Twin City Youth Hockey Association (TCYHA), which serves the Fitchburg-Leominster area in Massachusetts, makes sure players of all ages get the proper instruction on how to skate and eventually play competitive hockey.
“The younger they learn, the better they’ll do because they have less fear and they’re more willing to try things,” said Rob Ayles, vice president of TCYHA and coach of the Mite 1 team. “Playing hockey at a young age is important for their development. It comes down to touching the ice. You need to be on the ice as often as you can to really hone those skills.
“We try to keep the kids on the ice as much as we can,” he continued. “Obviously the earlier you start, the better you’ll be.”
Including the Learn to Skate and Hockey Development, which the TCYHA Board of Directors implemented four years ago with the addition of John Dillon Explosive Power Skating to coordinate and facilitate these programs, there were 293 total participants for the 2008-09 season and 33 coaches.
“Twin City has a dedicated Board of Directors that has one common theme and that’s the development of hockey players,” Ayles said. “We focus on the hockey skills, but we also focus on the life skills. Kids get awards for academic achievement based on their grades in school. It’s also a feeder program, one step feeds the next.
“In our league participation with all of our older programs, we see that our kids skating-wise are very, very competitive and very strong on their skates,” he continued. “You need that foundation to be successful in hockey.”
Stephens knows many people are responsible for making an organization like Twin City Youth Hockey run so smoothly.
“Our program is a success because of the generosity of the parents and board members that give so freely of their time,” Stephens said. “An organization like this has too many requirements to effectively serve our families for one person to run it alone. I’m very fortunate to have such high quality people on the board with me. Everyone is there to see that the program and the kids succeed. People volunteer for the benefit of their children and others in the program.
“As president, I do my best to look at what we’re doing as a board and determine not only how it will benefit the program today, but also what impact it will have on the program in the future. The diversity of our board helps keep it all on check.”
TCYHA has a proven track record of producing successful hockey players, ranging from current high school to college players, and many levels in between.
“It’s a great feeling to really be able to appreciate the amount of effort and dedication a player puts in to achieve that level of success,” said Ayles, who played four years of varsity hockey at St. Bernard’s before graduating in 1987. “There are a number of kids from this program that are playing in high schools right now and have had successful college careers. It’s a testament to the program, but more importantly to the dedication of the player and parent.”
Dedication, especially at the younger levels, requires players and parents to wake up and travel to practice and games early in the morning. It can get draining on a family, not to mention the financial hit that comes with playing such an expensive sport.
“Hockey is competing against basketball and dek hockey, sports where it costs you $70 to try it,” Ayles said. “If the kid doesn’t like it, all you’ve invested is $70. You try hockey, once you’ve gotten done spending $300 on equipment and spending $1,300 for him to play in Twin City and he doesn’t like it, you’ve lost a lot more money.”
Twin City is also excited about partnering with the Dual State League in Tyngsboro Skate 3.
“We’ve partnered with Dual State, the league we play in, to bring hockey games back to Fitchburg,” Ayles said. “Every Sunday from 10′oclock in the morning till about 1 or 2 in the afternoon, there will be youth hockey games being played at the Civic Center. We wanted them to allow us to have some games here in Fitchburg and it’s worked out well. We’re trying to bring hockey back to this area with a little bit more fever than what it had been.”
With a state-of-the-art facility like the Wallace Civic Center, it’s no wonder why Twin City doesn’t have any problems with fan attendance.
“Fitchburg State College, for what they’ve done with the facility here, it’s done wonders for (the program) as well. They’ve kind of taken this gem and polished it perfectly,” Ayles said. “If you come down here on the Sunday morning and see how many people come to watch a game …when a game is in your own back yard like we have here in Fitchburg, you get grandparents, friends of players that are here, you get other teams that are coming down to watch, it’s kind of an electrifying atmosphere. It’s a great venue to watch a hockey game.”
It’s a win-win for everyone associated with the TCYHA.
“Every time I step on the ice and a player calls me ‘coach’ I fell like I can make a difference for that player,” said Stephens, also a Mite 1 assistant coach where his 8-year-old son Kyle plays. His 11-year-old son, Cody, plays on the Pee Wee 1 team. “Every time I see our learn to skaters or hockey development players accomplish a drill or a skill to their own satisfaction, I feel like we’ve done what we set out to do.
“Every time a player comes back to the bench after a hard shift tired and smiling and he or she tells you about what they did on the ice, it makes me want to come back again and again just to see what they’ll do next. That’s that satisfaction I get from all of this.”
Editor’s Note: Thank you to Fitchburg Pride for this article.
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