Is this shady or normal for hockey parents?

[WarriorofTime]

What a generalization...

The BCHL is "unsanctioned". The Penticon Vees aren't exactly some pay-for-play scam operation.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Not shady at all.

You do what's best for you and your kid, who cares about them and they will have another kid take that spot.

 

[Slats432]

What a generalization...

The BCHL is "unsanctioned". The Penticon Vees aren't exactly some pay-for-play scam operation.

You bringing up junior in a hockey parents thread? None of the discussion has anything to do with the BCHL, just club and academy/unsanctioned leagues.

 

[WarriorofTime]

You bringing up junior in a hockey parents thread? None of the discussion has anything to do with the BCHL, just club and academy/unsanctioned leagues.

What is so special about "sanctioned" hockey?

 

[Slats432]

What is so special about "sanctioned" hockey?

Well, for one it isn't $30K like some academies. For two, as a non profit, decisions are made not based solely on money. There are certainly advantages for "unsanctioned" hockey, but it isn't necessarily beneficial for hockey itself, since it turns an already expensive sport into an ultra expensive sport that only the very wealthy can put their kids in. Full time staff, facilities, that cost is split to all those fees. It explains the drop off in Canadian hockey participation over the years. If a family feels like they can't afford hockey, they switch to other sports.

It also drives the cost up for club hockey since there is obviously competition for players, so club hockey has to create a competitive program, and with that, the costs increase.

My son was a club player, but I was prepared to put him in academy if I didn't feel the program was solid. Would have cost me $10s of thousands more, so I am glad it worked out as it did.

 

[Yukon Joe]

What is so special about "sanctioned" hockey?

So where to start...

1. It's non-profit. Nobody is making a living off of HC-sanctioned minor hockey. You never have to worry that you're being fed a line of BS by someone looking to earn a buck off of you.

2. Competitive balance. All the sanctioning bodies are actually trying to make sure teams are balanced. Unsanctioned hockey, as far as I can tell, it's all an arms race of teams just trying to be as strong as they can.

3. Less travel. This will depend I guess on your local area, but around here they follow a "showcase" model where once per month you're travelling to have a whole bunch of games out of town. Obviously this travel gets expensive.

4. Community - it's all geographically-based. As such all the kids are from the same general area. Every year we have kids that we've played with before, maybe even go to the same school.


So look - not criticizing those who go the unsanctioned route. There are plusses as well. I know some parents went there for U9 to be able to play full ice, or U13 to play full (or modified) contact. There may well be better development opportunities as well. And the ability to somewhat pick your team, as opposed to just being assigned to a team after tryouts is an advantage.

 

[MDCSL]

One of the biggest differences between club and unsanctioned. You make a club team, you get gifted a spot on an unsanctioned team as long as you have the money.

Maybe some places, here it is very very competitive to get on the unsanctioned teams. AA here gets 84 ice times a year, all other teams get 10 practices a year plus 1 game a weekend and that’s it, so essentially every kid who doesn’t make AA is trying out for unsanctioned because they do two practices a week + bring in development coaches and it’s only ~1000$ more than house league (excluding travel costs obviously).

 

[Slats432]

Maybe some places, here it is very very competitive to get on the unsanctioned teams. AA here gets 84 ice times a year, all other teams get 10 practices a year plus 1 game a weekend and that’s it, so essentially every kid who doesn’t make AA is trying out for unsanctioned because they do two practices a week + bring in development coaches and it’s only ~1000$ more than house league (excluding travel costs obviously).

If you are in Edmonton, AA hockey generally gets 32ish games per season. Then we had 7 playoff games. We had 4 exhibition games. We did three tournaments, so overall we had 58-ish games. With 2-3 practices a week for 20 weeks, at least 50 more ice times. We were probably 105-110 ice times or so.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Maybe some places, here it is very very competitive to get on the unsanctioned teams. AA here gets 84 ice times a year, all other teams get 10 practices a year plus 1 game a weekend and that’s it, so essentially every kid who doesn’t make AA is trying out for unsanctioned because they do two practices a week + bring in development coaches and it’s only ~1000$ more than house league (excluding travel costs obviously).

There really is a huge difference between AA and federation hockey - I'll definitely give you that.

I know our home club is trying to compete by offering different "streams of play" - basically three different options on how often you play and how many practices you get. For my 11 year old though he only made Tier 3, and thus couldn't make the top "stream", even after he didn't make AA.

There's still ways of compensating though. We signed him up for power skating on top of his regular Tier 3 team - and it really did help him out. It also meant we got to pick the program that worked for us best, with coaches we liked. All kinds of other things we could have done as well.

