Welcome to this season of the Ayr Minor Hockey Association U9MD team. My name is Dave Kinnaird and I'll be the Head Coach for the 2025-26 season.
This is my 5th year coaching this group and most of you know my style. Fun, skill development, confidence building and Team bonding will be my top priority for the year. We want to continue to foster the love of the game, while building our hockey skills and creating friendships that last a lifetime.
This is a growth year for the kids as they transition into full ice from half ice, so learning the skills, fundamentals of strategy, positional play and hockey IQ will be at the forefront early on in practices.
Staying with the growth mindset, I'd like to encourage the parents to empower the kids to get ready on there own with the exception of skates as we continue to develop our kids into independent hockey players.
A few expectations for the upcoming year.
1. Kids arrive 45 minutes early for games. This allows for a 15 minute warm up.
2. We will have weekly on and off ice developmental sessions.
3. Monthly Dryland sessions - Dates TBD
4. Our first team meeting will be September 20th 9:30am - NDCC upstairs community room.
Really looking forward to another great year and continuing to see these kids grow!