Spiraling Costs in Minor Hockey

[Yukon Joe]

Wow...that sounds super cheap for ice maintenance and expense (utilities).

As mentioned previously, any sport once you get to higher level travel teams, gets crazy expensive. My younger son plays basketball on a local AAU team (travel is nowhere outside of a 90-minute drive) and even that is $1200 for 2.5 months.

I mean it's what I have to compare it to.

Part of me wants to say it's because those are city-run rinks (thus nobody trying to earn a profit), but even the first private rink I looked at is pretty comparable, even cheaper.

And that's been my basic point for years here - it's not that hockey is expensive. It's that elite hockey is really f***ing expensive. There's nothing THAT inherently expensive about playing hockey. It's all the other nonsense that can quickly add up.

 

[patnyrnyg]

I feel like the cost of ice is not that big a concern.

Just looking at City of Edmonton - most expensive ice (so winter, 4-11pm) is $335/hr. For comparison the better quality baseball diamond will run $50/hr.

But break it down per kid, that's roughly $10/kid for two teams (game or shared practice) and $20/kid for one team (single team practice). That's obviously not nothing, but hardly insurmountable.

If you're just playing community hockey, so volunteer coaches, lets say two hours per week (one game and one practice) that's what - $120 for one month.

Where hockey rapidly gets expensive is once you start throwing in travel, plus paid coaches, probably a demand for a bunch of swag, tournaments...

Just as one example since it's fresh in my mind. My kid just signed up for a spring hockey team. This is a for-profit team, not run by a local club. The cost for a 3 month season is $1600. That's 20 hours of practice, 3 tournaments, exhibition games, team apparel (jersey, socks, pants shell, workout gear), paid coach, 8 hours skill development. I bet you the cost of ice itself inly only 1/4 to 1/3 of the total price. I believe one of those tournaments is out of town so factor in cost of a hotel and travel on top.

I can tell you, ice in the NY/NJ area is A LOT more.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Like I said, the schedule for my travel league would've had me going as far as Ohio from Illinois and everywhere in-between. That's too much. In Illinois we had a park league for 10-12 year olds, there was "Minors" and "Majors". The best kids all went to the "Majors" and we had a ton of fun. It had to have been something like 2 games a week and two practices a week. I think we at most had to drive 30 minutes away traffic pending. The same deal in the "Pony" league for 13-15 year olds. There was Pony A, AA, AAA. The kids who REALLY LOVED baseball would find a way to supplement high school ball with usually AAA. l was content enough with high school baseball and didn't want to travel that much so a travel league was out of the question. It's too much of a time commitment. I wanted to play baseball, see my friends, my family, play videogames, go see movies, etc...have a life.

To each their own of course, and we're going to get into some parenting opinions here but...

If my son isn't an obviously outstanding player, with a seriously SPECIAL level of talent, at a young age then I think the proof is in the pudding and I'll let him ride things out locally, play high school sports, and hopefully get a scholarship somewhere. I think it does more harm than good to have your child always busy with something and I've seen a ton of parents even in my extended family do it to their kids. A well balanced life as a teenager is IMHO much better than having them be tied up in commitments like it's a full time job on top of having to be a student and get their schoolwork done.

And, I am telling you 7-8 years from now when your child starts getting involved in sports, things will be A LOT different than when you were a kid. Secondly, there are different levels of travel sports. Not every travel player in the NY/NJ area is traveling to PA, MD, MA, or Ohio every weekend for games and tournaments. This sunday, my daughter's team has their longest trip for a regular "league" game, and it will be about an hour and a half to two hours. I'd say 90% of the games are under a 45 minute trip.

I think most people who are not yet involved think of travel sports as the extreme as you mentioned. They hear about their sister's friend's cousin's son who flies all over the country for games and it costs the parents $30K per year in total. Then, they think every kid is doing the same. The location will obviously have an impact. For example, there is the Northern NYS Hockey League which has teams as far south as parallel to the CT-MA border all the way to Plattsburgh and Watertown which are right near the border with Canada. The Long Island league, the Hudson Valley League, and the NJ League much more condensed due to the population.

 

[Yukon Joe]

They do. Each US team sponsors a "Learn to Play". Includes head to toe equipment to start. It is how most kids around here get started.

