Any other Hockey Parents on IDO?

I know there’s a lot of Hockey fans here and I’ve seen a few people mention their kids play in various threads. To all IDO Hockey Parents, what town and level do your kids play at? Maybe we’ll meet up in a district or tournament game sometime!

I have two boys: a 2nd year Squirt and 1st year Bantam. Don’t quite know A, B or C teams yet as tryouts are just starting.
They play for New Prague.

I’ve always loved hockey but when my oldest first told me he wanted to play I dreaded the idea. I knew it would be a tremendous drain on my checking account and schedule. Fast forward 6 years and now with two boys in hockey, I couldn’t imagine life any other way. There’s nothing better than watching them skate, I’ll ice fish when I’m older So excited for the season to get started.

Anyone other Hockey Parents out there?

I don’t have kids playing anymore but I know quite a few tournaments come to Alexandria. I still like to watch some of our local tourneys.
DT

I played ice hockey for many years when I was younger. It’s an enormous time investment. Out of town tournaments to Duluth or Fargo were always fun. I wish I was better at it, but I was a shrimp until late in HS and by then I had quit. I always got beat up out there being so small and when I played they allowed body checking starting in peewees.

I still play in a men’s league every year with some friends and watch a fair amount of college and pro hockey on TV.

I have a 3 year old son and he may or may not be playing ice hockey. Too early to tell or predict.

I grew up in SE WI and I wish they had a hockey program growing up. I would have loved to learn and play the game.

gimruis wrote:

I wish I was better at it, but I was a shrimp until late in HS and by then I had quit. I always got beat up out there being so small and when I played they allowed body checking starting in peewees.

Haha! My oldest starts checking this year in Bantams. He’s a skinny kid and hasn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet. I told him his nickname should be “Cool Breeze” because getting checked by him will be like getting hit by a cool breeze.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

Anyone other Hockey Parents out there?

I wish! I have 2 daughters that didn’t want anything to do with hockey.

I grew up in the city and we played outdoors, it was quite the treat to play on an indoor sheet. I sure do miss it.

my son (5) isn’t ready yet, COVID (lack of open skating ice) threw a wrench in his development

I have a 7 year old girl who was supposed to play last year but COVID messed everything up. Instead I built a backyard rink.

She’s staring as a mini-mite this year and coaches have told me she could play up at U8 already. We’ll see.

My son is 3.5 so I’m planning on mini-mites for him next year.

Bigger backyard rink this year too.

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I played through high school, in part to duck my football coach who wanted the linemen to wrestle. I never played HS varsity, had a blast playing JV and ground down my family with all of the time invested.

My son attended the same high school as me, we steered him to basketball early on. Still a significant time commitment but better hours and much less expensive. He graduated from high school 9+ years ago and still plays twice a week.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

Haha! My oldest starts checking this year in Bantams. He’s a skinny kid and hasn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet. I told him his nickname should be “Cool Breeze” because getting checked by him will be like getting hit by a cool breeze.

It’s a violent sport. No doubt about it. In youth hockey the size difference is very noticeable too. Some like me were shrimps and some were much bigger at the same age. I got hurt pretty serious several times too but that’s just part of the risk playing.

Tell your son to stay low. If he stands up straight he’ll get rocked. And skate with your head up lol

My 5 year old is starting this year. Actually he has been doing the MN Wild skating camp the last two weeks. Pretty good deal as they give you all brand new equipment from head to toe. He started skating at 3. He is pretty jacked up to be playing “real hockey” I played in high school and college. Coached Bantam A after college for several years. Stopped when my son was born. Looking forward to getting back into it with him.
Trying to teach him how to pick up the bag of pucks like KK. 😂

Not a parent but a grandparent. Have a grandson plays high school varsity and his younger brother and sister are blind and play for the Minnesota Wild Blind Hockey. The younger grandson is partially sighted so he plays defense and the granddaughter is totally blind so she is the goalie. My son is the head coach. They will be beginning their forth season next month. They are trying to get more interest so they can have an adult team and a youth team. Right now the players are from 9 years old to 50 something.

Check it out.http://www.mnwildblindhockey.com

I have a squirt and a freshman in high school. My oldest played bantams last year. He did just fine with checking. He’s a rough defenseman so it was nothing new. He played on a spring team with older kids so he got to check for 2 years in that before it was allowed in regular season. I can’t imagine life any other way. We will be in Milwaukee all weekend for the oldest. Both play association hockey and do AAA in the spring. Backyard rink the last 10 years. That is where they get good! It’s a labor of love. Pain in the butt when it snows but fun to watch the neighborhood kids play out the window. USA hockey is really controlling the hits with new rules these days. It is fine in my opinion because the game has really gotten fast and hitting has changed. It’s still the most fun game on earth to watch for me!

I have a 2nd year squirt and a 2nd year mite. Absolutely love watching them play but crazy how little I get to fish these days!!

Musky78 wrote:

I have a 2nd year squirt and a 2nd year mite. Absolutely love watching them play but crazy how little I get to fish these days!!

What town, Christopher?

No youth hockey yet but pretty sure it’s in the near future. Daughter skated quite a bit at the ODR last winter at 2.5 yo and the boys should be on ice this winter at about the same age. They’re all about mini sticks.

