Norcal’s first meeting since November took place last Saturday, January 20 at Logitech Ice in San Jose.  Here are some of the highlights of the meeting:

• Berkeley Iceland will be ceasing operations as of March 30th

• Fresno’s Gateway Ice Center will cease operations on April 30th pending a deal the city to assume operations of the facility.  A Gateway Ice representative asked the Norcal board to help support the push to keep the rink open by sending letters to the Fresno City Council.  A link is posted at www.gatewayicecenter.com with information on how to help.

• GM John Hamer reported that 48 players are heading to the CAHA selects camp starting on January 27.  SCVHA representatives are Julian Herrera, Roy Grandov, Wesley Starr, Mattia Bortolotto, and Theo Tydingco.  All are members of the Bantam AA team.

• Shattuck’s St. Mary’s will be holding a girls hockey camp in Vacaville this summer.  Details will be released shortly.

• Norcal playoff dates and locations have been determined.

• Mite Jamboree will be held in Fresno on the weekend of March 2-4.  Sharks Ice at Fremont also had submitted a bid to host the jamboree.

• “A” playoffs will be held in Oakland on the weekend of March 30th – April 1.

• “B” playoffs will be held in Vacaville on the weekend of March 23rd – 25th.

The big news is that A/B tryouts have been moved back to (no earlier than) August 17th.  Tier tryouts will stay on the same weekends.

The next Norcal Board meeting will be held on Saturday, February 24, 2007.  The general session will start at 10:00am (immediately following the Executive Board session.)