about

OUR MISSION

Glacier Hockey Association is a non-profit community youth hockey organization that provides an instructional hockey experience for youth ages 4-18 in a safe and supportive environment. Glacier Hockey Association strives to promote an enriching environment in a community setting while providing foundational skills, in accordance with USA Hockey’s American Development Model program to foster youth development and encouraging a lifelong love of hockey and team sports. GHA endeavors to impart the hockey values of character, hard work, teamwork, sportsmanship, and respect that lead to player success both on and off the ice.

OUR vision

We desire to grow the sport of hockey in the Flathead Valley by being a top tier developmental hockey program in Montana.  This goal is grounded in providing the best possible experience for our athletes. We strive to provide a challenging, fun and rewarding experience on and off the ice. We aspire to provide the entire hockey family (athletes, coaches, managers, families, and stakeholders of GHA) a first class experience.  To this end, we are committed to excellence across our in season programs, out of season development programs, coaching development, character development, facilities, and fundraising.

Core Values

We have a set of core values that align directly with our Mission.  These are driving principles that direct our organization.  They, combined with our Mission Statement, are our True North and will carry us to our vision.

  • Our #1 priority is to create a incredible experience for our athletes:
    • We want to ignite, stoke and fan a love for the sport of hockey.  This ultimately creates a life long appreciation of the sport.
    • Our decisions are motivated by what is in the best interest of our athletes.
  • We believe Hockey can deliver skills for life off the ice:
    • As is the case with all sports, hockey can deliver skills that will serve our athletes for the rest of their life.  We acknowledge so many of those skills/lessons come organically through the course of a hockey season.  But we intentionally impart these principles to our athletes and teams:
      • Team Comes First
      • Attitude
      • Effort
      • Play with Discipline
  • We are a development organization
    • We provide the best opportunities in season and out of season for our athletes and coaches to develop.  This includes practices, dryland, camps and other opportunities to help our athletes and coaches reach their potential.  We meet our athletes where they are at currently and place an emphasis on helping them reach their potential.
    • While we desire success on the ice, the priority is our athletes and teams reaching their potential.  This might mean sacrificing on ice success early on in development.
  • We are an organization for all
    • Our programming is for all who want to develop as hockey players, regardless of ability, gender and financial resources.
      • Whether an athlete is just starting their hockey journey (Learn to Play/House League) or desiring to excel at the highest levels of the sport (Travel and Select Teams), we have a place and programming for them on their hockey journey.
      • We do not discriminate based upon gender.  We have both coed programming and girls only programming
      • We believe that all who desire to play the sport should have the opportunity to play regardless of financial resources.  We have resources and scholarships to help those families that need assistance to participate in the organization.

Brutal Facts

As a community organization, we know there are constraints that we face in our programming for our stakeholders.   Some of these we can improve upon over time and some of them we will continue to be constrained without changes that are outside of the purview of our organization.  We call these our Brutal Facts.

  • We currently can’t serve all types of Hockey Teams: We desire to have all our athletes and teams reach their potential on the ice.  However, we fully recognize that we are constrained, mainly by the number of athletes in our programming, to not serve the upper echelon of hockey opportunities across the USA and Canada.  We desire, as the Flathead Valley grows and our stakeholder base grows (athletes) as well as available ice time, to be able to serve these types of teams.
  • We are a Volunteer Organization: We acknowledge the backbone of our organization, coaches and managers, are all volunteers.  While we would desire to pay our coaches and managers in the future, currently our team leaders are investing in our athletes without compensation.  Our acknowledgement of their investment is seen in our desire to build and run as efficient and streamlined organization as possible.  This is seen by our creation of support systems, policies and resources that come alongside our coaches and managers to make the act of running/managing our teams as easy as possible.
  • We understand our community is growing: With that growth, comes many ideas of what is appropriate for youth hockey. In accordance with our vision, we will adapt and change as the sport changes as long as it enhances the experience for our athletes.  This might mean some ideas and proposals might not be congruent with our vision

ABOUT THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

All authority of GHA is vested in a Board of Directors as specified in GHA's bylaws. The Board of Directors is responsible for developing and enforcing the bylaws, policies, and activities of GHA.

CONTACT INFO

Glacier Hockey Association
PO Box 905,
Whitefish MT, 59937

GHA EIN:  81-0480530

HOME ICE

Stumptown Ice Den

715 Wisconsin Ave

Whitefish, MT 59937

interim EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Amanda Hayes

ahayes@glacierhockey.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jesse Rigler: President

Matt Schwartz: Vice President

  • Disciplinary Committee
  • High School Committee

Heather Vezane: Treasurer

  • Finance Committee (Chair)
  • Disciplinary Committee

Brittney Crest: Secretary

  • Tournaments Committee (Chair)
  • Fundraising Committee

Cristinna Gebbia

  • Hockey Development Committee (Vice Chair)
  • Community Outreach
  • Tournaments Committee

Susie Kalgren

  • Community Outreach (Vice Chair)
  • Tournaments Committee (Vice Chair)
  • Girls Programming Committee (Vice Chair)

Matt Lawrance

  • Girls Programing Committee

Derek Peachey

  • Finance Committee (Vice Chair)
  • Fundraising Committee

Roger Rudd

  • Disciplinary (Chair)
  • Hockey Development Committee

glacierhockeyassociation@gmail.com

VOLUNTEER NEEDS

Watch for committee sign-ups with registration!

DOCUMENTS

BOARD MINUTES