Desert Hockey Development (DHD) is proud to announce we’ve been selected to receive a grant from the Arizona Coyotes Foundation. DHD will be utilizing these grant funds to expand our operations to include other areas of Arizona as well as continuing our free hockey clinics in Glendale’s Bonsall Park.
This summer, we filled the Street Hockey Summer League to eighty person capacity in remarkably few days after the announcement and, unfortunately, had to resort to a waiting list.
Among other things, that experience cemented our conviction there is an unsatisfied demand for free introductory ball hockey programs.
DHD’s goal of growing the game of hockey in the Southwest has been successful for the first two years of operation. In our first two years, we have had over 736 individual boys and girls aged 4 through 14 participate in hockey for at least 1,189 “kid days” for 3,427 hours of hockey fun and instruction.
We’ve seen some of “our kids” continue on into roller and ice hockey and we’re glad to welcome so many of them return to participate in many of our activities.
Now that we have a solid family of volunteers and a pretty good idea what works and what doesn’t, it’s time to expand to other cities and towns.
DHD is an all volunteer organization. We attribute a great deal of our success to our dedicated group of volunteers and to a great partnership with the Arizona Coyotes organization.
The Arizona Coyotes have been generous with their equipment, their facilities, and most importantly their expertise. The Coyotes Youth Hockey Development people were there at our first clinic showing us how they wrangle forty or so inexperienced kids for a few hours of hockey.
This grant from the Arizona Coyotes Foundation should help us reach a lot of kids that would never have a chance to try hockey. We seek out less economically advantaged areas because we feel that’s where our fledgling group can have the most impact on kid’s lives and also on introducing “our” sport to a new crop of hockey fans.
The board of Desert Hockey Development is grateful, and we will never be able to thank the Arizona Coyotes Foundation enough for their support and their confidence in our project. We will work diligently to not disappoint and to surpass our goals.