Minor hockey no cheap trick

The Toronto Sun is reporting a poll that points out how much parents are paying for hockey. But spending $1000 a season seems a little on the light side based on my experience. A "grand" season would be playing in a local or house league with one tournament and used equipment.
This season, our midget started with tryout fees, a league upcharge which totalled about $700. Then added was a team levy of $1000 for tournaments and other expenses. Add to that the cost of travel to school night league games and travel and overnight accommodation at tournaments ... and you've got yourself quite a pastime.
The only break you get once your son or daughter reaches midget age is that they stop outgrowing their equipment. Buying skates every year when they are younger gets onerous. Teenagers, however, are hard on sticks and nothing short of a stylish composite at $100 a pop will do - never mind that most of them can't really get the flex advantage working for them.
Is it worth it? Well, duh, it's minor hockey! No better way to blow the family budget.

Ken Dryden on The Game

The pose that made Ken Dryden
famous. (Wayne Newton photo)

When it comes to hockey in Canada, Ken Dryden is an icon. Star goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens, author of The Game, executive for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Liberal MP and candidate for prime minister. Quite a CV. Not to mention his famous pose greets visitors at the Hockey Hall of Fame.
QMI sportswriter Steve Simmons is an all-star among hockey writers in Canada. I never miss his Toronto Sun column.
Follow this link to what happens when the two of them talk hockey - in Dryden's case, reluctantly.

Concussions are not child's play

Chris Stevenson has a must-read column in the Toronto Sun and its affiliated newspapers today for all minor hockey parents and players.
It's about a young Calgary player and his experience with a concussion, an all-too-common injury in minor hockey.
While our hockey-playing son has never suffered a concussion, many past and present teammates have. They've been forced to miss school, huge chunks of the schedule and, in one case, forced to leave hockey.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Coaches, referees, parents and players need to be on the same page when it comes to contact with heads and the significant, life-changing injuries which can result.
The NHL doesn't help matter much. The league every minor hockey kid follows and looks up to needs to set a better example in eliminating head shots and taking more seriously the concussion recovery process.

Hockey's everywhere in this country

You know you're in Canada when a plug for hockey pops up in a column about politics, a la Rob Granatstein and the Toronto Sun.

My Nashville published in the Toronto Sun

In January when my son's West London midget team was in Franklin, TN., for a tournament, I used my "down" time to do a little travel writing. The first of two stories I researched that weekend is published today in the Toronto Sun and posted on canoe.ca. Everyone should visit downtown Nashville at least once - put Music City on your bucket list. There's also more on my travel blog, Wayne's World of Travel.

Drunken teens at the highest level

I like this item from Steve Simmons' column today in the Toronto Sun. Tell me again why the Russian teenagers were not stopped from drinking underage in Buffalo? How would minor hockey coaches handle behaviour like this from teenagers? Their celebration on the ice was fantastic and appropriate. Their alcohol consumption afterwards was wrong.
Here's what the always excellent Simmons says:
No surprise that the Russian juniors were kicked off their flight Thursday. I happened to be in the bar at the Adams Mark hotel in downtown Buffalo post-game Wednesday night and the young Russians were not exactly being asked to show their ID. I left just before 1:30 a.m. But most of the Russians, still wearing their jerseys, were in the bar, loudly chanting “Beat Canada” in between chugs of something that wasn’t necessarily legal for teenagers ...