Parents spend thousands, make sacrifices for youth hockey
For Barb Murphy, her son's hockey season begins not on a sheet of ice but at her bank.
Her son, Zach, a sophomore player at Central High School, also plays hockey on two other travel teams at various times during the calendar year. Children competing in hockey year-round can cost families thousands upon thousands of dollars in equipment, travel, hotels and registration fees.
To make it all work, Murphy goes to the bank and takes out a loan each year and uses it to cover the expenses it takes to allow her son to play the game he loves.
"Financially, you plan everything around hockey," Murphy said. "Outside of that, we don't do a whole lot."
Murphy is one of hundreds of parents in Grand Forks and the surrounding area who face the same challenge of balancing their finances with the game of hockey.
Hockey is often cited by studies as the most expensive sport for young athletes to play, with some families telling the Herald they spend up to $10,000 a year for fees, equipment, travel and hotel.
That money can put a strain on a family's finances or prevent some from playing the sport altogether.
Many who can afford—or find a way to afford—to have their child play have to find a way to cut back on other things. Murphy, for instance, said she and her family don't do much outside her son's athletic events. The family tries to take a trip together once every other year, but even that can be difficult sometimes when they're gone most weekends for hockey tournaments all over the Upper Midwest.
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Lottsa kids skate but very few get to play organized hockey...
;^\
Try outfitting a goalie! When my son started playing ('95-'96) we scrimped to save enough for "last year's model" of pads...still cost over $900. I think I've blocked out the costs of the equipment in my head beyond that...trapper, glove, mask, throat protector for the mask, skates (goalies have special skates!) and sticks, don't even get me started on how much we spent on those (again, special sticks= "special" prices)! Oh and the ice time...couple hundred a month, at least, not counting travel and all those expenses.
But, you know I'd do it all over again, in a heartbeat, we had so much fun!
Thanks for your contribution Uppy and nice to see you! The sheer bonding time for families alone is worth the cost, the joy of sharing in fellowship and competition is priceless for kids.
I don't think a lot of folks know about the sacrifice and expense involved in youth hockey. I suppose in general though much of that may be due to the fact that hockey isn't all that prevalent in many places, so the sport in general is not well understood in many places. That seems to be changing more the last 30 years or so, but still not many are introduced to hockey for a different reason,,, for lack of money.
WTH, what a bunch of whimps we have today.
Back in the day, when they had real hockey players, yes in the Grand Forks area. Warroad regularly kicked their ass. Shin guards were cardboard and electrical tape. Face masks!!!! Are you kidding me, sissy stuff. Hockey gloves were old welders gloves, if you could find a pair. If you were real lucky there was one pair between 3 brothers. I always got the left handed one.
Skates, my skates were so old that CCM wasn't even a company than. All the padding was always cardboard. Hockey sticks were good for at least a couple of years. At times held together with some pretty strange stuff.
I guess when you let the wimpy ''big city'' boys play, they need all that protection.
They stay in hotels when they travel, I suppose that they eat in resturants as well. What happened to sleeping in the car/truck/bus that took you there? What about bringing your own food. And training facilities. Our training facilities were free. Freeze a field or street. Chunks of frozen snow as the goal posts and have at it, it was free.
They should try Rez Hockey to toughen up.
Wow...thanks for calling my son a wimp! WTH??
Uppy, it was sarcasm/joke...Like, what's with the young people, in my day we walked 5 miles to school. through knee deep snow, uphill both ways.