Re: Crushing my daughters dream
I highly question the validity of these so called travel teams. I have friends who are high school coaches who had to cut some of these national travel team players from the high school team. The parents went nuts. It is about money not talent. It is a business and someone is making a living off all the fees. I have had other friends that paid enough money in these programs for the daughters to get scholarships that they could have paid for their college education. Not an exaggeration. I also have friends whose kids are in the third grade playing hockey all over the country. Seriously I have a hard time hearing how much they love it. They are 8, and the cost is THOUSANDS of dollars for each kid, and then comes baseball season.
It is one thing for you or your wife to make reasonable sacrifices, but if it impacts the rest of the family I would see that as a problem. Lets face it scouts will find talent. Heck they find shortstops in the jungles of Ecuador who never played with anything but a rock rolled up in an old sock and an old broom handle. And to think that only kids who hav eparents who can afford such programs have talent is silly.
To deny your kids opportunity is wrong, but can the local team provide the lessons and joy of sport without the expense? Only you can establish that value. I would make huge sacrifices for a college education, but my experiences with these teams would lead me to not let my kids participate if begged by the coach and it was free. My day is coming my kids are 3 and 5...
Either way I wish you the best with your decision...
^^^^^^THIS TIMES ONE THOUSAND...
I consider myself an expert on this, I have been a Hockey Official for more then 15 years and Head Coached Varsity at the High School level for 5, a short time but I grew tired of the competition of being a High School Coach who had to compete with my kids schedule on their travel teams, finally I drew up team rules that clearly stated that the High School Varsity team was 1st priority, missing 2 games in a season is grounds for dismissal from the team, you would have thought I had taken a small child hostage, immediately I had parents withdrawling kids from the program, we had a tough year and the next year we almost won the state championships, guess what, all those kids that were to good to give their High School Priority came back, their parents were happier, I never said they could not play on other teams only that High School was number 1, of course if you got injured playing on another team and missed 2 High school games because of that injury you were dismissed from the team as well, lifes tough, its tougher if you are stupid.
I used to believe that traveling teams were great for kids, but anymore they have become a business for older hockey guys to support themselves, of course the other side is that they have created a business using their skills and to be honest there is nothing wrong with that, but the simple fact is that people think that the more hockey their kid plays the better they will get and that is simply a yes and no, yes they need to play as much as possible but they need to have good leadership and coaching, I know kids that play on three different teams with three different coaches and coaching styles learning three different systems, what exactly are you expecting the kids to learn and how is this going to teach them anything? Think about it lets say you sent your kid to high school knowing that your kid had three different english 1 classes with three different teachers teaching three different ways? do you seriously think your kid is going to be an English major? I bet your kid goes on to College and studies Math because he/she has no freaking clue about English!
Look I think that in the right situation if you believe that this is good for your child go ahead and give it a shot but be realistic, don't go into this thinking that your child is going to be the next Wayne Gretsky, go into it with your child in mind, watch the coaches, their dedication to your child will tell you everything you need to know about the program they have and if its right for your child, understand that in this environement your child will become knowledgeable in Sniping, you probably think thats getting a top shelf shot from the circle but its not, sniping is what other programs do to try to lure top kids from competing programs.
The whole system makes me sick anymore and I am happy that I left it behind.
