Great point. Does Canada do the same thing?

Why not let the kids who play high school hockey (and short season travel), be the only ones starting in August for their shorter season

I’ve some Genesis teams play 80 games between Dhvl, Ejepl, tournaments, and playoffs.  Insane.

The rinks and programs will keep putting things together as long as parents keep buying it.  Keeping up with the Jones’s is very much alive in hockey.

Couldn't agree more. I believe evals should happen at the end of the Summer and games start end of Oct or early Nov. Kids and families get burnt out. For my family it's like a full time job just getting the kids to the rink everyday.

I state this to be factual not argumentative but you are understating the season length of other sports on a travel level.  You are basically citing in house seasons.  My son plays travel baseball.  November and December are the only off months and many teams offer off season training in December.  My nephew plays lacrosse.  It’s pretty close to year round too.  Spring soccer exists.  Youth sports is a business across all sports, not just hockey.

I see the same, if its travel, its essentially year round.  Doesn't make it right but as to another posters comment, if there's money to be made, they'll continue to offer and push year round. 

At least with hockey I can understand the financials of it.... running a rink is expensive and hard to turn a profit so the more activity they have at the rink, the better from a business ownership standpoint (Black Bear or other).  So, if we as parents will pay it, they will offer it.

I have been saying the hockey season is too long for the last 20 years. Happy to hear others feel the same way. However, I agree that most travel sports are almost year round.

The rule in our house was you were not permitted to play ANY sport year round. My oldest played in-house baseball for 4 years. He decided to try travel until he was told he would have to play in-house & travel in the same season which would mean being at the field almost daily. He then decided on rec league lacrosse, but the problem was he would never make the top teams because the coach kept the travel lacrosse players on their rec team together.

When the hockey season ended our boys played lacrosse in the spring. In the summer they took skating lessons. We encouraged them to exercise and do off-ice training on their own if they wanted to improve. They listened to our encouragement.

Years ago I remember speaking to a parent from the Piedmont Predators at a pee wee tournament. I said I was incredibly impressed with the skill level of their team and asked what did they do.

The parent said at the mite, squirt and pee wee levels, the Piedmont Predators followed a 3 to 1 practice to game ratio. Teams would practice 2 days during the week and 1 practice during the weekend and have 1 weekend game. Practices emphasized skating and skills development which was apparent since collectively their team had more skill than our team.

Their tuition was more than our tuition up front, but when you factor in that we did more tournaments it really was the same amount.

In our experience we watched the kids whose parents pushed their children to specialize in any sport year-round usually quit around 13 or 14 because they were developing their own voice.  It was their only opportunity to stand up to their parents.