About Us- IT'S A LIFE STYLE

Ruggers Hockey was formed in 2016 with a simple vision of Hockey Dad's looking for a community hockey training program that focused on development, execution, and competitiveness for kids in Stillwater. It was founded to make offseason hockey available exclusively to Stillwater hockey players that desired to train in the off season while still pursuing their other passions in the summer.

In addition Ruggers Hockey's mission is unique in that there are no profits taken from the operations, as all ice costs are split among the participants.

And so Ruggers was born as a community AAA option for hockey players in Stillwater, MN.

2016: Ruggers was founded, and with no other name chosen the first 3v3 team took the ice as Ruggers.

2018: Our modest start to offseason training. 5 practices in spring and 5 practices in fall.

2023: Entered our first tournaments.

2024: Added our 2nd team and 2nd age level.

2025: Founded Ruggers Hockey Inc as a 501c3 corporation, elected board of directors

2025: Added 3 more teams at 2 new age levels.

2026 and beyond: Stay tuned!

Mission Statement:

Ruggers Hockey is a community based AAA program established exclusively for players who live in Stillwater to focus on positive hockey development for players who want to advance all aspects of their game, while emphasizing multi-sport Athletes.

Policies and Procedures:

Ruggers teams will be formed in November-January and will only consist of Stillwater kids.

Teams will consist of game rosters, with reserves and practice rosters, based on the level of enrolment.

Ruggers is a not-for-profit program. All costs will be divided equally amongst the skaters.

Goalies are free of charge.

Parents and players must sign liability waivers and code of conduct to protect coaches and administrators of the Ruggers Program.

Rugger’s administrators understand that participants may miss events and reserve players will be used as needed at the discretion of the coaches.

Playing time will be equal on the game roster, but we may run power play/penalty kill at the PW/Bantam levels. Players will play positions they may not have during association hockey.

Players will be held accountable for “controllable” actions. If players disrupt training, they will be asked to leave the ice for 5 minutes of the first strike. Second strike in the same practice and they will be asked to take their skates off. The kids are capable enough to not get to a 3^rd strike.

Coaches will be selected by the board of directors.

Methods and Values:

Ruggers will run training and games March-April and August-September.

Ruggers will not conduct training or games during the “regular” season of other in season sports.

Ruggers will not hold judgement for missing events. This is a developmental program and will sub in for missing kids as needed.

Ruggers is extremely passionate about all things fundamental to the game of hockey. This program will focus on prefect effort, perfect listening turning into great results. Ruggers will focus on 1-minute redirects to correct actions and 1- minute praise to reinforce correct actions and performance.