By Contributing Author, Lora Rossi of The Hugging Home
In other parts of the world, hockey is a sport.
In my neck of the woods, hockey is a religion.
Take a guess what country I live in, eh? (I’ll give you three guesses but the first two don’t count.)
Yes, yes, just like they say with mucho pride in beer commercials across our nation…
I.
Am.
Canadian.
I also happen to be the mother of three little boys and the sister of two younger brothers.
No daughters.
No sisters.
Not that it really matters these days when it comes to hockey. Boys and girls alike are lacing up their skates and hitting the rink. They want to fit in, after all.
You see…it is not exactly like it was in the olden days when I was young. I took figure skating. My brothers played hockey. They played one game a week and maybe had a few practices in there once in a while. It was pretty simple. My parents managed to have lives outside of the arena.
These days, however, parents here get up before the sun, making sure they have just enough time to make it through the compulsory Tim Horton’s drive-through for their morning jolt of java before the weekend (that continues throughout the entire week!) rigmarole that is the life of a hockey mom or dad.
I am one of these parents.
I currently have two of my three boys in organized hockey leagues (only because my youngest only just turned two.)
My oldest – Julian – is 11 and is in his third year of competitive hockey (after two years of house league and several more before that learning the ropes with his dad on the driveway). Competitive (or “Rep”) hockey can loosely be translated into “hockey for kids of parents who don’t want to have a life outside of a freezing cold ice rink and who don’t want to have any money or vacations because it all goes to tournaments and hotels and gas and special training clinics and game admission tickets and equipment and team hoodies and skate sharpening and ice time and skating camp and sports drinks and dry land training and team leather jackets and enough Tim Horton’s coffee to caffeinate a small country.” Actually, now that I read that back to myself, that is not so loose. That pretty much nails it perfectly.
My 8 year old son Noah plays house league hockey. This brand of the sport is less intense and way less expensive…but it is getting more and more of both with each passing year. House league teams are adding extra practices, dry land training, tournaments and team logo-emblazoned wardrobe items to their schedules and budgets. It’s like training camp for going competitive. Actually, now that I read that back to myself, that is not “like” training camp for going competitive. It is.
And to because of this I ask one, simple question – and pardon my almost-French-Canadian.
“What the puck?!??!?”
I know, I know. No one put a gun to my head and insisted that I put my kids into hockey (unless you count my husband…the gun, of course, being metaphorical.)
But as I said before, it would have been against my religion not to do so and I stand strong in my faith.
All joking aside, I actually really enjoy watching my boys play. I look forward to it in fact.
It is all the frickin’ logistics, time and cash that make me shudder.
More days than not involve figuring out who needs to be at what rink, when and who is going to take them there and pick them up and how are they gonna get fed properly at the appropriate time.
Especially since we went and threw a baby into this crazy mix, our lives have been reduced to a divide, conquer, switch, caffeinate and do it again kind of Canadian tribal interpretive dance.
I have a calendar book dedicated solely to our family hockey schedule. If I look at more than one week at a time my inner stress-o-meter goes totally out of whack sending my brain into a tail-spin.
“How the puck will we do all of this?!??” I ask myself. “We are triple booked 13 times in the next three weeks!!!”
So I break off week-long chunks every Monday and then take on each day in manageable bites. Otherwise I just can’t digest it all. One day at a time, I see what needs to be done hockey-wise along with the other day-to day housework-wise and homework-wise tasks.
The daily “H-trifecta” if you will pretty much consumes my waking hours and before most mornings are done, I have a short conference call with my husband to discuss “The Plan”.
I say “discuss”, but really, it is me basically telling him what he needs to do and where he needs to be and when before day’s end. It may sound something like this: “OK. So today Julian has dry-land training from 6pm until 8pm in Mississauga and Noah has a practice from 5:30pm until 6:30pm in Oakville. I am going to pick up Julian and Noah from school and pick up (Noah’s friend and teammate) Daniel’s equipment at his house because I am taking him this week and his Dad will take them next week on Friday because Julian has a game in Vaughan that same night. I will then go home, pick up Noah’s equipment and shove some food in his face, drop Julian off at your mom’s and then go pick up Daniel from his after-school program and drive to Oakville. Your mom will feed Julian and then grab Drew from pre-school and feed him dinner. Ben (the father of Julian’s teammate – also named Julian) will pick up our Julian from your mom’s at 5:30 and take both Julians to dry-land. You will need to go to your mom’s after work to pick up Drew and bring him home to bathe and get ready for bed. I will drive back from Oakville, drop off Daniel at home and then bring Noah home. One of us – whoever is less cross-eyed at this point – will drive to pick up both Julians at dry-land training, drive the Julian that is not our kid home and then bring ours home. We will then work together to get both Noah and Julian in the shower, in their pyjamas, get some more food into them and into bed. Then we can both collapse and I will talk to you again tomorrow to discuss “The Plan” for…well…tomorrow. Have a great day…bye!”
At this point you may be wondering if I am crazy.
The short answer to that is, in a word, yes.
The long answer involves a “but”. Yes I am crazy…but…my boys love hockey. They love a lot of sports actually…but hockey is the one they currently love to play the most. They love it more than video games and more than watching TV. They never want to miss practice because they are too tired and never let their school grades suffer because they know that if that happens, hockey will go away.
When they get older they may decide that they want to play less hockey and enjoy a number of different past-times. Or…they may continue to focus on hockey as their main extra-curricular activity.
In any case…the choice is theirs as long as they keep their grades up and they are happy. I would rather be warming my hands on my Tim Horton’s coffee cup in a chilly rink than sitting at home wondering what my kids are up to and with whom. I would rather they remain passionate and active than bored and sedentary.
Because, I mean, puck it!
It’s our religion after all…eh?
About the Author: Lora Rossi is the busy mother of 3 boys, wife, writer, blogger, artist, DIYer, certified home stager, non-profit professional and has a passion for connecting with and helping others, especially through the creative arts and the written word. Lora specializes in parenting, family, kids and authentic living. She’s a ruler breaker, a cookie baker, a lawn raker, an earth quaker, a morning waker, an ass shaker, a for heaven saker, a home maker and most of all a hug taker. Check out her blog The Hugging Home.
