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| Frequently Asked Questions |
| Q. |
Our team
is comprised of young children. I would be concerned
about posting confidential information about our
kids on the Internet. |
| A. |
To facilitate
effective communication between coaches, players
and parents, the Hockey Net websites can include
contact information about your players. This would
include their names, addresses, and phone numbers,
e-mail addresses. If a coach needs to contact
a player or parent, or the entire team your website
can facilitate this process. This contact information
is also useful for parents who need to make last-minute
arrangements to get their son or daughter to a
game. The website also has a capability to include
photographs of your players. It is absolutely
essential that this information be kept confidential
and not openly posted on the Internet. We have
taken extreme measures to help you protect this
confidential information.
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Our web-servers use 128-bit
encryption security, the same level of security
used by major international banks to protect
their business.
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Hockey Net Websites are
always password protected. Every visitor to
your website will have their own unique user-name
and password, which they can only get from
your team’s website administrator (usually
the coach, manager or designated team parent).
Without a password approved by your team website
administrator, no one can gain access to your
team website.
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Passwords can be changed
at any time, and revoked at the discretion
of your team’s website administrator.
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Your team website administrator
can also control the level of access to each
section of the website. For example, you may
allow casual visitors to view only the home
page, which contains no confidential information
about your team. Player’s friends and
grandparents might be allowed to access a
few other pages in addition to the home page.
Players and their parents may have access
to almost all sections of the website, and
coaches could have access to the complete
site. Granting access is at the sole discretion
of your team’s website administrator.
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| Q. |
I am uncomfortable with buying
things over the Internet. How do I know this isn’t
some sort of scam? |
| A. |
THE HOCKEY
NET INC. is an incorporated company in the Province
of Ontario, Canada.
Our on-line transactions, when you provide your
credit card information to buy a Hockey Net website,
are handled by Monaris. Monaris is an on-line
banking transaction company owned jointly by The
Bank of Montreal and The Royal Bank of Canada.
Monaris has an excellent international reputation
for handling secure transactions. |
| Q. |
How much does it really cost
to buy a Hockey Net website? |
| A. |
We want to
dominate the world of hockey team websites. To
achieve this goal we need to offer a great product
at an affordable price. The cost of a Hockey Net
website is $100.00 CDN. Of course there are also
taxes. Provincial sales tax is 8% and the Federal
Goods and Services Tax is 7%. Add it all up and
the total cost is $115.00 CDN. Considering what
you are getting, that’s a pretty good deal.
It works out to about $7.00 per player for the
whole season, or 2 rolls of tape, or 1 hockey
sock, or 3 really bad arena hot-dogs.
We have to put an upper limit on the amount of
memory each team can use for their web-site. We
have set that limit at 100 megabytes which is
more than enough for most team websites with hundreds
of photographs and special effects. If you want
to add a lot of videos of game action, that will
consume more memory. You can buy additional memory
at a cost of $30.00 for 50 megabytes. |
| Q. |
I’m not very good with
the computer and I’ve never built a website
before. How tough is this and how long will it take? |
| A. |
Since you are
able to read this message, you obviously have
some computer skills. If you can send an e-mail
or use Word you can easily build a Hockey Net
website. Actually, the website has already been
built by our programming experts; all you have
to do is customize the website to suit your team.
You can select the layout with a single mouse
click, type in your team’s name, select
the colors for the different sections of your
website, type in your roster information and enter
your game and practice schedule by following a
simple automated menu. It will take less than
2 hours to create a pretty cool website for your
team.
Also, you can continuously update your website
throughout the season adding photographs, news
articles and player statistics along the way.
After each game, you can enter the score of the
game, update the individual player statistics
and write a post-game news article reporting on
the highlights (and lowlights) of the game, all
in about 10 minutes.
If you are really too busy to spend even 2 hours
to build a website, maybe you can get a team parent
to do it for you. If not, give us a call and we
can hook you up with someone who will do it for
you for a nominal fee. |
| Q. |
Where can I get photographs
to post on our website? |
| A. |
Most minor
hockey associations do the annual team photo day
where a professional photographer will take a
team shot plus individual photographs of each
player. These photographs can be scanned into
your computer and then loaded onto you website.
Also, at many hockey tournaments there are professional
photographers who will take 30 – 60 photographs
of your team in hopes of selling 8” X 10”
prints to the admiring parents and grand-parents
after the game. (Usually about $25 per print).
Explain to the photographer that you want to buy
all of the photographs of your team, but on a
CD, rather than having them printed. You can probably
buy the whole set for $150.00.
There are some sports photographers who advertise
on our website. They will come to your game and
photograph the entire team in action.
We have some photographers on staff who can attend
your games and take lots of digital photographs
for a nominal fee, usually around $75.00 for the
whole set. Send us an e-mail at the address in
the CONTACT US section. |
| Q. |
What are the real advantages
of using a Hockey Net website? |
| A. |
Coaching a hockey team is a significant commitment.
You have to plan practices, set game strategies,
copy and distribute schedules and league standings,
communicate with parents and players as well
as managing your obligations to your hockey
association and league. Communications usually
consist of preparing and photocopying handouts
and making 14 – 17 telephone calls on
a regular basis.
By using a team web-site to handle your communications,
you can dramatically improve the level and the
quality of your communication with your team
and the player’s parents. The obvious
communication elements are the game schedules
and league standings, but there are several
other, more subtle communication vehicles inherent
in having a team web-site. Consider the following…
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After a tough loss, the
players and fans might be feeling pretty dejected.
Using the post-game news article, the coach
can point out some important highlights of
the game that signify progress.
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If the coach decides to
juggle his lines before a game, and wants
all players and parents to understand his
rationale, he can communicate the changes
on-line in advance and invite anyone with
questions to contact him. When game time comes,
the changes are old news and the team is ready
to play.
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If the time of a game is
changed, you can post the change on the website,
knowing that every player is conditioned to
check the site on a regular basis. No need
to make 16 telephone calls.
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If the time of a game is
changed on really short notice, you can post
the change on the website and send a broadcast
e-mail to the entire team requesting that
they acknowledge receipt of the message. No
need to make 16 urgent telephone calls.
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Every parent, uncle and
grandparent is a fan and wants to follow the
successes of their favorite player. They can
access the team website from any computer
in the world, 24 hours a day. Imagine their
joy when their player is on the home-page
as “Player of the Day”.
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Ice time is hard to get,
and very expensive. Rather than spending time
during your precious hour of practice explaining
new drills, you can post them on your website
and ask players to review them prior to coming
to the arena. This also serves to keep parents
informed about what you are trying to achieve
with the team.
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Do you need some way to
recognize and reward your team sponsors? Post
a link to their corporate website on your
team’s website. Your sponsors can also
follow the team’s progress throughout
the season which will really engage them in
the team’s success.
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In our experience, most
players and parents designate their team website
as their home page so they can view it constantly
through the week.
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