WJHA, Reds announce events for skills competition

Pete Fontaine
Posted 2/12/15

There are many reasons why Sunday’s scheduled Rhode Island Reds Heritage Society Skills Challenge has all the makings of a landmark demonstration.

First and foremost, as Reds Heritage Society …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

WJHA, Reds announce events for skills competition

Posted

There are many reasons why Sunday’s scheduled Rhode Island Reds Heritage Society Skills Challenge has all the makings of a landmark demonstration.

First and foremost, as Reds Heritage Society President Buster Clegg emphasized earlier this week: “Chris Orton is a very knowledgeable hockey man who has developed a challenging format for what will be the first event of its kind ever here in Rhode Island.”

Sunday’s event, which will be held from 8-10 a.m. at the Downtown Providence Alex & Ani Outdoor Skating Rink, will feature team competition, designed to test the hockey skills of bantam and pee wee players from the highly-regarded and Orton-led Warwick Junior Hockey Association.

And those players, Clegg announced, “will compete for the venerable Golden Rooster Award.”

Clegg explained that the format for Sunday’s event, which was originally scheduled to run three hours but has been modified to two hours, has been adapted from the skills competition held in conjunction with the American Hockey League’s 2007 All-Star Game.

“(WJHA President) Chris Orton has done a great job in developing Sunday’s format,” said Clegg, who along with Mal Goldenberg and other Society members have put in a tremendous amount of work for Sunday’s skills competition. “It’s certainly a unique model that will be similar to the AHL model.”

As equally impressive, Clegg noted, “we have commitments from former Reds legends Bobby Leduc and Serge Boudreault and possibly Ross Brooks as on-ice coaches.

Thus, the two teams – Team Leduc and Team Boudreault – will have 15 skaters and two goalies. Each squad will be made up of a mix of bantam and pee wee skaters and will have one bantam goalie and one pee wee goalie.

Clegg and Orton announced that the two teams will compete in nine skill-based events and points will be awarded for each event. The team with the most points at the conclusion of the competition will be deemed the champions of the skills challenge.

“It should be interesting,” Clegg went on. “If people like ice hockey and watching kids test their skills, they should plan to be on hand Sunday. This will be a historic day for hockey in Rhode Island.”

Among the numerous events will be a puck control relay, goalie relay, rapid fire shooting, fastest skater, fastest goalie, shooting accuracy, goalie open net shooting, pass and score and a shootout.

When asked for an example of the first event – the puck control relay – Clegg offered: “Each team will break their skaters into three-man squads and from each team, there will be two squads of bantams, two squads of pee wees and one mixed squad. All skaters will participate in all five heats of this event.”

On the whistle, the first member of each squad skates to the far end of the ice, retrieves a puck and then executes tight turns through a series of cones while controlling the puck. If a player loses control of the puck, he must retrieve it and return to the section of the course where he lost control.

Then, upon the skater crossing the end line with the puck, the next skater on the squad will go, followed by the third skater. The first squad to finish the event in each heat will be awarded one point. A tie will result in a half-point for each squad.

Clegg announced that the goalie kneel relay will be the second event, but noted that “each and every event in the skills competition should really be exciting for the players – and fans.”

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here