Forum > General Youth Hockey Info
Youth Hockey Tournaments A Total Waste Of Money
Guest:
--- Quote from: Guest on January 01, 2024, 12:19:30 AM ---We just finished a tier 3 tournament where two of the four teams were tier 1... Guess which teams made the championship game...
--- End quote ---
. that seems to be normal than anything and it seems to be at age levels bantam and below from my experience some coaches are more concerned about having trophies instead of gloving the kids a challenge
Guest:
What is a tier3 tournament? is that for house and scholastic teams?
Guest:
I have coached for the last 3 decades & felt the same way about tournaments as you. I was the head coach and parents FOUGHT with me to go to away tournaments early in my coaching career.
I agree that the season is too long. Making the playoffs for the league was the team goal. If we didn’t make the playoffs, I wasn’t doing any more tournaments.
My rule was no tournaments during Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. We did one travel tournament per season that was more than a 2 hour drive.
As my kids got older, I became an assistant coach on their teams. The head coaches would not do preseason games in the summer, but would do two or three tournaments before the season started in order for the team to bond, and get ready for the league season. We went to Canada and the New England area before the season and played some great teams. It gave us an idea of our talent level. The best part about going early in the season was we didn’t have to deal with snow while traveling.
When all four of my children played their last youth hockey game, we would always reflect on their careers. Not once did any of my children talk about wins, losses, playoffs, championships, etc. What did they talk about? They talked about the fun memories of tournaments and the friends they made from other high schools.
Being involved with youth hockey, as a parent is exhausting. I completely agree. However, now that it is over for us we have so many incredible memories and friends that we wouldn’t have had if it weren’t for Hockey. Try to cherish this time.
Guest:
The hotels would be very angry if people stopped going to tournaments.
Money is better spent on local development at all age groups... not hotel drunkfests around a few conference room knee hockey games and some bad hockey, too.
Guest:
--- Quote from: Guest on June 14, 2019, 09:13:32 AM ---The biggest gripe I have with the tournaments is the parity of the teams in the divisions. All too often I’ve seen tournaments where they don’t have enough teams signed up and the tournament organizers bring in another team that should be playing in a higher division that just rolls over everyone - not fair for the kids who are B players having to play against A teams, or A teams who have to play against AAA/AA teams.
--- End quote ---
Yup driving from NY to Hershey for a St Patty's tournament with our true 18A team to see one team that has played a 18AA/AAA schedule. Do better Travel Champs.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page