Club Puck is the United States National Champions. Congratulations to this program. A huge thank you goes out to Karen and Ben Erickson along with the Minnesota Loons. Your tournament in all aspects was awesome! You guys are great.

I wasn’t sure how to start this letter until I looked at the title. We are YOUR development board. We are here to serve you. We are here to help you become better hockey players. Some of us are in different places in this journey of development. Some of you will be the next young stars while others have become wise, cagey, but slower veterans. Wherever you are, we are YOUR development board, here to help you along the way. Thank you for all your suggestions. Hopefully you have found that we have listened and if possible acted on your suggestions. Keep them coming.

As your development directors, Patty & I have had numerous people working many hours helping to develop hockey on the national level. YOUR board meets once a month to discuss plans for development. We have great regional directors who work on your behalf to organize tournaments, clinics and help start up programs in your area. Because of their efforts, we have two new teams, Rhode Island and Georgia Tech, on the roster. We have players on club teams reaching out and developing youth programs, one in San Francisco and one in Connecticut, as part of their total hockey program. It is said that it takes a community to raise a hockey player. We are very proud of our hockey community. Climb aboard, become part of it.

What have we done recently? 1) You have kept us pretty busy mailing things across the country. On the back of this letter is a list of what we have sent out in 2009. The post office knows our name. 2) We have heard nothing but great things about our Beginners DVD. Have you seen it? Have you purchased one for your club? What a great tool to use to help your young players develop. 3) We have updated our team contact list. Check that out on our website. 4) We have a new how to start a program packet with a introductory video that will help new teams present their case to aquatic managers. 5) We have a new logo in place. Final tweaking is being done to it and will be presented soon. 6) Certificates were created and handed out to first time players at Nationals. Over 20% of the players at this years Nationals, were there for the very first time. 7) Our second annual Underwater Hockey Symposium will take place on Friday of Nationals. Hopefully you found it a great opportunity to learn more about hockey. We now have 11 by 17 posters that can be placed in your favorite hockey venue. There is a 7.00 cost for production and shipping. 9) Membership has increased over 10% from last year and we still have half the year to go. We still don’t have 100% of the people that play hockey paying their membership dues but we are headed in the right direction. Hopefully we are giving you a reason to be part of this organization. We will continue to be busy on your behalf.

Patty & I are very proud of what we, as a community have accomplished. The one item that we are especially proud of is Phil Hickey’s work on the Referee 101 course that is being developed on our website. We will become better hockey players if one we know the rules of our sport, and two, start playing by those rules in both our practices and tournaments. Over 100 hockey players took the online quiz from module one – common hand signals. As you read this letter, module two – barrier infringement – is online ready to be read and tested on. We will continue to add modules on a periodic basis. Our goal is to have 100% of our members reading these modules and taking the quiz. We would like to see this as a requirement for playing at major tournaments. We want you to play safe and play by the rules. We feel that this will help you know what those rules are.

What are we working on? 1) We want to continue to help you promote your sport in your area. We are always looking for effective methods to help with publicity. Colleges will be starting up in the fall. How can we help you bring more players into your program? 2) Continue to work on refereeing modules. 3) Institute Club Assist, which will ease the process of waivers, paying of membership and collecting player information. 4) Find ways to get information to all of our members, not just the small number who we have emails for. We are lacking on this effort, but we are working on it. We need your help. Give us your email. We feel that our track record of not abusing email is very good. We will not sell it or give it out. Patty & I are the only ones that will use it.

Thanks for visiting the table at Nationals! We enjoyed talking to you and sharing ideas. Keep on training, keep on developing your skills, and keep on sharing your passion for underwater hockey with others.

