The start of the hockey season is always a busy and stressful time for us at Wisconsin Prep Hockey. We’ve got to coordinate the entering of game schedules, rosters, and coaches for all the teams. This year we had the extra duties of entering the information for the girls’ teams as well as the boys. Then NGIN threw a new scoring application at us that we had to learn and help teach to our team page managers. To top it off, the darned thing didn’t really work so well right out of the box.

But by now, most everything is in place. Bugs have been worked out of the system. Page managers have become accustomed to the routine, and games are being played across the state. We are now settling into our routine. And now is when we need your help.

Every Sunday the staff gets together for a conference call to review the previous week, and layout plans for the coming week. We look over any nominations we have for boys or girls players of the week (POTW). We look for game of the week (GOTW) candidates in the coming schedules. These are two areas where we could really use some more sets of eyes.

We comb through the game results looking for noteworthy performance, but we don’t catch them all. There are but five of us and we can’t see every game. But with your input, we can. We have email addresses set up to nominate players for POTW. If you witness a noteworthy performance in games you are attending, drop us a line with some details. You can also let us know via Twitter or Facebook. It’s not the Heisman Trophy, and there is no money involved. It’s just a little recognition for a job well done.

We also would welcome suggestions for future Games of the Week. We don’t really have any strict criteria for what can be our GOTW. Early on, we’ve been searching mostly for games between highly ranked teams. But it doesn’t have to be two “top-tier” teams.

It has long been my contention that you can have a very good, very exciting hockey game at any level if you have two teams that are fairly evenly matched, and they are both playing with heart and intensity. This holds true for Squirts, Peewees, Bantams, and High School teams.

Early in the season we take the easy way out and pick games with highly rated teams. But a couple weeks ago we featured the Baraboo/Portage vs. Reedsburg/Wisconsin Dells game. Why? Because it had some interesting story lines. The current seniors were freshmen on the last version of Baraboo Reedsburg Hockey. So they started their high school careers as team mates, and are ending it as conference rivals.

So we want to know what other stories or rivalries or special circumstances would make for a compelling Game of the Week. Send us an email or use Twitter or Facebook . We welcome any and all suggestions.