Like I said, everyone has to choose the path that they think is best, and I don't begrudge anyone for going "unsanctioned" even if it isn't the path we took.

 

[MDCSL]

We moved to a different medium sized city from Edmonton, we were very happy with the hockey system in Edmonton where we got 2 practices/week plus games on top

 

[timekeep]

One of the biggest differences between club and unsanctioned. You make a club team, you get gifted a spot on an unsanctioned team as long as you have the money.

I think it depends on the team - some are more competitive then others. So some are highly selective, whereas others just need to fill out their rosters.

But definitely - if you want to play in those leagues you will find a team somewhere that will take your money.

As a person that ran a Spring club for a few years, you want to cash the checks as soon as you get them. Make them commit and for the most part most teams will take the best players they can unless the parents are freaks no matter how big their wallets are. We were rarely in the finals of a tournament but we had a reliable group of parents for the most part but it sucked when you had to give a parent a deadline to pay up. We all knew when the other teams had tryouts. Sometimes the same day even.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

As a person that ran a Spring club for a few years, you want to cash the checks as soon as you get them. Make them commit and for the most part most teams will take the best players they can unless the parents are freaks no matter how big their wallets are. We were rarely in the finals of a tournament but we had a reliable group of parents for the most part but it sucked when you had to give a parent a deadline to pay up. We all knew when the other teams had tryouts. Sometimes the same day even.

This has me laughing at 5 AM, but I probably shouldn’t ask for clarification because I probably already know the answer.

 

[Yukon Joe]

This has me laughing at 5 AM, but I probably shouldn’t ask for clarification because I probably already know the answer.

I mean I think I've said before the way our family does "hockey politics" is simply by being no-drama parents who volunteer, help out, and don't criticize the coach. You'd be surprised how far just that can take you.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

I mean I think I've said before the way our family does "hockey politics" is simply by being no-drama parents who volunteer, help out, and don't criticize the coach. You'd be surprised how far just that can take you.

I played the game most of my life and then coached for a few years in my mid 20s and due to that, have developed a great distrust for hockey parents.

It took almost a year for my wife to convince me to teach my daughter how to skate, because I didn’t want to be around hockey parents anymore.

When my daughter was four, my wife finally got a little angry and told me “It’s not about you! Please teach her”

She and I just made a pact that she would do all the off ice hockey functions and deal with the other parents, etc

She’s kept her word and I basically just make small talk between games or at tournaments with a few parents, but they know to basically leave me alone by now as we have been with mostly the same group for a few yrs now.

Lots of politics have gone on and a plethora of crazy shit, but I stay out of it and other parents and my wife know not to drag me into it.

That’s basically worked well for me, because nothing has changed over the years, hockey parents are f***ing bananas.

 

[Yukon Joe]

That’s basically worked well for me, because nothing has changed over the years, hockey parents are f***ing bananas.

I mean you do you when it comes to being a hockey parent, so if that works for you that's great.

I can tell you we've met some great hockey parents and become friends with them, even after our kids no longer play on the same teams.

I've also met some that were, as you say, f***ing bananas. And unfortunately the Bananas : normies ratio goes up in higher levels, not down.

 

[timekeep]

This has me laughing at 5 AM, but I probably shouldn’t ask for clarification because I probably already know the answer.

We had a parent that would mock the refs, one tournament he threw objects at the refs. His kid was good, played in the WHL. Or the parents that cut downs our players. Or the ones whining about playing time.

 

[Slats432]

This was told to me as an anecdote this weekend.

At a hockey tournament in Calgary recently there were parents drinking at a restaurant at a facility. They left and in the parking lot they had an altercation. The person who lost the altercation apparently got in their car and hit the other person with it. I have not been able to independently verify the story, but wild if true.

#crazyhockeyparents

 

[timekeep]

This was told to me as an anecdote this weekend.

At a hockey tournament in Calgary recently there were parents drinking at a restaurant at a facility. They left and in the parking lot they had an altercation. The person who lost the altercation apparently got in their car and hit the other person with it. I have not been able to independently verify the story, but wild if true.

#crazyhockeyparents

I believe it as I have seen it before. This has been going for years/decades, its not exclusive to hockey just its our most popular sport in most of hockey. But in the States it happens at Football, Baseball, Basketball, etc. I'm sure it happens at soccer games around the globe. Parents can be nuts, adding alcohol sure helps.

 

[Yukon Joe]

This was told to me as an anecdote this weekend.

At a hockey tournament in Calgary recently there were parents drinking at a restaurant at a facility. They left and in the parking lot they had an altercation. The person who lost the altercation apparently got in their car and hit the other person with it. I have not been able to independently verify the story, but wild if true.

