Jeff Lockhart handles webmaster duties for massive Fargo-based youth hockey association
Webmaster of the Week: Oct. 31-Nov. 6
Name:
Jeff Lockhart
Site:
Fargo Youth Hockey Association
Position:
Hockey Operations Manager
Use of platform:
Dibs, League, Sitebuilder, Registration, Tourney, Verify
Background:
You would think a northern Minnesota guy whose career has had him immersed in hockey every day for the last 10 years would have a deep hockey background. You would be wrong. Lockhart grew up in the rare “State of Hockey” town so small (Ulen: population 547) that there was no hockey program to join. So he played basketball. “But I probably would have been better at hockey if I had played it,” Lockhart said. He was introduced to the inner workings of hockey program management by his wife, Sommer, who serves as Fargo Youth Hockey’s Tournament & Sales Director. She previously worked at the glitzy Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, North Dakota, before the family moved to Fargo. When Lockhart isn’t knee deep in skates, sticks and pucks, he still helps his dad work the family farm.
What he does:
Among dozens of other duties, Lockhart handles the scheduling for the Fargo Youth Hockey Association. Luckily for Lockhart, Fargo’s Teamsters Ice Arena is owned by the association, giving Lockhart a good start for slotting practices and games for one of the Midwest’s largest youth hockey associations (more than 1,000 players are on a combined 90 boys’ and girls’ teams) outside of the Twin Cities. Once he has exhausted the ice time at his home rink, Lockhart starts booking available slots at most of the other dozen or so ice sheets in the Fargo metro area, where hockey is something of a boom sport. Lockhart said Fargo Youth Hockey has grown by 46 percent since 2009. There were 229 kids in the Introduction to Hockey program this fall. Lockhart recently oversaw a redesign of the association’s website, which corresponded with a transition to a mobile responsive theme. He uses SportsEngine integration partner MaxGalaxy for his scheduling software. He built a Teamsters Arena page that shows the arena’s schedule in an iframe embedded by using the Code page element.
Making his mark:
The Tournaments landing page includes a Table Builder page element that lists every 2017 tournament hosted by the association, 15 of them in all. The page also includes guidelines for the various age group divisions and links to registration for the tournaments that still have openings.