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How Developmental Schedules Get Created

Ever wonder how a youth sports league schedule gets created? Below are a few of the things that determine how and when the AYSC Fall or Spring Developmental schedules get made up. Piecing together everything is no easy task – it typically takes several days (and many volunteer hours) at the start of each Spring or Fall season, or upon the release of Township field or gym times, to get everything worked out. We appreciate your patience as we organize each season.

1. Number of Player Registrations / Number of Teams in Each Age Group

Of course no schedule can be made until teams have been formed – without knowing how many teams will play in each age group, it’s impossible to determine who will play when. Aldergrove typically has a high number registrations that come in at the end of any registration period (typically, about 25% of players register within the last week).

2. Number of Team Leaders / Coaches

Almost all youth sports leagues have a constant challenge in getting parents / guardians to step forward as volunteer Team Leaders or Coaches. Many feel they do not have enough experience or skill to coach, but the truth is that at the younger ages, the primary responsibility is to help players develop very basic skills (dribbling, shooting, passing etc.) and ensure they have FUN!

AYSC IS A VOLUNTEER-RUN ORGANIZATION. WE CANNOT BEGIN TO CREATE TEAMS AND SCHEDULES UNTIL ENOUGH PARENT / GUARDIAN VOLUNTEERS HAVE STEPPED FORWARD TO BE TEAM LEADERS / COACHES.

AYSC holds coaching workshops and provides support during the season to give new Team Leaders / coaches practice ideas, drills, etc. Being your son or daughter’s Team Leader or Coach for a season or two is something they’ll remember for a lifetime. If you would like to volunteer to be a Team Leader / Coach, please see Volunteering with AYSC.

3. Number of Fields / Township of Langley Field Assignments

Plotting out field usage is a challenging puzzle itself. The Township of Langley assigns a block of days and times to AYSC each season – often very late in our planning process – and within that block we need to plan for game and practice fields and times for approximately 30 teams (or 300-500 kids). The Developmental program is run at the Aldergrove Athletic Park turf fields, which means we have to plot out enough fields to get all teams through each day or night in a limited number of hours.

We also usually try and balance the schedules so that a team’s games are spread across time slots, so that a team doesn’t end up with ALL early or ALL late games, especially with the younger kids. (We also try to ensure that the TOTAL number of teams at a park is even across time slots, so that parking isn’t a complete nightmare.)

How You Can Help

Please register early for the season – this makes it much easier to create teams and schedules!

There are a number of ways you can help the Club every season:

  • register early – the earlier everyone registers, the earlier we have an idea about how many players will be in each age group, how many teams will need to be formed, and what the schedule will look like
  • volunteer to be a Team Leader or Coach – without volunteers, we can’t form teams – it’s as simple as that
  • be patient – it can take awhile for everything to fall in line each season, and as fields and / or gyms are assigned to the Club by the Township