Please Welcome Our U10A - White Head Coach 2024-2025

Hello All,
As coach of one of the two U10 Silver Seven teams for this upcoming winter. Let me first say how excited I am to continue the hockey journey with these young players. I am excited to see lots of new faces at this years try outs and I welcome you all to say hi when you see me at the rink.
For those that don’t know me, I spend my evenings and weekends at a rink coaching or watching one of my two boys play hockey or lacrosse, and I can tell you there is nothing I enjoy more than working with young players and helping them develop life skills that will enable them in their future.
My coaching philosophy is simple, work hard, have fun and be a great teammate. Those basic principles have led to success thus far for all the teams I have been involved with, from Kanata Cubs baseball, Goulbourn basketball, Stittsville Rams and of course my time with the 2012 Silver Seven league champs.
For many of you this may be your first interaction with competitive sport and the Silver Seven family, I can tell you through experience the organization is world class, and your young players will develop tremendously both on and off the ice.
For program expectations you can anticipate we will have something (practice, online learning, game, etc.) 4 or 5 nights per week, with expectation of 100% attendance. All players will arrive early to review plans and talk about goals and learnings from the past. Our coaching staff will give 100% effort at all times, and we expect the same from each player.
Practices will focus on HARD WORK, and you can expect your young player to be tired after each one. As parents we ask that you encourage but don’t coach, let us be the coaches. That being said, we need help, all families will be assigned a team role (from manager to social lead) it takes a village to run a team and we are all in this together.
From a travel perspective we will have 4 tournaments of which approx. 2 will be overnighter in hotels. The expectation is all players arrive the night before we play and adhere to team tournament protocols.
The expectation of the players is high, and I ask you to hold us coaches to the same level of expectation. Together we will be great, and we will measure our success through watching the young players build strong work ethic, a sense of team play, a respect for teammates and coaches and a love for the game.
Important dates : Tournaments
Sept 26/27/28/29 - Belleville
Oct24/ 25/26/27 - Silver Seven
Nov 28/29/30/1 - Silver Stick - Sudbury
Dec 28-30th Bell Capital Cup
I look forward to seeing many of you at the rink this fall.
Martin Ballard