MAITLAND, FLA – Much like peanut butter and jelly in a school lunch, sports and education have been intertwined in society for decades. It is only natural since studies have proven that numerous factors that go into creating great athletes (focus, discipline, etc.) also make them into great students in the classroom. Sports themselves also provide some very unique practical uses in educational disciplines such as math and science.
Creative educators can and have found ways to use sports like hockey as a way to engage students in their classrooms and are always looking for new ways to connect with kids. These days, minor league sports teams – specifically the teams in the ECHL – are now helping out by creating maybe the most unique classroom of all: game day at the arena.
On Thursday, November 17th, the Orlando Solar Bears will host their first ever “School Day Game” as thousands of students will make a field trip to the Amway Center for a day of school learning wrapped around what for many will be an introduction to hockey. The Greenville Swamp Rabbits, who hosted the Solar Bears for a school day game two weeks ago, will be the opponents in the game which will begin at 10:30 am.
“Hockey can be integrated into just about any subject you would like,” Ann O’Brien, a teacher in Seminole County, Florida who has used hockey to reach her students, said. “You just need to be creative about it.”
O’Brien, who has been a teacher for 23 years – 16 of them in the Seminole County schools and six at her current school, is just one example of an educator who has gone outside the box in her classroom.
“The first time I realized I could use it as a learning experience for my students, we were learning about measurement and units of measurement. One of my students asked who the tallest Solar Bear was,” she said. “It led to many discussions as well as a picture of me standing next to 6’8″ Eric Knodel so my students could visualize how tall he was. They wrote letters to Eric. He loved them.”
Since then, O’Brien has come up with plenty more ways to expose her students to hockey while learning at the same time.
“During the season we mainly explore during our daily calendar time. During that time we keep track of the wins and losses along with the number of goals scored by the Solar Bears during each game. What we work on really helps students to develop addition and subtraction mental math skills along with an understanding of place value,” O’Brien explained. “There are a few hockey picture books out there that I’ll read to my students and we expand what we do in math upon occasion. They’ve even done writing assignments based on hockey. Really, the kids and I both bring hockey into assignments when we can.”
In Orange County, Florida, longtime elementary schoolteacher Peggy(she requested that we not use her last name)was exposing her fifth grade students to hockey thanks to the Orlando Seals back in the early 2000’s.
“Joe Fellini came in for a Teach-In (similar to a career day event) and he talked to my kids about hockey and marketing. After Joe came in, we had visits from several players including Jerry Keefe, Mike Correia and David Goverde. Jerry andMike brought Sealvester (team mascot) and just talked to the kids and sat for a reading time buddy [session],” she said. “Goverde came separately and talked to the kids about the importance of reading and they set a goal with him to read a certain amount of grade-level books over a period of a month or two. When he returned to see who had achieved the goal, those kids who had done so out their name into a drawing for a team autographed stick.”
Peggy also noted that Seals head coach Jim Paek – who is now the head of the national program in his home country of South Korea – was the guest speaker at her school’s fifth grade DARE graduation in the spring of 2004. Paek spoke about perseverance, not bowing to peer pressure and having a healthy lifestyle. Most recently, Peggy’s school was one of a small group in the county that were visited by the Tampa Bay Lightning to teach students about street hockey during physical education classes.
Sports still play a role at her school as many of the pro teams in the Central Florida area are represented in charting progress in math classes.
“Right now our multiplication table fluency race between our six, third-grade classes has each homeroom represented by a “player”on the wall – Orlando Magic, Orlando City Lions, Orlando Pride, the Solar Bears, Tampa Bay Rays and the Lightning,” she said.
Which brings us to Thursday’s game. Like Many of the teams in the ECHL, the Solar Bears can see how hosting a school day game is a win-win proposition for the team and the community.
“Myself and Chris Carmichael were on a conference call with the league back in April about school day games in general – why they’re such a great thing for minor league hockey and why it’s such a great thing for the community,” Erin Croce, the Solar Bears Director of Group Sales, said. “We want to expose new fans to our brand, especially being in a non-traditional hockey market like Orlando. A lot of the teams around the league who are in those non-traditional markets said it’s the best way to get those new fans, get them into the building and get them exposed to hockey.”
Croce said the team contacted the local school districts to find out what their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) standards were as far as curriculum needs. Feedback from other teams who have done the school day game before also went into creating a workbook that all of the students in attendance will have when they walk into the building.
According to Mark Nolte, Orlando’s V.P. of Marketing and Creative, there was one more set of people who had a hand in developing the workbook; the players themselves.
“We have a lot of really well educated players, a lot of smart individuals, that potentially will have careers in education long after hockey so we’re using them to our advantage,” Nolte said. “It’s kind of like when you see a celebrity endorsing something that seems routine but when you hear a celebrity saying it, it kind of sticks a little bit more. We’re using the guys and their “pull” as professional athletes to drive those STEM standards home by utilizing the intelligence that they have.”
Kristin Haleski, the team’s Marketing Strategist, explained that the educational part of the field trip will focus on four specific areas: math, science, geography and English.
“We’re going to have things throughout the game that will hit on that,” Haleski said. “We’re also going to have some things on the concourse that will relate more to science to bring that in as well.”
The Solar Bears contacted Mad Science, a company in nearby Oviedo, to help with creating the science “experiment” displays that the students will see. They will also be doing an experiment during an intermission that will be seen on the Amway Center’s jumbotron so that everyone in the building will be able to experience it at the same time.
Croce said that the response from the schools has been very positive for this first time event.
“This is something that a lot of these kids have never done before. A perfect example is Foundation Academy. Their fifth grade students are getting graded for coming out. I spoke to the full fifth grade a few weeks ago and the kids are so excited,” Croce said. “A lot of them have never been exposed to Solar Bears hockey or hockey in general so to know that they are excited about that, the teachers love that.”
This year’s event was kept small simply because it is the first one planned and picking a scheduled date was late because of the late finalizing of the team’s schedule. Croce said she hopes that this year’s game will grow into something that students, teachers and the community will look forward to year after year.
“The main thing we want to drive home to these kids is that this is a field trip that they can look forward to year after year. They’re coming in saying ‘I can’t wait to see [when] the Solar Bears field trip is in November,” she said. “We want it to become a tradition within the Central Florida [community].”
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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