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Got a 1st year squirt, not sure on A,B team till tryouts. Going to be my 5th year coaching. Looking forward to having some traveling games finally. Playing for the Austin Packers
Wallster ><((((>

Squirt and Mite play for Mound Westonka

My boys started at 5 and i got asked to “coach” them, 19 years later i am still coaching, now some of the kids of the kids i coached. It’s a sad day when your kids “age out” and you suddenly find yourself not going to arenas 4 or 6 times a week. At 63 i still play 3 times a week and am fortunate to play with some guys that played and won Stanley Cups. My son was a goalie and got to fill in for our oldtimers team when our goalie tore up his knee, that was fun.Enjoy your time with your son or daughter,it is a great game and they can make some lifelong friends.

I have 2 boys playing. 2nd years Squirt A and a 2nd year Mite. I have been coaching for 7 years and love being on the ice with them. They play for Rochester.

Former Parent with kid in hockey.. Last years Covid crap really messed things up for my boy who would have been a 2nd yr Squirt. He decided to try basketball instead & loved it. I honestly hate basketball but, I’d never deny my kids a chance at playing a sport they really like. With that being said, I miss all the good times that came with Hockey & wish we could have done it differently last year, but with all the covid crap it just didn’t work out for us.

I played from the age of 3 thru Highschool. I still don’t know how my parents did it! Both my sister & I played for a LOT of years. Still some of the best times in my life & still have some very good friends from those fun years. The Tournaments that required a hotel where the absolute best!

I helped coach the first 2 years my boy was in mites & that was a blast as well. Really miss it all. Although it really did eat into my Ice Fishing time.

For those of you with smaller kids and are worried about checking, I’d suggest looking up hip checking and getting them introduced to it. Checking isn’t only about size and strength. It’s every bit as much about leverage, angles and speed, which can often times favor the smaller guys. The best checker on my varsity team was our smallest defenseman who had mastered the hip check. I can’t even count how many guys who had 30-40 lbs on him that he flipped head over heals with a hip check. There’s also less chance of getting your “bell run” for those involved with a hip check than there is with a normal check.

2nd year Mini Mite, last year sucked getting the kid dress in the car outside.

It is awesome they have great programs like Let’s Try Hockey for kids and all the hockey all the gear is donation based until 10 year old, so you don’t have that up front cost. It is awesome to watch them learn and develop.

Oh ya, got to spend my hot summer And days a week in a nice cool ice arena. Go Bangles 2nd year Peewee

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How are we all still feeling 2 months in? Coaching two teams for me is gonna be a grind by February.

I’m coaching 2 teams as well.

A follow up my previous reply here. My daughter played 8U that year instead of mini mites. She scored a goal in her very first game then not again all season. She still had fun.

Last season she played 8U again and was easily one of the veterans. My son did not play mini mites last season like I’d hoped. He just wasn’t interested in learning to skate. However last December, I finally got skates on him and he took off.

This year we tried to get my daughter to play up at 10U but it was denied by the coop committee because there were too many players 10U already. Our org decided that they would have an A mite team this season and was asked to play A mites instead of 8U. So far, A mites has been the best decision. She is challenged and does very well for herself on this team. We played Andover last weekend and felt we skated really well with them in spite of our org being about 1/2 the size of Andover. Not to mention they had 5 more players than we did.

My boy is 5.5 now and is playing C mites. He really belongs on mini mites but they needed a coach so I agreed to have him play C mites. Some of the kids on his team are 4 years older than him but he holds his own. He’s gonna get 10x the ice time as the other kids on the team because of our backyard ring so my hope is that he progresses far faster than everyone else. He’s always the first one asking about skating on the rink so I think that assessment is probably good. I’m just hoping he can score a goal or two before the season is over.

If anyone has a kid in the Prior Lake mite jamboree in March, let me know. I’ll look for you. Both my teams are in it.

Musky78 wrote:

I have a 2nd year squirt and a 2nd year mite. Absolutely love watching them play but crazy how little I get to fish these days!!

It is insane how much time it takes up. I barely deer hunted this year.

I help coach my 7 year olds B mite team and we started in mid October. We are in our first Jamboree this weekend which I am looking forward.

We also build a rink in the back yard on the pond and literally gets me through winter. It is alot of work but it does get me out of the house in the winter and is amazing to see how much progress he had made in 3 years. from not being able to skate to now being close to keeping up with me.

I am sure he pass me up in a year or 2.

Fishing? What’s fishing?

Yeah – this year especially tough. I don’t coach but the commitments both timewise and financially are far surpassing past years.

I have two kids in Hockey – the oldest is a 1st year Sophomore Jr Gold player for New Prague. My youngest is a 2nd year PeeWee B2 player New Prague.

Wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, but putting two kids through Hockey for a year is about like sending one kid to College for a year.

Girls u10b1, her second year on 10s and 3rd year playing, heck even being in skates. Got a couple goals so far this season, definitely not a bring it down the ice and juke a goalie player but she does well w rebounds.

Oldest daughter played traveling softball, get on a good club team, private lessons and head to nationals, hockey money seems lil.

Really enjoy learning the sport, never played myself, it truly requires some skills, and grit. I see why it’s so popular. Gonna be a great season, great group of kids this year with stellar coaches