Tom & Patty Redig
Development Directors, U.S. Underwater Hockey

Things sent in 09

1 DVD to Houston TX
500 Brochures to San Francisco Gustavo Pesce
5 DVD to San Francisco to Matt Blair
1 Club in a Box to Newport Oregon
Club in the Box Cortland New York
Club in a Box Orlando, Florida
30 Brochures to Rob Sykes
1 DVD to Joseph Geisser
1 DVD to Robin Duquette
1 Club in Box to Kennedy King College-Chicago
5 DVD’s to Ben & Karen-Minnesota
2 DVD’s to Eric-Chicago
1 DVD & 10 Cards to Nicole Mazouch(Georgia Tech)
5 DVD to Karen Chevrier
1 DVD to Mike Urum
1 DVD to Cara Fritz(Oregon)
1 DVD to D Masselink(Holland, MI)
100 Brochures, 100 Cards & 1 DVD Matt Goodrich
4 DVD Matt Goodrich
50 brochures &50 cards West Palm
30 cards Chicago(Maria de Caussin)
4 sticks to Oregon(Shawn Tucker)
10 mouth guards & Ear protection(Georgia Tech)
Club in a Box=Yuma AZ(Richard McClure)
10 DVD’s, postcards & brochures-(Terry Sutton)
10 DVD’s to Mary Jo Ferris
Start a Club Packet Doug Topp

Here are the results of USA 2009 Nationals-

1. Club Puck A
2. San Diego
3. LA
4. U of FL
5. 3 Corners
6. Ripple Effect
7. Cincinnati
8. DC
9. San Francisco
10. Dal/Hou
11. Minneapolis Loons
12. St. Paul Loons
13. Connecticut
14. New Jersey
15. Chicago A
16. GMU
17. U of I
18. MSU
19. Roger Bacon Varsity
20. Club Puck B
21. GT
22. Chicago B
23 Roger Bacon Junior Varsity

Dan Wilkins Award for Good Sportsmanship: Georgia Tech

Sheila Princess of Power Award: Tyera Eulberg

Thanks everyone for a GREAT Tournament-

Your Tournament Directors-
Karen & Ben Erickson

Underwater Hockey Players

Greg and I are happy to present the attached document which proposes to modify the governance of US Underwater Hockey. If you choose not to download this attachment, it can be located on our website at usauwh.com. The document was created with input from a group of underwater hockey players including all of the current Development Board members and others as well as the USOA Executive Committee (they worked to make sure we kept in line with the USOA bylaws). If adopted at the symposium meeting this Friday evening, elections will be held to fill a seven person Underwater Hockey Committee. This committee will be responsible for managing all elements of USOA Underwater Hockey. After the election Greg Appling will be stepping down as National Director and the Development Board will be disbanding. The chairperson of the newly formed UWH Committee will also act as the National Director going forward. The Development Directors, Tom and Patty Redig, will stay on but will report directly to the UWH Committee, as will several other positions when filled per the Committee rules. Several but not all of the Development Board members are willing to be candidates for the Committee. Nominations will be open thru Friday, July 3rd. Please consider running or nominating someone you think would be good for Underwater Hockey. Nominees must be willing to serve, but need not be in attendance at the meeting. Email nominations to Terry Sutton, terrysutton@usa.net. Read the attached document and come to the meeting to learn more. It’s time for more people to have a say in the direction of US UWH and to share in the responsibilities of getting us there. Be a part of the future of US UWH.

Kendall Banks, past UWH National Director
Greg Appling, Underwater Hockey National Director

link to: Committee Selection document

Please plan on attending our 2nd Annual Underwater Hockey Symposium at Sally’s on Friday, June 26th. Sally’s is right across the street from the Radisson. The program will start promptly at 8:00. Get there early for dinner, at your expense, and socializing. This year’s program will include:

8:00 - 8:30 Discussion about the New Governing Board - Kendall Banks
8:30 - 9:00 Referee 101 - Phil Hickey
9:00 - 9:30 Playing both ends of the Advantage Puck - Doug Roth

Also, continue to encourage your players to vote for the logo that will represent U.S. Underwater Hockey. The logos can be found on our website at usauwh.com.
Looking forward to seeing you at Nationals.

Development Board

Hockey Players,

Hope you are getting geared up for summer and Hockey Nationals. The Development Board will have a table at Nationals, so make sure you come by and talk to us. We will be looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas. The reason for this email is to notify you of two new items on our website.

1) Our logo competition is now in the final stages. We need your vote for the logo you want to represent underwater hockey. Go to our website at usauwh.com, find the logo competition announcement on the left to view logos and send me an email- tom_redig (at) usauwh.com

2) Team contacts are posted now in the contact section. Click on it and you get the contact person for each team in the US. Please help me keep it current. Let me know of any changes.

3) Symposium announcement coming very soon.

Hopefully we will see a lot of you at Nationals. Make sure you stop by our table. We might have something for you. Good luck and have fun .

Tom & Patty