When my twin boys first started to play Travel youth hockey at seven years of age, their try-outs were usually right after Labor Day, followed by their first preseason games in early October. Their season mercifully came to an end in late February. And then we moved on to baseball or soccer. Or anything else played OUTSIDE.
Now a couple of months away from their 17th birthdays, they are in their final two years of Club/Travel hockey. This year will be their third season wearing the sweaters of the San Jose Jr. Sharks, as members of the 18AA team.
But this season their tryouts were in the last week of July, and they had their first preseason game last weekend (mid-August). Last year, when they were California state champions in their 16A division, their season ran into April. Their high school varsity hockey team started play in March and finished in mid-May. Youth hockey now extends from August through May. It's one long season. And there's little time for anything else.
I'm blaming it all on Charles Schulz. The Peanuts cartoonist, a Minnesota native and hockey player in his youth, had moved to Sonoma County in the early 1960's and built an ice rink in Santa Rosa in 1969. We moved up to Santa Rosa from San Francisco to buy a house and raise some kids (and a dog) in 1993, and quickly realized the rink was one of the social centers of town.
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| The Redwood Empire Ice Arena, now known as "Snoopy's Home Ice," was opened in Santa Rosa, CA in 1969 by Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz. The rink is still owned by the Schulz family. |
I learned to skate, and eventually joined the lowest level men's late night "beer" league in Santa Rosa. I only call it a "men's" league because there weren't any women playing hockey at that time in Santa Rosa. Schulz thought that should change and soon developed a women's team, and that's when my wife laced up her skates and learned to play. Schulz gave the women prime ice slots early in the evening - rare for adult hockey - and posted a security guard in the parking lot, so they would feel safe at the rink. Schulz would even come out on occasion and join them.
So with that beautiful rink, made possible only because of the hockey whims of a wealthy cartoonist, as a focal point in town, it wasn't so strange when our kids started to walk that we put hockey sticks in their hands.
When they were three or four, we bought them roller blades, helmets and little hockey nets, allowing them to play street hockey in our driveway. That soon moved to the outdoor roller hockey rink Schulz had built in a small park next to his office studio. And by the age of five, they were going through the Basics - learn to skate - hockey classes on the ice inside the Snoopy rink.
If we had known back then exactly how many mornings we would have to wake up in the dark on a Saturday or Sunday morning for practice, or worse, a game as far away as Fresno, Stockton or Lake Tahoe, I'm not sure if we would have willingly committed the rest of their childhoods to the sport.
And if we had known how many tens of thousands of dollars we would pay in the next ten years for hockey dues, hockey gear and travel expenses, I don't know if we would have encouraged them to play ice hockey as much as we did.
"Hey, guys, how about baseball? America's pastime? Swimming? You could spend all summer long in a cool pool! Soccer? You could run all over the place and kick a ball! Basketball?"
They played them all, but nothing else stuck. Once a kid is hooked on hockey and becomes a "rink rat" - someone who just loves hanging around the ice rink - it's tough to talk them into anything else. You don't choose the sport of ice hockey as much as it chooses you.
Cindy was their assistant coach for two years when they were Mites (7-8 years of age) and Squirts (9-10), and I picked up after her and was an assistant coach during their second Pee-Wee (11-12) and first Bantam (13-14) years.
It's a lot of work to play ice hockey. The sport requires total commitment and a high level of physical conditioning. It's very physical and the incidence of concussions and broken bones is high. It's an incredibly long season. You'll spend numerous Holidays in a cold rink. There aren't many kids or families that can make that commitment.
It's equally demanding to be a hockey coach. Their coaches spent hundreds and hundreds of hours teaching them all about technical aspects of the game: face-offs, break-outs, regroups, forechecks, reverses, protecting the "house," P.K.'s and power plays, triangulation, etc. (don't worry - there will not be a quiz), and I must say it's a sense of great pride that both of our sons are considered by all their coaches to be "smart" hockey players. They anticipate and see a play develop before it happens, and seem to wind up in the right spot just as the puck arrives.
But through all the games, practices, coaching and Board meetings, I was never sure after all that time and effort, if the kids were any better off than if we'd just had them throw their sticks in a pile, pick teams, and just let them play pond hockey.
That's exactly what happened every summer. We would get together with some hockey friends outside on numerous summer mornings - before the Wine Country sunshine became too warm - and just let the guys play unstructured roller hockey for hours and hours at a time. I believe it was this time that contributed to their current skill level as much as anything. It was seldom the lessor skilled players who came out to extra things like this. It was usually the kids who really loved the game, and couldn't live without it, who came out to get even better.
In his landmark book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the "10,000 hours" theory of achievement - that great talents, or "outliers," in a given area are not born, but made. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill.
Our boys are getting close to that 10,000 hours touchstone, and are now able to play the game at an incredibly fast, highly skilled level. A level far beyond anything I could have ever done. It's amazing to watch them play. They are no longer boys out on the rink, but young men.
And through all those years of structured league play: the practices, games and travel; I'm still not sure they're any better off in the long run than if they'd just been able to go out on a pond somewhere for a couple of hours and played around. That seems to be the environment in which the best, most creative hockey players ultimately develop.
The best we can do for our kids as parents is to point them in the right direction, support them and try not to do any harm.
Last season they played in Canada for the first time, in the International Silver Stick finals in Newmarket, Ontario. On our last day in the Toronto area, after they had been eliminated from tournament play, the entire team went out to a local "pond" and played two hours of unstructured "pick-up" hockey in the frigid morning cold.
I believe all those California boys were playing hockey outside for the first time. Once they started playing, not one of them complained of the chill, or came off the ice early. After two hours, it was the frost-bitten parents who had to drag them off the ice, just like we did when they were five years old. I thought it was the purest hockey moment of the year, maybe of their lives.
And on the drive back to the hotel, I couldn't help wonder if, in the long run, hockey playing kids would just be better off playing on that pond, if they could, three or four days a week.
I've videotaped hundreds of the boys' hockey games over the years, but if somebody asked me why we have endured all the early mornings and late nights, long drives, injuries, frustration and expense of youth hockey; I would show them this video that I made of them last year playing on that pond in Ontario. Many of you reading this have already seen this video, but I'll post it again here, just in case you haven't. Just look at the smiling faces of these guys out there on that cold January morning. No coaches, parents or pressure. A pure hockey moment. And ultimately, that's what it should all be about, eh.
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