Being a Hockey Parent

[Eleven]

Originally Posted by Ahbroody

Nice that's the price on the youth version.
I checked out the youth version and Easton returned to making the youth sticks with the kevlar wrapped blade on the Stealth RS youth same as the big version. At 70-75 its the best made/longest lasting stick for 8U. The EQ50 was a pile of $hit in the youth version, blade chipped and broke easily. Micah has been using the S19 I grabbed for $40 for about 4 months and its holding up well. Thats skating 4-5 days a week. Hoping between this one and the other we will make it till late summer and the clearance sales.

That reminds me, we bought Cam an intermediate APX in November. My wife made some comment in passing about 'don't break it too fast, it cost $240'. The kid said 'I'll be careful with it.' Then I said Hell no, don't change *anything* you do, cause you'll change EVERYTHING trying to be careful with the stick!

I know sticks break and wear down pretty fast, compared to other equipment, and with prices like that (the RS and APX are virtually the same price) you sure don't want your kid breaking it on day 31, but you also don't want him thinking about breaking the stick every single shift.

As far as my kid, I told him to stop thinking about it right now, go play your game like always and if the stick does break on day 31, we'll deal with it then.

I know the APX and the Stealth RS are supposed to be strong top of the line sticks, but I watched one of the smallest kids on our team (barely 100 pounds soaking wet) break 2 APX's in the last 2 months (they may have been Juniors, I will have to ask). I feel pretty bad for his parents, they were only like 2 weeks outside the 30 day no-questions window on the first one.

The one thing we found out early on was that you truly get what you pay for. We don't go buying the newest-latest just for the sake of having it (although we do have parents on the team that do that). We just try to be smart about spending our money, especially now that it seems he is growing faster and faster.

Hand-me-downs are saving us hundreds right now, and I hope to continue that trend as long as possible!

[E.J.]

Originally Posted by Eleven

I know the APX and the Stealth RS are supposed to be strong top of the line sticks, but I watched one of the smallest kids on our team (barely 100 pounds soaking wet) break 2 APX's in the last 2 months (they may have been Juniors, I will have to ask). I feel pretty bad for his parents, they were only like 2 weeks outside the 30 day no-questions window on the first one.

A kid on my sons team broke his APX(adult) about 40 days in.... I hope my son's does not see the same fate. Interesting, as he replaced it with a RS. He has had an X60, TotalOne, APX and now a RS in the past 18ish months... I am interested to see what he thinks...


Just dropped the kids off for a little pond hockey, I may run back and take a few photos....

[Eleven]

Originally Posted by E.J.

I am interested to see what he thinks...

So am I! My kid practiced with his RS last night and liked it, we'll see which one he favors this weekend in St. Louis...

[J0eybb]

Originally Posted by Ahbroody

Let me know how the tron stick plays. Been looking at grabbing one just to fug with. People say its made by a large manufacturer just rebadged. Mid upper level sticks usually. Got a monkey order coming today.

Well the TRON stick lost it's blade in warmups last night.

[Ahbroody]

Wow that was quick.

[J0eybb]

Originally Posted by Ahbroody

Wow that was quick.

Yeah, not happy.

[Ahbroody]

How long did the other guy have it?

As to the stick thing all I can say is Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
Chipped the toe and have a crack in the bottom of his blade this week. Glad the stick was $40 on closeout. There are things I won't skimp on like skates, helmet and protective gear, but I can't see buying the premium sticks at full price. Pros will go through a few a game often. I guess it depends on style of play and position. When I see guys like Joe Thorton using a two piece stick, Patrick Marleau still goes back and forth from one and two piece, and others it shows the stick is not as critical depending on the player and style of play. If your a Dman or a sniper like Ovie I see the value of a highend one piece.

He has a jamboree on Saturday, then we are putting him in turcotte stick handling class next week. Will tape it up and it will make it another week. Looks like Santa will be bringing that second stick I bought on closeout for Christmas. Hoping spring brings some deals

[Ahbroody]

Driving 6 hrs combined today for son to play 3-4 hrs of hockey. I don't know why I agreed to do this. I swear this kid better never give me grief about not supporting him.

Christmas break is:
Today san Jose to vacaville for a mite jamboree
12/21-12/23 turcotte stick handling class in san Jose
Pending 12/23 mite jamboree in san jose. Been asked to be on a few teams, but have not decided
12/31 mite jamboree in Oakland. Possibly playing for a second team.

No practices over the next two weeks

January is going to be nuts also, he's playing for a roller club in the NARCH Winter Nationals, doing one or two jamborees, and doing a power skating class at the end of the month.
Got my wife a nice zoom lens for the NIKON for Christmas. Going to try it out tonight. Finally should have some pics worth posting.

