Ice allocation guides for minor hockey

Guides

• How to allocate practice ice fairlySeven steps from an ice contract to team schedules, with the sample association allocated and a month with less ice shared across the full ice teams.
• Ice allocation policy templateThe ten sections an association's ice allocation policy needs, the decisions in each, and the sample's division settings as an example table.
• Shared ice and half ice rulesWho may share half and third ice, how a shared hour counts toward targets, and one season counted both ways.
• Prime time ice fairnessDefining prime, early and late slots, measuring each team's share, and the sample allocated with and without evening them out.
• Ice scheduler checklist for the seasonBefore the allocation meeting, building and publishing the schedule, the weekly routine and the January re-allocation, with the sample's supply against demand.
• Ice scheduling software comparedCalendars, game schedulers and generators for minor hockey ice, with prices read on a stated date and what each does with a practice allocation.

Hard rules, never broken silently

A hard rule is one the allocator keeps on every slot it gives out. Any rule it cannot keep is named with the reason: a lock that breaks one is left out and listed, and a hand move that breaks one is flagged on the calendar.

• Ice size: full ice takes one team, half ice two, third ice three, and only divisions that use that size.
• Sharing: only teams the pairing rule allows (same division, same division and tier, or any) share a slot.
• Each division's earliest start and latest end, and its cap on late slots per week.
• Each team's blackout dates.
• One practice a day, if the association says so, and the minimum gap between a team's practices.
• Teams that share a coach are never on the ice at once, with 30 minutes of travel between arenas by default.
• Locks: a booking you lock stays where it is through every rebalance.

What it balances

Within the hard rules, the allocator scores each allocation and keeps the best one it finds. A team's shortfall is measured as a share of its own target and squared: one team missing its whole target costs 1050 points, one missing half costs 275, and two teams each missing a quarter cost 150 between them, so shortages are spread in proportion to targets. With spare ice left unused, each hour over a target costs 40 points. Prime time share and early and late slots are evened out within each division, a practice away from a team's preferred arena costs 6, and in a rebalance each booking a team loses costs 30, so a rebalance moves as little as it can.

The search is deterministic: the same season and seed always give the same allocation. It runs between 60,000 and 400,000 steps in a background worker, depending on the size of the season, then fills any slot a team below its target can still take.

Why a team is short

For every team below its target, the allocator counts the slots it did not get, by the first reason that stops it:

• Outside the division's hours
• Ice size the division does not use
• Blackout date
• Shared with a team it may not pair with
• Already full with other teams
• Overlaps another practice
• Already on the ice that day
• Too close to another practice
• A team sharing its coach is on the ice
• Late slot cap reached
• No division set

Straight after an allocation it never lists a free slot the team could take: any such slot is given to the team before the reasons are worked out. After hand moves, a free slot a team could take is listed as such.