Andrew Kennedy: Winner of The Jeff Munn Volunteer of the Year Award 2018 – 19

Andrew Kennedy, GM of the LHA Select Program and chief implementer of the new and extraordinarily successful Competitive Development Stream (CDS) program.

Andrew is smart, energetic, tireless, detail oriented and unflinchingly positive. As the GM of the Select program Andrew has helped bring the CDS concept to life. This involved a wide variety of tasks, including:

• designing the program to ensure compliance with the Hockey Canada cross-ice mandate;
• developing a program rulebook;
• running clinics for referees to train them on those new rules;
• designing tiering to accommodate teams of varying skill levels;
• working with John Delyannis and the three other participating organizations to acquire ice;
• overseeing the program accounting to ensure that each organization had contributed the correct amount to offset ice costs;
• creating game schedules that were to be published at the beginning of the Fall and Winter seasons thereby allowing parents to know their schedule for the entire season;
• helping to design a parent survey and reviewing its results to identify areas for improvement for the 2019-20 season;
• working with the other participating associations to implement those changes; and
• accommodating an influx of new players who are joining the CDS program at Leaside because of the tremendously positive feedback it has received from participating families.

Andrew also served on the Finance Committee and contributed on the ice with his children’s teams. Andrew’s youngest will be joining the CDS program next year, bringing the total number of Kennedy children enrolled in the CDS/Select program to three.

While he will be the first to admit he did not make all these changes on his own, Andrew envisioned, and led the team that implemented, program changes to improve the hockey experience for LHA players and their families.

Thank you for your many contributions Andrew and congratulations on your award.