Edit:
Spent over 220 at hockeymonkey yesterday. May do something crazy that will have Al shaking his head. Got to wait to see if it works.

[E.J.]

Jackson had the game winner with 1M left tonight.... So proud of him.... Slid in from the point, pass and slap shot.....BOOM.... He is sooooo pumped.... Love this stuff....

Abby found the back of the net 8 times today in their game....

Good day for us.....

[Ahbroody]

finally took some photos of the boy. The rink blew there were no stands and everything was shot to close to the glass and at ice level making it tough to get decent photos.

Waiting to get out


Sequence of photos. He scores here, but with the zoom lens the last 2 photos didnt show much but body parts

deke 1

deke 2

[Ahbroody]

random stuff






He did really well. Hoping a teamates dad can recover the video files I deleted. He had his dangles working hard. He did very well it was a lot of house kids, but as the pictures show he is a young 6 and pretty much everyone there was 7 or 8 so it was nice. He skated through big kids almost at will.

forgot to mention he had this sequence behind the net were he changed directions 5 times and finally got the wraparound. It was classic.

[E.J.]

^^^GREAT STUFF, Mike.... Don't know how I missed this until now!

That first sequence is really nice... Look at him separate and leave #35....

[Ahbroody]

HTis coach said he was ready for the turcotte class.
As a whole he's having a lot of fun because he's a super social kid and loves chopping it up out there, but watching him try to toe drag to pass off inside skate and kick back to stick was fail. He just decided to do toe drags.

Edit.
He's having a lot of fun though and seems to picking up a few things.

[E.J.]

Just finished a good skate at the day before Christmas Drop In.... We will hit the day before New Year's one as well.... I have a sneaking suspicion that the next one will have far more kids than this one.

I didn't skate and ran stairs while the Little One was out on the ice. There was a mom in the stands, guy on the ice blowout that would have made a sailor blush. I am not exactly sure what the guy(another dad) did on the ice, but whatever it was, set off a expletive laced tirade that lasted a good 20-30 seconds that ended with "Stay the #&^$ away from my kid!"

From what I pieced together, I think her kid was the best skater on the ice and his kid may have been one of the goalies. From what I gather, he was sick of the kid blasting away at his kid, wanting him to pass to some of the younger kids???(Mite/Squirt Drop in)

I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but I was running on and off the entire time, so who knows.... The kid in question fed Abby a ton, she was quite fond of him...

Anyway....odd....

[Ahbroody]

Yikes. Hockey parents bunch of crazy fuc$ers I tell you.

Decided at the last.minute to take the boy and his sisters to a last minute mite cross ice jamboree his club put together. Lot of kids

[E.J.]

Skated stick & puck 2 hours this morning, now killing time before a game @ 7:00 tonight... Mom working, so the Little One caught a ride to Jr. Jazz bb practice with some friends... Thought we were on break.....

[Eleven]

Originally Posted by E.J.

Thought we were on break.....

You sir, thought wrong!

My kid had practice last night, has practice tonight and we leave for Nashville in the morning for a weekend tournament.

(Although I will admit, like other tournaments we go to, this one is just another excuse for the adults to party...New Years in Nashville? Hells yea!)

[Ahbroody]

Only roller practice this week. We have a one day event in Oakland on Saturday. Not Nashville or a nice place by any stretch.


little mans new rollerblades. Nobody does roller, but thats an ice boot on a roller chasis. Had fit.issues with current skate so just went for something we knew was safe. Reebok stopped making the tri d chassis. It skates more like an ice skate. Tri d is short for tri directional. chassis skates more like an ice skate as it rocks.

[E.J.]

They look great, Mike.... Can't wait to hear what he thinks about them after putting some time in 'um....

[Eleven]

Just got back from Nashville, the third year our boys have played in the Music City Invitational. This year they came out of Pool Play as the first seed, but fell in the Semi's to the eventual tournament winners, Russell Stover 98's from Kansas City.

I love Nashville! This year they hosted a Bowl Game, so most of downtown was closed off to traffic and people were everywhere. The weather was great and we even found a great pancake place this morning by accident on the way out of town. The Pancake Pantry has the best pancakes I have ever had. We got lucky and got seated in only about 20 minutes, but by the time we left the line to get in was around the corner and down the street.

Our boys played some great teams this year, several of which we'd never seen before. The Connecticut Jr. Bobcats were a tough, big team and Russell Stover was great.

Other than a few trips to Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus and a couple local tournaments, our major travel is over for the season and I'm sad. We dig the travel as much as the boys like playing. They are our own little vacations.

Happy New Years to all my fellow Hockey Parents!