#crazyhockeyparents

So no idea about this incident. Hope everyone is okay.

I have always felt bad that when it comes to out-of-town tournaments you'll see parents rolling in to the hotel with big flats of beer or bottles of hard liquor. I have nothing against an adult libation or three when on the road but what kind of example are you setting?

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

I mean you do you when it comes to being a hockey parent, so if that works for you that's great.

I can tell you we've met some great hockey parents and become friends with them, even after our kids no longer play on the same teams.

I've also met some that were, as you say, f***ing bananas. And unfortunately the Bananas : normies ratio goes up in higher levels, not down.

The last game I ever coached was when I was 24 or 25… in the handshake line I had to break up a fight between the other coach and the head of our association…

I had enough of the crazy by then… moron parents yelling at their kids and being lunatics during games… like the time one of my players took a penalty and his dad came over and was screaming at him from behind the glass.

I had to go over and physically remove the father from the area because his son was in tears.

When my daughter was in ADM, I broke my self imposed rules and became friends with a couple dads.

When our kids got to squirt they started coaching and became complete psychos.

F bombing ten year olds, and crazy shit.

One of them was banned from coaching half way through his first season.

The other guy stole 7-8 kids from that org and secretly got them all roster spots on a start up aaa team and never told the org what he was up to.

It was a huge wake up call to stick to my rules and it’s worked well for me ever since.

 

[Yukon Joe]

It was a huge wake up call to stick to my rules and it’s worked well for me ever since.

As I said - if it works for you then great. I'm not telling anyone how to be a hockey dad.

I haven't seen anything quite so bad. Lots of yelling at refs that makes me cringe (including a coach being ejected). But more so just parents brooding in the stands, not cheering - or carefully calculating everyone's ice times - or going to watch other games not involving your kid just to try and measure up how your kid compares. And of course lots of spending ridiculous $$$ with very little benefit that I can see.

We've had a near parents fight once - again that was embarrassingly a parent "waiting" for the refs in the parking lot..

I can tell you this year I really didn't engage much with the parents on my one son's AA team. But that was more so because they just seemed overly intense and not just enjoying the ride.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

This was told to me as an anecdote this weekend.

At a hockey tournament in Calgary recently there were parents drinking at a restaurant at a facility. They left and in the parking lot they had an altercation. The person who lost the altercation apparently got in their car and hit the other person with it. I have not been able to independently verify the story, but wild if true.

#crazyhockeyparents

I believe it, with the crazy shit I’ve seen.

Last season a dad on my daughter’s team got into a fight with a dad from the other team.

My wife tried to settle them down and the dad told my wife to “shut the f*** up”.

I wasn’t there but my wife told me not to make a big deal about what he said so I respected her wishes.

The dumb ass did apologize later to my wife though.

He’s a massive douchebag and so is his kid unsurprisingly.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

As I said - if it works for you then great. I'm not telling anyone how to be a hockey dad.

I haven't seen anything quite so bad. Lots of yelling at refs that makes me cringe (including a coach being ejected). But more so just parents brooding in the stands, not cheering - or carefully calculating everyone's ice times - or going to watch other games not involving your kid just to try and measure up how your kid compares. And of course lots of spending ridiculous $$$ with very little benefit that I can see.

We've had a near parents fight once - again that was embarrassingly a parent "waiting" for the refs in the parking lot..

I can tell you this year I really didn't engage much with the parents on my one son's AA team. But that was more so because they just seemed overly intense and not just enjoying the ride.

Sounds like you have been lucky for the most part and I’m legit happy for you, no joke.

My wife has made some close friends with several hockey moms.

Unfortunately because of the incident in the OP, two of her hockey mom friends are mortal enemies now.

The mom friend who left texted my wife and this other hockey mom and said they should go out for drinks a week ago.

The mom who still has a kid on my daughter’s team said to my wife “I’m not going for drinks with that bitch after what she pulled”.

This is how this sport comes between hockey parent friends and it’s the kind of drama I don’t want.

 

[lawrence]

If team B was always your priority than stick with team B. Nothing “shady”
About it.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

If team B was always your priority than stick with team B. Nothing “shady”
About it.

The parents signed commitment contracts with Team A and broke them.

They always intended to go to Team B, so they should have done it the non-shady way and just left.

It’s been pretty clear by now what they did was underhanded.

Signing a contract is your word, and shows if you are a stand up individual or not.

Trying to defend your actions by saying “we did what’s best for our kid” while breaking your word and screwing over 15 other 13 year olds who have made good on their commitments, is definitely shady.