Certification / Qualification Requirements

Determine Requirements

To determine the requirements for head coaches, assistant coaches, or trainers make the appropriate selections from the dropdowns below. Please refer to the HEO Bench and On-Ice Staff Certification Requirements policy for more details and clarification.

All fields are required.

Requirements for:

Division: U9
Level: House League
Position: Trainer

Certified status is required for the position of U9 House League Trainer. To achieve this status you must complete the following components:

  • Hockey Canada Safety Program Level 1 - Online Certification
  • Respect in Sport for Activity Leaders
  • Gender Identity Online Training

Status & Equivalencies

Trained Status vs. Certified Status

The NCCP distinguishes between "trained" and "certified" status. Understanding this distinction is important for hockey coaches. The combination of the level you coach and the position you hold determines if you are required to be trained or certified.

The primary distinction between these two statuses is as follows:

  • Certified status requires a coach to attend a specific NCCP clinic and then be evaluated on their demonstated ability to perform within their choosen coaching context
  • Trained status, however, does not require evaluation. The coach must only attend the specific NCCP clinic
  • Development 1 and High Performance 1 are the two coaching contexts in HEO that have a certification path and for both the evaluation component is based on a written assignment and practical, field assessment

NCCP Coaches are described as being one of the following:

  • In Training - while you are completing the training components
  • Trained - once you have completed all the training components
  • Certified - once you have completed all the training and evaluation components

Equivalencies

The chart below shows the history of name changes to coach certification levels and provides the equivalencies of today's levels to previous levels.

1980’s 2000's 2014+
Initiation Program Intro Coach Coach 1 – Intro Coach
Coach Level 1 and 2 Coach Stream Coach 2 – Coach Level
Coach Level 3 Intermediate Development 1
Coach Level 4 Advanced 1 High Performance 1
Coach Level 5 Advanced 2 High Performance 2

Read the HEO Bench and On-Ice Staff Certification Requirements Policy