Communicating With Your Club

Nov 1, 2022 | World Hockey Hub

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How to stay in contact with your team all season long with Spond

The struggle is real. Our phones are loaded with mobile apps that are half-used with push notifications that are wholly ignored. One app for communicating with team members, another for schedules and calendars, one more for collecting payments. Logistics behind a kid’s youth hockey team can be more challenging than any opponent they ever face on the ice. It doesn’t matter if you’re a coach, team manager or parent of a child on the team. Communicating schedule changes, practice times, travel plans and beyond can be a never-ending headache. 

Rid your phone of the clutter and condense it all down to the Spond App today!

That’s right, all the capabilities of every other team application you’ve seen in terms of messaging, schedules and notifications. But also, communicate on a macro level to entire clubs as well as micro level to specific teams, age groups, players and more. Not to mention the ability to collect payments, arrange travel plans and stay organized from top to bottom. All of this — and much more — from a single, standalone, no-linking-out, no ‘download this app to download that app’ app. It’s an all-in-one-place mobile app… Oh, and it’s FREE.

“It replaces the need to send multiple text messages or emails, and it gives you every feature you could possibly need,” said Upper St. Clair (USC) inline hockey administrator Natalie Bernstein. “You can email, direct message, you can do polls, you can set attendance; there are just so many features that make it so convenient. The days of me spending hours in front of the computer have really disappeared.”

The roller hockey league plays year-round, with ages from 6 to 18 years old. Skill levels range from beginner to highly advanced. In addition to this role, Bernstein serves as the director of licensing and events for the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL).

“The parents really like it too,” said Bernstein. “Everything is right there in the App for them.”

Spond Keeps Teams and Clubs Organized

Whether you’re an individual team or an entire youth hockey organization, Spond can deliver. 

There’s two options; the Spond App for individual groups and teams. Also, Spond Club that provides management, communication and payment tools for entire organizations. Members can be organized into subgroups — by birth year and team, for instance. This allows you to share schedules, notify members of date and time changes, poll the group for feedback and more. Reminders can be set up for families to set their attendance status for practices or tournaments. Coaches will always know who to expect each day. Those metrics are also easily exportable with a single click.

“We’ve been using Spond for just over a year now and it has never once let us down,” Talbot McInnis, founder of Super Audio-Video Ice Hockey. “Guys find it very easy to set their status through the app, and it ensures that we have the right information as organizers to know who’s going to be there and run the skate the right way.”

From 18-and-over adult-league teams to first-year travel squads and youth hockey clubs. Spond’s capabilities are a one-stop-shop for any group’s organization needs.

There’s one-to-one direct messages, group-wide updates and polling the team for feedback. All of this with the reassurance that communication is sent, received and read.

“I look back to one of the polls that we did in Spond, and asked for feedback on it,” McInnis said. “Every single thing was positive. It’s a no-brainers as far as I’m concerned.”

Making ‘Together’ Better With Spond

Spond is a Norwegian-based company that has developed this free platform to streamline and simplify everything in one app. It serves more than 2 million active monthly users worldwide, including several youth hockey teams, clubs, organizations and activities. One of its investors — and Norway native — is Minnesota Wild forward Mats Zuccarello. He has been involved in the project since 2018, ultimately expanding the company’s European footprint.

Spond is considered to be the fastest-growing tech company in the country. That influence in the region has motivated some youth sports organizations to ditch platforms like WhatsApp and dive into Spond.

“We had teams using various platforms, including WhatsApp, and it just got complicated,” Banbury Hockey Club treasurer Gary White said to PR Newswire. “For example, some teams contain both junior and senior age members. A senior member might post content in a message, maybe banter, that was not offensive per se, but could be considered inappropriate for a younger audience. That’s obviously problematic, so we needed a platform where we could set rules as appropriate and keep an eye on things [as an organization].

“WhatsApp is a great messaging tool, but where oversight and accountability are required, it’s simply not fit for purpose.”

Most grassroots sports admins and coaches are volunteers, which means they want to spend more time on the sport they love, without wasting valuable time. Spond claims to save two-and-a-half hours per week for the average coach, thanks to its easy and convenient tools.

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