Ryan can only agree. I never ever will forget one of my most memorable immigrant Canadian moments in our initial few years of being here. My sons had been put into hockey by me on the basis of "when in Rome you do as the Romans do" anyhow end of a league game one day someone i our smaller group (not the whole team) mention us all going out to a specific pond after for a game of Dads versus sons. Well at this stage i could only just stand on skates but i was not going to be left out. So we left the arena and went to this particular pond that was at the time still covered with snow. Cleared the snow which revealed great ice surface. A couple of moms pitched in and brought the nets over from home and the boys had a game with their Dads ex me i hung onto the goalie net
Then one of the kids had a uncle that was also on the ice and he happened to live right near the pond and also happened to be a home brewer. So he went and got the dads some brew and game proceeded. The snow began falling and play continued. Got some pics somewhere taken with snow coming down.
Was a real Canadian day and special event to me. All those kids now men remember that day specifically.
After the game we ended up at the uncles Dads place. Kids went inside to play video games and the dads all went to the workshop with a woodfireplace and the grandfather handing out shots of homemade grapa and the uncle roasted some chestnuts on the fire.
Now a kid playing hockey in a local house league needs to have min $1000 dollars to play. The towns charge so much for the ice that it kills things. But the paraphanalia that some coaches and parents want their kids to have makes it near impossible for a less fortunate kid to play unless he asks for charitable help from a local organization trying to pave the way.
This is what happens with Town user pays policies. We want the kids off the couch but make activities into a business. Dont even mention the aspect of sticks. Kids have been sold the status of a carbon fibre stick and now the $30 wooden stick is not acceptable they HAVE to Have...yeah right....the fancy $200 plus sticks the pros use and you would not believe the parents willing to buy it for them. This causes any other kid without THE stick to feel like a loser and disadvantage.
Oh let me get off the soapbox this issue just winds me up too much when parents have less brains than an ant.
sent from s4