Special Note

For the 2022-2023 season, District 4 adapted the use of TTM to track House League affiitions and received support from HEO to leverage the Club affiliation model for the season.  For affiliation information relating to House League, please refer to the LCMHL stite (For Teams/Affiliation).  House league information on this page will be updated when the changes are confirmed as permanent.
 

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Background
Beginning with the 2019-2020 hockey season, HEO minor has indicated that player affiliation must follow the 19 Player Affiliation model.  Until then, this model had been prevalent in a competitive context but a simpler and more flexible model (i.e. the Club Affiliation mode) had been used within most house leagues.
Key concepts within the 19 Player model, over the Club model, are commitment exclusivity, affiliate rostering, and a cap on the number of players (19) that can affiliate to a team.  HEO rules regarding affiliation can be found in the following documents:

• HEO Minor Affiliation Rules
• HEO Junior Player Affiliation

Note that affiliation is a game-related process.   Players do not need to be affiliated in order to practice with a higher Division or Category team, provided they are duly rostered at the lower Division or Category.
District 4’s interpretation and execution of the model is detailed below.

Category Definition
A key concept within the affiliation rules is that of a Category.  HEO minor defines a Category as a subdivision of a Division.  HEO Rules and Regulations define a category in the context of competitive hockey, where categories include AAA, AA, A, and B.  Extrapolating this to house league, categories are A, B, and C.
Since the rules below indicate that a player may be affiliated to only one team within a Category, this means that a player may simultaneously affiliate to multiple teams. As an example, an Atom A player may simultaneously affiliate to a Bantam B team, a Bantam A team, and the appropriate Rep team within their association, based on the District 4 affiliation eligibility chart.

Affiliation Rules
The rules below represent District 4’s interpretations of the HEO rules for the 19 Player Affiliation model.

General and House League Rules

• House league teams must affiliate within the residential Association to which they belong
• A team my affiliate up to a maximum of 19 players.  A team’s list of affiliates is referred to as a their 19 Player list.
• A player may be affiliated to only one team within a category
• Once affiliated, a player may not play as an affiliate with another team in the same category until such time as their affiliation rights have been formally released or transferred
• Player affiliation must follow the eligibilities outlined in the D4 affiliation eligibility chart
• Affiliated players must be added to a team’s official roster before they may play an affiliated game.  A non-rostered affiliate may participate in a game if roster addition is in progress with the association/district registrars.  The coach of the affiliating team must be able to prove this, if challenged, with an email thread.
• An affiliated player may be released from a team in which they are affiliated.  In that case, the player must be removed from the team’s official roster by the appropriate registrar.
•  A player affiliation may be transferred between teams within the same category during the course of a season.  
• A skater may play a maximum of 15 games as an affiliated player.  This count excludes exhbition games and tournaments.
• Goalies have no limits on affiliated game counts
• Only regular season and playoff games count toward a player’s affiliated game count
• It is the responsibility of an affiliated player’s primary team to track their affiliated game count

 Competitive-specific Rules

• Competitive teams below AAA will affiliate within their appropriate District or Association, as defined by District policies and according to Hockey Canada regulations.
• At Regional / National Championship levels (Major Peewee AAA, Major Bantam AAA, Midget AAA), all players may affiliate to a maximum of 10 games with each team.  Only regular season and playoff games count toward this total.  Goalies will only count games in which they participate, not where they were present as a backup.

Key Dates

• The deadline for adding affiliates to any roster is Feb 15 of any given season.
• The exception to the above is Regional/National Championship levels which have a deadline of Jan 15^th of any given season

D4 House League Affiliation Chart

Procedures
The following sections provide general procedures that are to be followed in lieu of the existence of association or competitive club procedures.  In all cases, association or competitive (Rep) club convenors should be consulted for the existence of procedures.  Should they exist, the local procedures should be followed.
In all cases, it is recommended that participating parties maintain email threads as evidence of conformance.

Affiliate Player Acquisition

• The affiliating coach must seek interest/approval to affiliate from the candidate player
• The affiliating coach must seek approval to affiliate the player’s primary team coach
• The affiliating coach must contact their association’s registrar to request that the player be added to his team’s official team roster as an affiliate.  The association’s convenor should be CC’d for awareness.

Affiliate Player Usage
For each game in which a player will participate as an affiliate the following steps must occur. 

• Prior to the game, the affiliating coach must seek the approval of the player’s primary coach to use the player in the specified game (as per Hockey Canada Regulations E)

• Following the game, the affiliating coach must notify the player’s primary coach that the player had participated in the game
• The primary team’s coach must subsequently update their affiliation game count relating to the player and affiliating team

Affiliate Player Release
To release an affiliated player means to give up all affiliation rights relating to the player.  The release process follows.
Note that the player’s primary coach must maintain the player’s affiliation game count with the releasing team for the duration of the season.  This is in case the re-establishment of the affiliation with the team occurs.

• The affiliating coach must inform the affiliate player and the player’s primary coach that the player is being released
• The affiliating coach must contact the association registrar and request that the affiliate player be removed from their official roster

Affiliate Player Transfer
A player’s affiliation may be transferred between teams in the same category.
The steps for affiliate player release and those for affiliate player acquisition should be followed.  Steps may be combined for efficiency, where desired.