. 
• No Parents are allowed in the locker rooms. All locker room volunteers need to have completed background checks and safesport certification on file
• Evaluations are closed - parents will be asked to leave during the on-ice session

FAQs

The entire evaluation process is broken into 4 steps: Independent Evaluators, Pre-Eval Skates, Evaluations, & Team Determination.

1. What are Independent Evaluators? The team selection process utilizes independent evaluators that have many years of hockey knowledge and typically do not have players in the organization or at the level they are evaluating. The process is designed to allow each player the opportunity to show the evaluators their hockey knowledge and their skating ability and to remove biases and politics in forming teams. 
2. What are the Pre-Eval Skates? EYHA has 2 pre-evaluation practices for the players to practice the evaluation drills they will see in tryouts. Those sessions are designed for players to get comfortable with the drills and ask any questions that they may have regarding those drills prior to evaluation. During evaluation skates, coaches are there to move players evaluation process and are not there to provide coaching or advice. 
3. What is the evaluation process? The evaluation sessions typically take place over two-three sessions and include a skills session, small game and a scrimmage. During each session evaluators are given a fresh evaluation sheet with only jersey color and number and utilize this to rate and comment on each player. Upon completion of the evaluations the results are compiled, and final teams are determined. Player placement is based upon performance during the evaluations. 
4. How are teams determined? Once teams are determined, EYHA next determines the level of play and assign coaches to the teams. As a WAHA rule every organization must first field an “A” team before filling a “B” team and filling a “B” team before filling a “C” team. The past few years EYHA has had more than three teams at multiple levels. After evaluations it is then determined whether to split into two “B” teams and one “C” team or one “B” team and two “C” teams or some combination. That determination is given to the Hockey Director, & VP On-Ice with input from the evaluators as to what they believe is best for the development of the players.
5. I hear that teams are pre-picked ahead of time. False. Teams are not pre-determined. The use of independent evaluators is an effort to take politics and biases out of the evaluation process. The evaluation process is designed to place players with similar abilities in order to maximize their development. 
6. I have heard evaluators look for individual play, that goes against what they are taught all year to play as a team. False. The goal of evaluations is to give the evaluators a number of different scenario’s in which to evaluate players looking at individual skill level, hockey sense and team play. Evaluations have been split into multiple sessions. These sessions highlight skills, small game and a full ice scrimmage at U10’s and above. Utilizing multiple hockey evaluators, each may look for slightly different things, but when a player is demonstrating proper hockey play, they stand out.