Being a Hockey Parent

[E.J.]

Ended up borrowing some skates from a friend of mine with two kids playing(one just a year older than my youngest).

I was chatting in the driveway before we left and the Terrorist decided that she needed to try on the skates in the truck.... The back of the center console in the front seat now is a reminder of her first pair of hockey skates....

[Ahbroody]

Arent they great: r
Sorry only skates I had close were 10.5 Did the shop you went to have any reeboks? My experience woth them was they are similar cut in the youth size just like in adult size to the Tacks. There is/was a pair of size 11y ccm externos which is the same style boot also on ebay. Micah has been using the roller hockey externo skate with no issues also. I not a fan of the blade holder on these, but the boot is a tank

CCM EXTERNO E10 Ice Hockey Skates Chld / Youth 11

Link:http://cgi.ebay.com/CCM-EXTERNO-E10-...QQcmdZViewItem

[Ahbroody]

http://www.brunoshockeyshop.com/coll...supra-370-tyke
If you are thinking about the u+ for the price these are so much better.
Micah loves them. Dont forget to have the proshop wedge the back. Tyke skates are way to nuetral. Best thing I ever did for micah was instal wedges. Forced him to have a deep knee bend. I bought mine from a shop in upstate NY but cant find the link, about the same price. The boot runs real big though, so an 11 is probably an 11.5.

Will post pics later incase you are not familiar with wedges. It improved his stride and speed so much.

[E.J.]

Originally Posted by Ahbroody

Will post pics later incase you are not familiar with wedges. It improved his stride and speed so much.

Not familiar with this....so let me know...



HAD SO MUCH STINKING MUCH FUN TODAY! First time ever on the ice with gear. She looked to be in over her head to begin and I was questioning my letting her get out there. But half way through, she was doing great.







They scrimmaged at the end and she put the only one in the back of the net for her team... I caught the sequence right here. She was pretty excited & proud of herself.... Not near as excited and proud as her Dad...

[Prefy]

That's some good stuff right there!

I especially like the guy without the socks on

Awesome pics!

[Ahbroody]

Awesome Pics.



Wedging is when they place a shim under the boot on top of the blade holder in the back, the wedge is a little hard to see sorry. The easiest way to understand this is to lift your heals off the ground. your body will want to bend the knees to keep a good center of balance. Thats what it does. You can have the blades profiled instad, but with little kids skates its a bad idea as they will grind off a lt of blade and there is not a lot of blade to begin with. Its better to find a good proshop have them wedge and radius the skates and only take them to them. The other thing to note is that on childs skates they generally run an 11ft or more radius vs a 9ft radius. This is done to give the child more stability. More blade surface is on the ice at aany given time. The issue is it leads to a crappy stride when combined with a nuetral profile as the kids dont understand to bend their knees yet. You will see many kids I am sure barely lifting their skates of the ice and instead plodding along. Long story short they will learn habits which will need to be corrected later. Do this tricks them into bending the knees and taking longer strides.

The pic in my avatar is Micah last year at not even 4.5. This was after I had his skates radiused to 9ft then had the wedges put in the back. He went from looking like he was going to fall backwards to a great stride for his age in a few weeks. Well atleast when he cares to skate hard.

I actually keep debating starting a blog regarding some of these things to help out parents in non traditional hockey markets like mine. These are little things but all of them together help the child learn a better stride without trying to explin to them. They just adapt. Stride and foot comfort are two things I spend a lot of time on with Micah. If your feet hurt you dont want to skate. If you cant skate you cant play. With a great stride and comfortable feet you focus on the rest of the game.

OOO and the insert on the top in the pick is a CCM Tack 10.5 Y The insert on the bottom is the Graf 10. It is longer then the 10.5. So what ever you decide if you go with the Graf they do run long. This was an issue for Micah at first, thankfully his feet grew and it solved itself. I and most people I know are strongly against oversized skates for kids because it results in bad stride also.


Sorry for the soap box its a particular passion of mine.

[357]

Thanks Mike. I never really played ice hockey but I want my son to. He turns 5 in November and I want to get him a pair of skates for his birthday. He'll be starting from scratch, and to some degree so will I. This kind of info is a huge help.

Thanks again!

[Eleven]

Originally Posted by 357

Thanks Mike. I never really played ice hockey but I want my son to. He turns 5 in November and I want to get him a pair of skates for his birthday. He'll be starting from scratch, and to some degree so will I. This kind of info is a huge help.

Thanks again!

Do it! Best thing we ever did for our youngest son. If there were Youth Hockey Programs in our area when the 2 older ones were growing up, they would have played as well.

[E.J.]

Originally Posted by Ahbroody

Awesome Pics.



