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75 KIDS EXCHANGED SNEAKERS FOR SKATES AND TOOK THEIR SECOND "FIRST STEPS"

02/25/2017, 1:15pm EST
By Erik Gardner

2017 TRY HOCKEY FOR FREE

USA Hockey Try Hockey For Free

Carolina Ice Palace

North Charleston, SC

February 25, 2017

 

The Carolina Ice Palace teams up with local Charleston Youth Hockey Association volunteers and the South Carolina Stingrays to teach 75 new recruits to take their second “first steps”.

On Saturday, February 25th 2017, 75 first-time skaters, ages 4-9 years old, laced up their skates, donned a helmet and gloves and grabbed a stick as they took their second “first steps” onto the ice rink in the 2017 USA Hockey Try Hockey For Free event sponsored by the Carolina Ice Palace and the Charleston Youth Hockey Association (CYHA). 

The adage of ice hockey being the ultimate TEAM sport could not have been more accurate when more than 30 volunteers from the CYHA, the Carolina Ice Palace, the North Charleston Police Department and the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays came together to begin planning for this spring’s USA HOCKEY TRY HOCKEY FOR FREE (THFF).  Member volunteers from the CYHA took to Facebook and local schools beginning in December 2016 to start community outreach and advertising for this event.  The SC Stingrays began advertising during pre-game and intermissions for several home games in January and February.  In addition to the many adult volunteers, we also had 13 current youth hockey players from our 12U, 14U and 16U Junior Stingrays Travel and CYHA House league divisions volunteering their time to help us set up and run this year’s event.  Additionally, this year the CYHA TEAMed with the North Charleston Police Department to combine forces and introduce ice hockey to “at risk” youngsters as part of a long term partnership between our two organizations. 

CYHA Youth Hockey Growth Chairman, Erik Gardner, commented on the consistent growth seen during these events being indicative of how strong the support for ice hockey is in the South, especially when you have a professional hockey team sharing the ice with you – a reference to the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays who also call Charleston their home.  Participating on the ice in this year’s event were South Carolina Stingrays President, Rob Concannon, and the Stingrays mascot, Cool Ray.  Mr. Gardner also commented on how important the 12U, 14U and 16U Junior Stingrays Travel and CYHA House league player volunteers were to this year’s successful event.  “We usually have a handful of kids crying the minute their skates hit the ice.  Not this year.  We had our team of youth hockey players standing by to take these kids by the hand and give them individual attention and reassurance.  I saw nothing but smiling faces everywhere!  It was simply awesome and I cannot thank our youth hockey volunteers enough for their contribution in making this event so much fun for everyone.”

CYHA President, Terri Mills, working with Carolina Ice Palace General Manager, Matt Mons, coordinated registration where we had 90 players pre-registered with a month left to go before the event.  This was our largest turn-out in the 4 years we have been participating in the THFF events.  Terri Mills reflected on the 19 skaters we had attend in 2014 and how this event has grown exponentially each year where we saw more than 50 at last year’s event and 75 at this year’s.  Mrs. Mills predicts we will exceed 100 participants and need two sheets of ice to accommodate this rate of growth expected at next year’s spring THFF event.  Mrs. Mills stated that having so many participants and needing more ice are all good problems to have.  

THANK YOU to everyone who volunteered their time over the past 3 months to make this event our best one ever.

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