Highland Knights
  Thursday, May 23, 2013  
 
 
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Indoor 2009 Info


The Knights are excited to offer our players and coaches another season of indoor soccer. We've made some changes again this year to not only provide you with a better training program and access to a high calibre trainers, but at the same time continuing to try and ease the travel commitments that many associate with Tier I soccer.
While some of the changes will mean a 'new way' of doing some things, our focus in the winter is on SKILLS DEVELOPMENT, and we're confident our approach does exactly this. It will also allow us to attract some top level coaches that we would otherwise not have been able to do.
Read on to see what these changes are and how they will impact you as players, parents, and coaches. 

General Info
Players can expect to train once a week on weeknights at a skills session in the complex closest to their home, and play games on Sunday afternoons in either Truro or Stellarton. The season starts with tryouts in the month of October, and games/training starting in early November. The season ends in late February or early March, and top teams in each division particpate in league championships in March.
Online Registration is Open
You can register using the 'Members Area' on our website at www.highlandknights.ca using online registration. This method of registration also gives you two payment options - by credit card (including 1/3 fee payment if desired, see below) or by mail.
We also have a 'quick registration' form that you can use to get signed up. If you register this way, we will require you to sign a waiver form at a later date and payment will need to be mailed in to complete your registration.
An Explanation of Increase in Fees
Our basic registration fee for the Indoor Season is $390 this year, an increase of $60 over last years fee. While this is significant, the increase was required to simply cover costs of the additional programs being delivered. Our indoor fees are based on a 'break-even' model, and while used primarily to cover Indoor rental fees, we have added a new 'fitness training' program this season, and our top calibre skills trainers (Graham Kennedy, Shawn George, Rob Adams) all come at a cost.
While the fee is significant, we do believe that is is solid 'value for cost' and still remains well below costs for other winter sports. The 'cost per hour' for training or games works out to approx $6-$7 per hour per player, a reasonable cost to be participating in a quality activity.
To help ease this cost burden, we are offering a 'payment plan' where you can make 3 equal registration fee payments of $130. First payment is due at initial registration, with the last two paid using post dated cheques dated Nov 15 2009 and January 30 2009
Indoor Training Using ‘EAST-WEST’ Skills Sessions Model
As a first step in using the indoor season to develop individual player skills, the Knights will be working with HDSA Technical Director Shawn George and Graham Kennedy of 'Premier Blue' to deliver a weekly skills training session for each player.
To help ease travel burdens, players will train in either the ‘West’ (Truro) or ‘East’ (Stellarton) with other Knights players from other teams in the same area - 'area based' groups instead of 'team based' groups.
U13 and U14 players will attend one session, and U16-U18 players will attend another session. These will be CoEd Sessions that will provide players a top level training program with a proven, standardized skills development focus, delivered by national or provincial B licensed coaches.
While some may have concerns about no team practices, our focus in the winter is player skill development - working on those basic skills that every player needs to possess to play and be successful at this level (NOTE: some teams MAY decide to schedule periodic team practices outside of these regular skills sessions).
The 'team' component in the winter still remains for games, and we're still out to win games, but because of the big differences in team play indoors versus outdoors, indoor games are more of a focus on individual skill, positioning, and possession aspects of the game. As a Tier I player, you should be able to attend skills sessions offered anywhere and bring the skills learned to any team at any time.
'Premier Blue' as a Skills Training Partner
The Premier Blue Academy run by Graham Kennedy (St FX Mens head coach) will help provide the club with a top calibre training environment.
Our U13 and U14 players based out of the Stellarton Complex will run their 'skills session' through the Premier Blue Academy and Graham Kennedy. This is an exciting partnership that will bring the expertise and experience of Graham Kennedy to the Knights Club, a partnership that we see bringing broader long term benefits and opportunities to our club.
*Note that any players looking for 'more' can sign up for a second Premier Blue session each week. These are only being run out the Stelkarton complex. 
New 'Fitness Program'
We are also excited to be partnering with Dave McIntyre and the New Glasgow YMCA to provide our players with a new 'fitness' training program.
This program will be 6 weeks long, starting midway through the indoor season, and plans are to run these on the same night as 'Skills' night to avoid a second night/travel for soccer.
Dave McIntyre has been providing fitness training to sports teams/players for many years, and his client base includes professional NHL players. the training will focus on strength-reflex development in a program targeted specifically to soccer athletes
Team Roster Sizes
We will be making a decision during tryouts about how many players we will keep on each team. Indoor is 7-a-side, so for a game, 13 (14 with 2 keepers) would be the maximum desired players in most cases. Rule changes this year will mena 6-a-side for older ages, so those teams may carry even smaller rosters.
However, our indoor program is building toward our summer team, so where the number of players with the desired skills and commitment come out to tryouts, coaches may decide to keep a full 'summer' roster (eg. 18-20), where everyone attends weekly training but players take turns sitting out games (and in this case we would also offer a reduced registration fee).  We may also adopt a model where these 'extra' players PLAY Tier 2 for the indoor season but TRAIN with the Knights team - this will all come down to a numbers game and the overall best interest of the players and the indoor league.

 
 

 
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