Wedging is when they place a shim under the boot on top of the blade holder in the back, the wedge is a little hard to see sorry. The easiest way to understand this is to lift your heals off the ground. your body will want to bend the knees to keep a good center of balance. Thats what it does. You can have the blades profiled instad, but with little kids skates its a bad idea as they will grind off a lt of blade and there is not a lot of blade to begin with. Its better to find a good proshop have them wedge and radius the skates and only take them to them. The other thing to note is that on childs skates they generally run an 11ft or more radius vs a 9ft radius. This is done to give the child more stability. More blade surface is on the ice at aany given time. The issue is it leads to a crappy stride when combined with a nuetral profile as the kids dont understand to bend their knees yet. You will see many kids I am sure barely lifting their skates of the ice and instead plodding along. Long story short they will learn habits which will need to be corrected later. Do this tricks them into bending the knees and taking longer strides.

The pic in my avatar is Micah last year at not even 4.5. This was after I had his skates radiused to 9ft then had the wedges put in the back. He went from looking like he was going to fall backwards to a great stride for his age in a few weeks. Well atleast when he cares to skate hard.

I actually keep debating starting a blog regarding some of these things to help out parents in non traditional hockey markets like mine. These are little things but all of them together help the child learn a better stride without trying to explin to them. They just adapt. Stride and foot comfort are two things I spend a lot of time on with Micah. If your feet hurt you dont want to skate. If you cant skate you cant play. With a great stride and comfortable feet you focus on the rest of the game.

OOO and the insert on the top in the pick is a CCM Tack 10.5 Y The insert on the bottom is the Graf 10. It is longer then the 10.5. So what ever you decide if you go with the Graf they do run long. This was an issue for Micah at first, thankfully his feet grew and it solved itself. I and most people I know are strongly against oversized skates for kids because it results in bad stride also.


Sorry for the soap box its a particular passion of mine.

That is neat... I have never even heard of that....

You should start a blog, that is a great idea.....

[Eleven]

One of our teams Dads works for a video company, and has access to a real nice camera. Here is one shift from a couple weeks ago, it just happens to have my kid in it


#88

[E.J.]

Originally Posted by Eleven

One of our teams Dads works for a video company, and has access to a real nice camera. Here is one shift from a couple weeks ago, it just happens to have my kid in it


#88

Great stuff Scott!

[Ahbroody]

So on Saturday Mich says the words never want to hear. " Dad can I play soccer?" Damn near drove the car off the road. I explained to him that Saturday is for hockey so he couldn't make the games. Hopefully that holds him till baseball season starts. As further insurance I decided to introduce him to a new sport this week. Lacrosse.



Awesome sport for developing hand eye and puck control skills. He had a goodtime but the coach made him take off the hockey gloves because of the thumb locks in hockey gloves. A few minutes later is scruming with the big kids for a lose ball and gets a cut on his little finger. Couple of tears, but wants to go again next week. Friggin Lacrosse gloves are not cheap, but its better then soccer.

[357]

I'm with you there Mike!!! Lacrosse is a good sport. Tough too.

[Eleven]

Originally Posted by Ahbroody

Friggin Lacrosse gloves are not cheap, but its better then soccer.

Whew! Close one. Our boys play soccer for fun at dry-land sessions, and his baseball team did the same. But as for actually playing soccer, I am glad my son is past that phase!

Not to bash on soccer, MLS and FIFA are ok, but youth soccer is the butt of many a joke in our neck of the woods.

[357]

Originally Posted by Eleven

Whew! Close one. Our boys play soccer for fun at dry-land sessions, and his baseball team did the same. But as for actually playing soccer, I am glad my son is past that phase!

Not to bash on soccer, MLS and FIFA are ok, but youth soccer is the butt of many a joke in our neck of the woods.

All too often the joke here is that kids play futbol until their old enough to play football. At that point soccer becomes a distant memory.

[E.J.]

Originally Posted by Ahbroody

So on Saturday Mich says the words never want to hear. " Dad can I play soccer?"

....I came VERY close to covering my computer monitor with coffee....


Those pics look familiar...

[Eleven]

Your pictures are always great EJ, what kind of set up do you use?

[E.J.]

Originally Posted by Eleven

Your pictures are always great EJ, what kind of set up do you use?

Thanks.... I use a Canon 30D w/ a Canon 70-200 2.8 attached for almost all the sports shots....

A bit of an impulse buy about 5 or so years ago due to frustration with the photos I was getting at the rink.... That said, it has ended up being a great purchase.

[Ahbroody]

Nice pics. We have an NIKON SLR but my wife takes it to work and I am generally not allowed to play with it as I break things.

Yeah I almost spit my soda out when Micah asked about soccer. We live across from a school so every Saturday he sees people playing. Some of the kids on his team had a soccer game afterwards which is where he got the idea from. Hoping we have our 3 sports locked up. nothing against soccer fans just don't love the game

[E.J.]

Once of my favorite lacrosse shots....