BenBreeg

Having been away from actually playing for a while, i was surprised to see adult league individual stats on league web sites. Count me in as someone who doesn’t care.

DOPS came through.

Equally likely to be a mental institution! 😄 Last week I had 4 out of 7 have to go to the bathroom during our game, mouthguard issues, the water bottle squirted so hard one kid was knocked off his feet when I gave him a drink, etc. Total fun!

Coached my first ADM practice last night after having spent years in high school and college club. I had occasionally been hit with a puck or took a spill before but nothing serious. I was manning the passing station and i was bent down trying to show this tiny kid something and he out of the blue lost his balance. Before i could react his stick comes up and hits me right above the eye. Hard. Didnt bleed at first so I try to play it off and go back to coaching him. The kid cant even focus on the puck now, all i see are these wide eyes through his cage staring at me. Now i am bleeding and trying to wipe it off and eventually we switched groups. Got the bleeding to stop and finished. But literally anouther 1/8” or 1/4” and it would have been my eye. Just a reminder to be careful!

I don't know that at the squirt level I would put meeting other parents and kids (not even sure how that would work) as a benefit to travelling. We meet lots of people through school and local baseball, hockey, scouting, etc. Different levels of the game? It is squirts, it isn't like when you compare western conf and eastern conf NHL styles or different types of hockey in different high-level leagues. I don't feel it is monotonous to play baseball which is basically in-house, seeing the same people occasionally. In youth sports people feel pressured into travel, tournament teams, year round participation, and as I said, it should be up to those people to show why it is beneficial, especially at younger ages. I know of no research that advocates for accelerating this and lots against it. I saw an 8 year old at the rink in the fitness place getting 1-1 private coaching, basically bodyweight plyos and stuff. Can't imagine what it costs and how it was any better than him running around playing. The oddity of seeing young kids at the rink showing up with ties on is another head-scratcher. To me it all goes into the same lack of perspective bucket.

I would probably flip it around and ask what benefit travelling has for the squirt level. Given the same ratio of practice to games, i can only see in-house as helping. Just my opinion though. We try not to go crazy with sports but when a winter sport like hockey starts the same week as fall soccer, it is hard to not have some months where you cant avoid a lot of chaos. Being anchored at a single rink would help and be attractive over travel, even if the travel is only within the area.

That sucks, due for a rewatch!

How can you know that?

Figured it out if you didn't get the code. There is a form when you first go on the web site which is what I filled out. That apparently isn't it. Then when you go to the equipment page another form pops up. That is the one you need to fill out to get the code, you are actually registering on the site. A little confusing because filling out the first form resulted in nothing, not even a confirmation e-mail that I had joined a mailing list or anything.

I didn't get a code and it isn't in my spam or trash.

Nice, I need new elbow pads and would like to get new shins as well and am looking for something lower profile. Looks like this is a really attractive option.

Seriously, that design has stood the test of time. I wish i still had my Cooper SC Pros.

Not at all, great posts and good to hears there are still people with perspective, although it seems it is still an uphill battle. i think something that helps just like anything is finding like-minded people to connect to within your org or team. Then the conversations you have with them help reinforce the sanity mindset. The barometer has to be fun, its easy to measure. Th last couple of days at this little camp my son was doing i was justwatcching to see if he was smiling on the ice. He went down jard a couple times diring some skating drills and knowing him that could have made him want to stop, but he kept going and was all smiles th whole time. Told me how fun freeze tag was so he wants to go back to camp. It was a real eye opener for me beczuse during that freeze tag game when they were chasing the coaches they were doing their best skating. He was doing tight turns, edges digging in and ice chips flying and i bet he had no idea. i learned a lot about coaching little kids this week from watching this guy, who was only 26 but was so good with the kids, it was impressive. He kept their attention, held them accountable for doing the skills, made rhem laugh, was super organized, and ran a great camp. He isnt in our organization but i am definitely sending my son to him for anything beyond our regular ADM stuff (plus, as much as i love coaching my kids, it is good for them to have other coaches as well imo).

My buddy falls into that camp. His kid is around 8 and he was telling me how he justifies to his wife the number of hockey teams and camps he sends his son to. "I just want him to get a little money for college..." I didn't have the heart to tell him yet how few hockey scholarships are available, I think there is time for him to come to his senses. When our kids were skating together playing tag or whatever, anything his son did he would point out. "Did you see how he dipped his shoulder there to fake him out? Somebody was telling me that was really advanced!" "Did you see his feet on that move..?" Etc. People aren't realistic. We had a high school goalie come out to our ACHA practice because he was thinking of coming. He wasn't even a starter for his HS team, got lit up in practice, but proceeded to tell us in the office afterward he is looking at DIII NCAA programs primarily.

