Why associations split the sheet
For the youngest players, small area play is now the norm in Canada. Hockey Calgary reported in March 2017 that cross-ice or half-ice play would be mandatory for Initiation from the 2017 to 2018 season, and the Ontario Hockey Federation's U7 pathway says U7 is played cross-ice or on a surface of at most 100 by 60 feet. For the association's ice scheduler that has a practical side: one hour of full ice becomes two or three practices, so a young division needs fewer slots, and older divisions can have the full sheets. Cole Harbour Bel Ayr's ice page for 2024 to 2025 shows the same pattern at the other end, with some C tier teams given one shared 60 minute practice a week.
Who may share a slot
The pairing rule decides which teams may stand on the same sheet at once. "Same division" keeps a U9 team with U9 teams. "Same division and tier" keeps A with A. "Any teams" lets any two divisions that both practise on half ice share. Set it on the Rules tab of the ice allocator; it is a hard rule, so a hand move that breaks it is flagged with the pair named.
How a shared hour counts
- Time on the ice. A team on half ice for an hour has had an hour of practice. Targets for young divisions are then met with fewer slots, and more full sheets are left for older teams.
- Share of the ice. The same slot counts as half an hour, or twenty minutes on third ice. Targets track the ice each team uses and pays for, so young divisions need two or three times as many slots to meet the same number.
Worked example: one season counted both ways
The invented sample association (12 teams, 60 slots over 4 weeks) has three U7 teams on half and third ice with a target of one hour a week each. Counted as time on the ice, each U7 team gets 4, 4, 4 hours from 4, 4, 4 practices, and 2 teams in the association end below target. Counted as a share of the ice, with nothing else changed, the U7 teams need 11, 10, 11 practices to get near the same numbers, and 10 teams end below target (U13 A, U15 A, U13 B, U9 A, U9 C, U11 A, U9 B, U11 B, U15 B, U7 White). Both allocations break 0 rules; the difference is only in what an hour means.
Neither answer is wrong. The lesson is to pick the rule before the targets are set, because a target of one hour a week means something different under each.
Common mistakes
- Setting targets under one counting rule and allocating under the other.
- Pairing an A team with a C team on half ice when the policy meant to keep tiers together.
- Leaving the second half of a half ice slot empty when a paired team could use it, then buying more ice.
- Letting an older division use a third ice slot the youngest teams needed.
Related: sharing prime time fairly and the policy template.