The cost of youth sports has risen 46% since 2019. Hockey families are paying more than ever and tryout week is the first thing they judge that investment against. Get it right and you build a decade of trust. Get it wrong and you spend your fall responding to angry emails instead of running your program.
Join TeamGenius' Gabe Malinski, as he breaks down what actually works, drawn from over 13 million hockey evaluation scores recorded across North American associations, from 60-player clubs to 3,000-player organizations.
Takeaways from the session include:
- The Tryout Prep Checklist - what has to be locked in before the first skate
- The top evaluation criteria for hockey tryouts, based on 13M+ scored evaluations - which criteria actually separate players, and which ones just add noise
- The most common mistakes associations make, and what they cost you
- Current trends and innovations, including the Minnesota Bench Shuffle Report
- And much more!
Save time by eliminating manual data entry. TeamGenius paves the way for a fairer, more efficient, and accurate tryout experience through new tools like the Bench Shuffle Report, Paper Scoring Form Import and New Mobile Scoring App. These tools allow you to accommodate evaluator preferences, quickly shuffle eval groups and line mates, form teams and defend player placement decisions with confidence. LEARN MORE
MEET THE HOST
Gabe Malinski has spent the last eight years helping hockey associations across North America run tryouts they can defend. He grew up in a hockey family — both of his brothers went on to play NCAA Division I, and one is now a full-time defenseman for the Colorado Avalanche. Watching them come up through tryouts at every level shaped how he thinks about evaluation: the process isn't just about picking teams, it's about what a 12-year-old walks away believing.
Since 2018 he's worked with hundreds of organizations at TeamGenius, the athlete evaluation platform built to streamline tryouts for directors and defend player placement decisions to parents. Over 164,000 hockey players have been scored in the system. Based in Minnesota, Gabe and his team work with associations across North America — not just as software people, but as tryout consultants.
