The game scheduling problem in youth hockey is broken.
pp. 12—19
In Illinois, across the Midwest, and well beyond. There's a growing disconnect between tier labels and actual competitive levels. Strong local programs — teams legitimately competing at the AA and AAA level based on their results and ratings — can't get access to the games they need to develop their players.
The result is a lot of teams playing mismatched games. Local programs that dominate their leagues can't find opponents who push them. AAA programs that would benefit from playing strong local competition often don't, because the system isn't set up to connect them.
For families, this creates a false choice. Parents of talented kids at local programs hear: “Your kid is too good for your local program. Come play for us.”
Sometimes that's true. AAA is the right path for some kids in some markets. But too often, the issue isn't that the local program lacks talent — it's that the local program lacks access to competitive games. Those are two very different problems, and only one of them requires a kid to leave their community.
03
Chapter Three · How it works
How it works, in five steps.
pp. 20—23
1
Sign up free.
An email and a password, or a magic link. No card, nothing to cancel. Free, and meant to stay that way.
2
Set up your club and team.
Two screens: your association, then the team — age group, division, home rink, season dates.
3
Load the season.
Upload your league games from Excel or CSV, or start from the template, and mark blackouts. The calendar tells you how many non-league games are left to fill.
4
Find games.
Invite the teams you play. Share open dates, send a game request, accept the ones that fit.
5
Reach the rest.
Track outreach to opponents who aren't on the platform yet. Forward their replies in and the ledger keeps the thread.
Plate III / The thesis
Good teams should play good teams. Period.
04
Chapter Four · The Product
What it looks like.
pp. 24—27
Your season, loaded from one Excel or CSV file.A note to every family, reviewed before it goes out.Game requests from the teams you play, accepted in one click.
05
Chapter Five · The Instrument
A free platform for coaches and team managers.
pp. 28—41
i.
Plan the full season.
A weekly calendar with league, playoff, state, and non-league budgets mapped out. Blackouts and compliance flags built in. An honest answer to: how many games do we have left to schedule?
ii.
Send notes to your families.
Talk or type what the parents need to know, clean it up in one click, and send it to every family on the roster. Their replies come back to Coach's Corner.
iii.
Find the right games.
Connect with the teams you play, by email or a link you can text. Share open dates, trade game requests, skip the group-text chaos.
iv.
Keep everyone on the same page.
A CRM for opponents who aren't on the platform yet. Track outreach, log correspondence, stop losing threads in a 40-email gmail search.
v.
Build the network, year by year.
Good teams talk to good teams. As the network grows, the Competitive Access Score rises — and the case for staying in your local program gets stronger every season.
