The Church Athletic League's first priority is to offer our players and their families the very best house league hockey experience.  Family-friendly hockey is about respecting our families.  That's why we take such care in creating a schedule that has regular, weekly practice times and regularly weekly game periods.  Respecting our players is also about doing our best to see that equal icetime and fair play are more than just slogans.

Skill development is an important feature of the CAL.  It starts with our Learn-to-Skate and follows through CAL IP to certified coaching in the house league to Power Skating & Skills and ends with our PD program.  PD lets players and families experience a more competitive level of practice and play without the major commitment of "rep" level of hockey.  For some players PD is an intermediate step to "rep" hockey.  But for most get to develop skills at a higher level while also continuing to play with their pals in house league.

For the last number of years, CAL has run nine PD teams in the Rostered Select (RS) format of the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA), our governing body.  However, this past May the OMHA decided that we will be limited to five PD/RS teams.  We have appealed this decision but have not succeeded in changing their mind.  So, as we are now on the verge of the 2010-11 season, the CAL Board of Directors has decided that we will conform to the OMHA's decision.

Therefore the CAL PD program for the 2010 season will have five Rostered Select teams.  One at each level: novice, atom, peewee, bantam & midget.  Each team will be of mixed ages with a minimum of five lower age players on each team.

Obviously, The CAL Board regrets that reducing the number of teams from 9 to 5 means fewer opportunities for skill development through RS teams.  But there are other things that we can do to meet some of the demand for further skill development.  For example, we can offer clinics that focus on specific skills like puckhandling, agility or positioning or clinics for specific positions: goalies, defensemen, forwards.

Other options to Rostered Select teams were considered by the CAL Board of Directors.  In the end the Board chose a course that protects the rights and privileges of our house league teams, that offers some RS teams and assures that CAL continues a member in good standing of the OMHA.