Tampa Bay Lightning Invitational

[ 1 ] September 6, 2010 | admin

Love Hockey Ireland is excited to announce that we have received an official invitation from the Tampa Bay Lightning of the NHL to send a team over to Tampa in March 2011 to take part in a specially organised inline hockey tournament for Love Hockey Ireland.

Love Hockey Ireland has been in negotiations with Mark Sofia and Philip Atkinson, of Community Hockey Initiatives for the Tampa Bay Lightning for several months now about how the two organisations can work together to help hockey grow in Ireland.

Being in a non traditional hockey market, Tampa has a strong community hockey programme, and understands the difficulties of introducing hockey into a non traditional market. When contact was first made with the National Hockey League organisation, they were keen to learn about hockey in Ireland at present and discuss any way they could become involved to help hockey grow in Ireland.

On March 7^th 2011 Tampa Bay take on the Washington Capitals at the St Pete Times Forum. Tampa Bay will be hosting a “GREEN” theme night, whereby the visiting party from Love Hockey Ireland will be special guests.

Our two organisations are currently finalising the finer details of the trip and hope to release a full description of events in the near future.

This is a tremendous opportunity for Love Hockey Ireland to gain NHL and North American recognition, which will help us forge links to help the sport grow in Ireland.

It is also a once in a lifetime opportunity for inline hockey players in Ireland to travel to the USA to represent our sport, play in superb facilities and be guests of an NHL organisation.

Due to time constraints it is vitally important that we have the travelling party confirmed by the 4th of October.

We wish to invite every inline hockey player in Ireland over the age of 16 to put themselves forward to attend a trial session on Saturday 25^th September.

We would also like to invite applications for a coaching role. We would like a three person coaching panel assembled to select, prepare and travel with the team in March.

We wish to have the coaches interviewed and selected before the 18^th of September so they can prepare for the trial on the 25^th.

All players and coaches applying to take part in the trials should first make sure they can meet the following criteria:

Criteria

All interested parties wishing to trial must become an official member of Love Hockey Ireland (which costs £5 per year)
Be free to travel from Friday 4^th March 2011, returning Friday 11^th2011
We estimate individual cost of travel and accommodation to be in the region of £900 and therefore any person wishing to go must be able to fund themselves.
(We do intend to hold a number of fund raisers and will be seeking sponsorships and funding to help reduce all travelling parties’ expenses. We are determined to make the trip as inexpensive as possible for everyone. Any funding raised will be shared equally across all travelling so everyone pays the same amount)
If selected onto the team all players and coaches must be able to pay a non refundable deposit of £150 by the 4^th October.
All players and coaches must be prepared to train as a team once a month. And take part in pre trip scheduled fixtures.
All players and coaches must take part in organised fund raising efforts for the trip.

Applications for coaching jobs, membership and applications for attending the trial date are available to download below:

Coaching Application Form *Registrations for coaching jobs close Wednesday the 15^th September

Player Application Form *Registrations for attending the trial date close noon Thursday 23rd September

As previously stated an official itinerary will be released shortly by Tampa Bay.

Brian Bradley: 2 time NHL All-Star, Director of Youth Hockey, Dave Andreychuk: captain of the 2004 Stanley Cup Champions, Heidi Hamlin: Lightning Foundation Coordinator, and Mark Sofia: manager of Community Hockey Initiatives at the official invitational photo shoot at the St Pete Times Forum Tampa Bay.