[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by sketchyt

I have a 3 year old and I'm not excited to let him play despite my own passion for the sport.

Here are some stories from my friends who have kids in minor hockey. Most of them I've been hearing about in the last year. I also want to note most of these stories are about kids under 10 years of age:

• A coach bullying a kid to saying he hit another player when it didn't happen
• Parents climbing and leaning over the glass like monkeys to yell at the coaches
• See above, but yelling at refs
• See above, but yelling at kids
• See above, but yelling at each other
• Parents being ostracized from the group for not buying team apparel
• Hockey associations putting together costly out of town tournaments just to play other teams from the city they came from
• The expectation to volunteer (I wouldn't mind helping out... it's the expectation that makes me roll my eyes)
• Cash calls midway through the season (this was for an older kid)

I mean, why would I want any kid around any of this? I'm not asking rhetorically either...

Because there are good experiences as well.

For the most part we have been very lucky. Our kids just finished 2nd year atom for the boy and 1st year Bantam for the girl. We have had some very good coaches, both technically and in dealing with the kids/sport.

As our involvement has progressed I have become more vocal when I see stupidity. I think that is the key. For too long people just turned a blind eye to this activity, which validated the actions. I now address this type of activity/actions as soon as they happen.