A Season Lived and Learned

Cooper is done with his travel hockey season and though it was a year met with growing pains with a newly formed team and organization, he seemed to have had a fun year and take away some good skating skills. He made some good friends and I made some good hockey mom friends! A first year squirt as a 7 year old was an eye opener for he and I.  He now has no fear of taking on kids twice his size and he is wide open like always. He works hard every shift. He got three goals and saw a few times in the penalty box. Cooper is intense. I also saw how stressful it can be to be a hockey mom with a son on a travel team. Also just like in any sport there's lots of political stuff. We learned a lot about travel hockey in NC. I don't think we will be doing that again for awhile. It took a toll on me and it took me to realize, at this age, what I think they need most is ice time whether it be ADM or full ice...travel or house...Just being on the ice is most important. I wish I could give that free ice to him by living in MN but we don't have that opportunity nor do I have a husband who has previous hockey experience. I hope people know how lucky they are who have young kids like mine that all they want to do is play hockey and you don't have the wonderful opportunity to send them outside to play and goof off on the ice. That is where they learn valuable lessons and techniques with their friends or just by themselves...mine would never come in!

a few challenges that I face In NC are:

1. A Drive to the rink usually at least 30 minutes

2. Find open hockey/stick and puck times and pay 10-12$ for hour and 15 minutes per kid

3. you might have to watch out for flying pucks because at stick and puck its all ages! Older guys usually watch out for the kids but the teenagers are slinging pucks without watching whose in the way.

3. there is limited ice time and few rinks

4. to rent ice whole sheet is 200$ an hour

5. most of your ice time is "coached" ice time not just for screwing around.

6. to get quality coaching you have to search it out since most people that are Charlie's age around here have never been on the ice let alone know the rules or skills.

7. the cost is actually ridiculous compared to back home in MN to even play at a house level and that is just to sign up. (Actually kind of embarrassed to say the amount we paid compared to what some of my MN friends pay for a squirt team.)

Well I guess it could be worse ~ we could live in a place with no rinks!

It is a competitive and small community in North Carolina with most of the travel programs being in Raleigh which is not close for us but I love hockey and love that the boys love to play, so we will continue make it happen as long as they want to. 

Next year, I gave Cooper an option which ended up working in my favor. He chose to just play house, have fun, play with his friends, and brothers in a closer rink in Hillsborough. So he will play house but also get some other training on the side to keep his skills up for tryouts the following year when he can and actually is the right age to be on a Squirt travel team!  I want him to have fun and enjoy the games.

Coming from MN you know the small percentages that actually make it into even college with a hockey scholarship! So here you are kind of throwing away a lot of money for fun at this age! I haven't heard of any D1 scholarships hailing from NC! When he is older and serious about it, I will listen, but right now I have come to the realization if your kid is good, he will be good, but its up to him and he is a kid so let him be a kid right now! There are lots of other things out there to try, unfortunately mine likes hockey and it can take a hit to the pocket book but maybe he will change his mind as he gets a little older. I don't want to have spent all this money and he wants to do something else in the end. I want to be able to offer them the opportunities they want to try and not be hockey broke!

It's easy to get caught up in this competitive world but I learned and sat back after this season to reflect on it and say it's not my decision, it's my son's. You want them to succeed at what they want to do so as a parent you search out the best teams, the best coaches, the best programs, the private lessons....but in the end is that really what he or she wants or do they just want to be on the ice....

chances are, if they are like my boys....they just want to be on the ice...

If I could swap out all the money we shelled out this year for hockey and the money I will probably spend for him just for them to get some ice time ~we could have put a rink in here at home...a synthetic one. maybe we outta look into that since I don't see us moving to the tundra in the near future :)