Author Topic: Children's hockey is crazy  (Read 37 times)

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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Children's hockey is crazy
« on: September 15, 2018, 08:11:16 pm »
I have almost no knowledge of kid's hockey.  My buddy has zero knowledge of it, and never played hockey growing up.  My buddy was in town with his son for a hockey tournament.  The kid is 8 years old.  He signed his son up for house league last year, the first time he'd played organized hockey, but then the kid liked hockey so much he wanted to play games more frequently, so my buddy signed him up this year for the competitive league because it plays more games.

My buddy happens to live right on the border of 2 suburbs.  Kids play in the league based on where they live.  My buddy tried to sign his son up in the league adjacent to where he lives because my buddy's parents live in that area and it would make things easier for him and the kids etc.

Well this caused a big controversy.  My buddy was told that he acts as his son's agent & needs to know the rules.  The other league found out and had to have the kid try out for them and release him to the other league.  If this didn't happen, the league could sue the other league for stealing players.  The kid is 8 & just wanted to play,

This league of 8 year old kids has 2 months of pre-season before the regular season begins.  They drove 6 hours for a pre-season tournament against teams across the province.  During this tournament, the coach has all the kids on a curfew, and they can't swim in the hotel pool because "it will tire them out", and also possibly get them sick.  The kids are 8.

The teams have a head coach, like 4 or 5 assistant coaches, a goalie coach, 2 trainers, and a team manager.  When i passed one of the teams' locker rooms before the game, the coaches were very loudly blasting Metallica music to hype the kids up and get them all aggressive.  The kids are 8.

My buddy's kid just likes hockey and wants to play. This was one of the most insane things i've ever experienced.  This kind of crap shouldn't matter, it should be about player development, making friends, having fun.
"Nipples is one of the great minds of our time!" - Bubbermiley

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Re: Children's hockey is crazy
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2018, 08:25:06 pm »
Sometimes the coaches take it way, way too seriously--the parents too, and I've seen a few meltdowns in the stands and on the ice. It sounds like you haven't seen the  truly crazy shut yet. I remember my son's coach (who was an orthopedic surgeon) chasing the 15 year old ref on the ice and asking for his name and threatening him. But it's also fun to take things seriously and be super competitive, so I sympathize to a degree. But yeah, unfortunately in a free capitalist society, markets breed and the kids hockey market is huge, which adds to people's emotional investment. When you're paying $20k a year for your kid to play at the highest level they can, you get upset when they don't succeed because of the stupid **** ref who can't see the obvious head shot right in front of him.

Offline ?Impact

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Re: Children's hockey is crazy
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2018, 08:51:35 pm »
You mean children's competitive hockey is crazy; that is a significant distinction. The house league is the place for fun, the place for fairness, etc. On a rep team the focus is on team winning, not on individual fun. There is no fairness on a rep team, individual skills will guide how the kid is played and he may get less (or more) ice time during games. Not getting equal ice time is not an indication of lack of skills, just different skills that come into play. To make a rep team in the first place, you have to be skilled. Some kids are better in certain short sprint situations, where others can grind it out over the long haul.

One thing that seems to be different today from when I was growing up, is the access to ice for pick up games to get more ice time. Most of the parks in my neighbourhood had two outdoor rinks, one for ice skating and the other for hockey. That made a lot of hockey rinks available when organized teams were not using them. When I was very young we only had one indoor rink in my hometown, and a second one was added when I was about 12; today we still have 2 indoor rinks. Outdoor rinks however have decreased from about 10 ice skating and another 10 hockey to 2 ice skating and 3 hockey; the only improvement is one of hockey rinks has chillers (it also has time set aside for ice skating).

Offline Omni

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Re: Children's hockey is crazy
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2018, 09:43:40 pm »
I got into hockey as a public school kid. The school I attended happened to be on property that was on the shore of a river that had a power dam not far downstream that caused the river to expand into what looked more like a lake where we were. The school principal, who was also my grade 7 and 8 teacher, could always be found engaged in sports whether it be on the baseball diamond, the soccer field, whacking a ball over the volleyball net. But his favorite time was when that waterway froze over to a safe enough thickness to hold us up, the game was on. Everyone grabbed a shovel and the snow was cleared. When that was done the skates went on and a couple of pairs of boots became goal posts. We selected teams by simply everyone throwing their sticks down at center ice, and someone was appointed to go to the pile and throw one north and another south and wherever your stick landed that's the team you were on. The result of that was you could be teamed with your best buddy today, and playing against him tomorrow. Later on I joined up with the local minor league and things got a little more formal and competitive. Parents were now in the stands and sometimes got noisy during games, but usually in support of their kid and not shouting obscenities at referees. When I see actual fist fights breaking out nowadays I have to wonder what went wrong here.   

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Children's hockey is crazy
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2018, 10:22:50 am »
From my observation, hockey is suffering from too much attention as the nation's favoured sport. 

I'm hoping my kids likes softball...