This is just an aside, but while the local Oilers have a Learn to Play program (First Shift) - almost no kid I know started in that program.

First Shift | Edmonton Oilers

The NHL/NHLPA FIRST SHIFT program is designed to ensure a positive experience for new-to-hockey families.

www.nhl.com

I think the main issue is it starts at age 6 and is only open to kids who have never played before. You can register for minor hockey starting at age 4 (it's very age-appropriate). Even if you are the right age though - it's only 6 sessions, and the start dates are after the start of minor hockey, so if you do First Shift you'd then have to wait until next year to go and register for minor hockey.

Speaking from experience - if you walk into a sporting goods store they're very good at helping first time parents with what they need - including where to go for used gear (they know if you get hooked you'll be back for years to come), and coaches and other parents are very welcoming of brand new parents as well. I think I told the story of helping out with evaluations, seeing a little girl in goalie skates, and making sure to find the parents afterwards and talk to them confirming she wasn't a goalie and what the difference is (they were new Canadians).

 

[Corso]

This is just an aside, but while the local Oilers have a Learn to Play program (First Shift) - almost no kid I know started in that program.

First Shift | Edmonton Oilers

The NHL/NHLPA FIRST SHIFT program is designed to ensure a positive experience for new-to-hockey families.

www.nhl.com

I think the main issue is it starts at age 6 and is only open to kids who have never played before. You can register for minor hockey starting at age 4 (it's very age-appropriate). Even if you are the right age though - it's only 6 sessions, and the start dates are after the start of minor hockey, so if you do First Shift you'd then have to wait until next year to go and register for minor hockey.

Speaking from experience - if you walk into a sporting goods store they're very good at helping first time parents with what they need - including where to go for used gear (they know if you get hooked you'll be back for years to come), and coaches and other parents are very welcoming of brand new parents as well. I think I told the story of helping out with evaluations, seeing a little girl in goalie skates, and making sure to find the parents afterwards and talk to them confirming she wasn't a goalie and what the difference is (they were new Canadians).

I'm pretty sure that the First Shift program is somewhat effective at introducing non hockey cultures/people to the game of hockey but has no real bearing whatsoever to ease the actual costs of playing the game.

 

[Yukon Joe]

I'm pretty sure that the First Shift program is somewhat effective at introducing non hockey cultures/people to the game of hockey but has no real bearing whatsoever to ease the actual costs of playing the game.

Yeah I don't want to completely dismiss First Shift. I'm glad it exists.

But I agree - it's designed to introduce either new immigrants, or people completely unfamiliar with the game, to hockey - and not designed to be the way most kids are introduced to hockey (at least in Canada).

 

[patnyrnyg]

I mean it's what I have to compare it to.

Part of me wants to say it's because those are city-run rinks (thus nobody trying to earn a profit), but even the first private rink I looked at is pretty comparable, even cheaper.

And that's been my basic point for years here - it's not that hockey is expensive. It's that elite hockey is really f***ing expensive. There's nothing THAT inherently expensive about playing hockey. It's all the other nonsense that can quickly add up.

This is just an aside, but while the local Oilers have a Learn to Play program (First Shift) - almost no kid I know started in that program.

First Shift | Edmonton Oilers

The NHL/NHLPA FIRST SHIFT program is designed to ensure a positive experience for new-to-hockey families.

www.nhl.com

I think the main issue is it starts at age 6 and is only open to kids who have never played before. You can register for minor hockey starting at age 4 (it's very age-appropriate). Even if you are the right age though - it's only 6 sessions, and the start dates are after the start of minor hockey, so if you do First Shift you'd then have to wait until next year to go and register for minor hockey.

Speaking from experience - if you walk into a sporting goods store they're very good at helping first time parents with what they need - including where to go for used gear (they know if you get hooked you'll be back for years to come), and coaches and other parents are very welcoming of brand new parents as well. I think I told the story of helping out with evaluations, seeing a little girl in goalie skates, and making sure to find the parents afterwards and talk to them confirming she wasn't a goalie and what the difference is (they were new Canadians).

Not the case here. Sometimes I will see kids playing travel but still using the bag they were given for Jr Rangers or Jr Devils, etc.