Thread is a bit old but I just got Quad 0 on new steel in order to prolong my Supreme 7000's life until I get new skates. I expected one of two things 1) I would fall and have trouble adjusting 2) I wouldn't notice much. Neither. As soon as I stepped on the ice I was solid. I love the longer radius on the back of the blades! And as soon as you take off you are on the shorter radius and good to go. I think my old ones were radiused too short, but I can't remember what they were. When I started to tire out the front of my shins would get fatigued. Also, it always took 20 mins or so before the bottom of my feet would stop hurting, this has gone on for years. I always thought this was boot related but it didn't happen the other day for the first time in 20 years. Maybe my feet were fighting against the contour/pitch of my last profile. Anyway, I wasn't expecting it to be this different and it was, in nothing by a positive way.

I wanted to post some thoughts about being a hockey parent and see what others’ perspectives were. My background is I played through high school then when I came back from college played some men’s league and started coaching high school and ACHA. I eventually stopped playing and focused on coaching and then when I went to grad school and my kids were born wasn’t doing anything hockey-related. My son is 7 now and started Learn to Play this past Feb, did a spring ADM, and over the summer we just do stick time every few weeks. He is doing a camp this week, just an hour a day but the beauty is there are only 4 kids signed up and two coaches. It is worth 5x the money I paid and the main coach is great with the kids. I am also a huge proponent of kids playing multiple sports (and multiple activities in general, not even just sports) and specializing as late as possible. I am basically a nerd and love reading up on the latest research on these topics as well. Even given that I actively try to think this way, the reality is that you have to continually check yourself and be honest about how you are approaching your kids with regards to sports. One of the best things I learned from the U8 USA Hockey module was that the average 8-year-old’s mental maturity is 8 +/- 4.5 years (or something very close)! I see this in baseball especially. I had one kid who was physically advanced, knew tons of situations, asked me why I had player X in the cleanup spot because he wasn’t a cleanup hitter, etc. Then my son wouldn’t be paying attention to the batter and play in the dirt. The crap I hear about from other parents is ridiculous. I just heard about a parent berating his kid as he came off the ice because he didn’t play well. This was 10U. Other kids are leaving orgs because they need to play against better competition with the Pens Elite. There is a summer full-ice U8 league. Etc. It is tempting to push your kid too hard, despite best intentions. I kept asking my son if he wanted to go “practice his stickhandling” in the driveway. Not a real strong response to that, as you could expect. He was usually done in 5 minutes. Then he made up a game where we had to walk around and stay on the lines between the individual concrete slabs, and could only pass after answering a math fact! WTH?!?!?! But I said ok and we played for like 15 minutes because he thought it was fun. Now I just ask him if he wants to play a little hockey, or he asks me. Perspective. Kids are going to progress as individuals. Literally, in the two hours he has been on the ice the last two days he has made these huge strides that he didn't make all spring. And I am learning a lot from watching this guy coach this age group (and stealing his drills/games!). But it takes some discipline even for the best-intentioned and informed parents to not get caught up in this race to create mini-professionals. Both when I am coaching and when I am talking to my son after he does something sports related, I make sure to mention fun first before asking about anything specific as far as the game or practice, and I have stopped even talking about anything he could have improved on. There is plenty of time to work on that stuff later and in a better context. Curious to hear your thoughts.

Weird game last night I thought. Somewhat sloppy/chaotic at times but pretty fun to watch from a pure entertainment standpoint. Of course Wilson has an incident, not sure what Perron was doing jumping on the ice when Ovi was coming by, and Reeves got lucky with the no crosscheck but the goal was pretty timely and getting that kind of production from the 4th line is icing on the icing.

I have pants and a girdle. When i bought thrm they were all i could find that offered tall sizes. That was about 12 years ago maybe. Their pants were definitely common and seen as good stuff when i was in high school...Which was significantly more than 12 years ago :)

I dont know, if that is the case i agree, he should do it. I still think it is goofy. But I am glad the Pens don’t put their heels together, pin their arms to their sides, and waddle down the ice when they score though ;)

Yep

Dunno, just irritates me. Probably the stupid arm flapping thing. Not hatred like I feel toward Wilson, just a healthy dislike :)

I expected Washington to win the game, but not like that. Also think it would be a great story if Flower beats the Caps. I actually like Ovi but can't stand Wilson and Kuznetsov.