Harbor Soccer Club

Revision 05.09.11

RGISTRATION
Registration for the falll 2011  Harbor Academy Program will begin April 1, 2011. Specifics about the Registration Policy that can be found online under the Registration tab at www.harborsoccerclub.com. Since the HSC Academy program is a recreational soccer club, placement on teams cannot be selected by head or assistant coaches, managers, or team parents.

PLAYER FEES
HSC has succeeded in keeping the fees for the the Academy program the same as last year; $165 for U7 through U10, and $195 for U11. Fees include a new uniform, training T-shirt, team affiliation fees with the association and state, field rental, referees, professional coaching for the academy session, etc.   Like last year, the Academy progrm will be offered to all players and teams within the U7-U11 age groups. Like last year, the Academy training sessions will be led by John Wedge (USSF A License Coach and WSYS District IV Director of Coaching Education) and tained high school age players from the Harbor Premier program.

TEAMS
After the closing of our "open" registration period, teams will be formed in late June/early July. Once the teams are formed, coaches will be notified of their roster (likely sometime the middle of July). This will allow teams to attend academies or camps together. Official sanctioned practices will not begin until the first week of August 2011.

FIELDS
Small sided teams will be using Peninsula School District fields and possibly some local private school facilities. HSC does not know what fields we will be provided until mid-July. Our hope is that we can use a similar format from last year, with practices scattered around the Gig Harbor area and two fields set aside as a U7/U8 game field and a U9/U10. We also hope to continue to have some of the U11 games played on turf at Harbor Heights or at the Homestead/Sehmel park.

PRACTICES/ACADEMIES
This season, the Small Sided program will build on the U7/U8 Academy program that was started last year. Teams in the U7 through U10 age brackets will have one team practice and one academy practice per week. The U9/U10 academy will be on Tuesdays and the U7/U8 academies will be on Fridays. Academies will start the first week of August 2011 and will continue through the first week of October 2011. We plan to hold academies  at Homestead/Sehmel park. The calendar at the bottom of the Academy tab of the Harbor Soccer Club website (http://www.harborsoccerclub.com/page/show/60138) show the time and day of the academies for the various age groups.

Last year, the academies were well attended and were a positive experience for coaches and playerss. Both coaches and parents who attended noticed the benefit of the program. Our hope is that the academy sessions will continue to help all players learn better skills, and that pressure is taken off of parent volunteer coaches.

The U11 teams will be provided two team practices per week an early and late time. As usual, the late practice time will be lost during the season because of darkness. U11 players will also have 4 academy session with John and the trainers the last week of July and first week of August.

GAMES
As with last season, we anticipate games will be on Saturday. Since our teams are affiliated with TPCJSA, our teams do get a chance to play teams from outside of Gig Harbor. The league tries to limit travel to no further than the length of a half of the game. Over the last few seasons, we have had multiple Harbor teams in the same bracket, allowing several of the “away” games to also be played in the Harbor. We understand that the travel sometimes can be challenging, but the competiion is good for the players.

At the U11 age bracket, the teams keep and report scores to the league. The first 5 games of the U11 season are based on random assignments to divisions. All U11 teams then have a bye on week 6, during which divisions are reshuffled based on results. This creates a more even competition during the second half of the season.

PLAYER CARDS
Player cards will need to be available for referees to review prior to each game. HSC will provide the cards to the coach or manager . The coach or manager should take a photo of each player, affix the photo to the card, and then laminate the cards. Last year Harbor managers found it useful to hole-punch the corner of each card and keep them on a key ring to keep them together. This sounds difficult, but this is mandated by the state to ensure that the players playing soccer are covered by the associations’s insurance policy, and to make sure the “recreational” intent of the game is maintained by preventing “unregistered” or “guest” players from aiding a team.