Our History
Mel Brockman and Melissa Hart teamed up in 2021 to form BrockHart Ringette Development. With each of us carrying over 30 years of experience as coaches and players, we aim to be Saskatoon's leading source for extra ringette development.
In addition to BrockHart, we are currently part of the Sask Heat coaching staff. In October 2023, we were invited to be head coaches at Ringette Canada's U17 Team Canada development camp (La Relève), an event that introduces athletes to the expectations and lifestyle of a high performance ringette athlete.
Why choose BrockHart?
There's a reason you don't see ringette coaches running hockey programs - the style and strategies of the two games differ significantly, which requires sport-specific knowledge for effective instruction.
But skating is skating, right?
To a certain extent, basic skating skills are transferrable between ringette and hockey. However, there are certain skating techniques that are more or less common, or done in different ways, depending on the sport. In fact, Skate Canada's power skating course distinguishes between ringette and hockey instruction to account for these differences.
We strongly believe that ringette players are best served by instructors who have first-hand experience at the highest levels of the sport. We have watched countless games and have a firm grasp of the key skills needed to be a strong player. The game is also continually evolving and we pride ourselves on staying current and adapting our instruction and programming accordingly.
Thanks in advance for choosing BrockHart! We look forward to helping your athlete take their ringette skills to the next level.
About Melissa (she/her)
Melissa has been involved in ringette for over 30 years as both a player and a coach.
Over the course of her 25+ year coaching career in Saskatoon, Melissa has coached all ages and levels, beginning with U8 and working her way up to U19 A and AA where she has stayed for most of the past decade.
During her career, Melissa has been fortunate to have been a part of many great teams and players, particularly during her time with the U19s - winning countless tournaments, six provincial gold medals, a 7th place finish at Nationals in 2015 (Saskatoon's highest-ever finish at Nationals since the open format), as well as two silver medals (2012 & 2018) and two gold medals (2013 & 2017) at Westerns.
Melissa is a competition-development coach in training, working toward full certification.
About Mel (she/her)
Mel has been playing ringette for over 30 years. She still plays competitively with the Saskatoon Wild (Open A) and played with the Heat in its first 2 seasons. Mel is one of only a handful of players from Saskatchewan to have reached every high performance milestone in the sport: AA (10 nationals), Canada Winter Games (1999 bronze medalist), NRL (8 seasons), and Team Canada (2-time member of the senior team).
Mel has been coaching for almost a decade, starting her career in U12 and then moving into the competitive stream in U14 through NRL. She was selected as an apprentice coach for the 2019 Canada Winter Games team and head coach of the 2023 Canada Winter Games team, which won bronze - the first Sask team to medal at the event since Mel did as a player in 1999.
Mel is a competition-development certified coach as well as a power skating coach in training.