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!