Summer time hockey what are your thoughts? Triple A and or showcases can be costly but yet an eye opener for some.
I call it checkbook hockey but it is summer development if done properly. I just don’t believe as a young player one should be so entrenched in hockey that your player loses out on being a kid.
The whole idea of prospects camps , showcase camps, and main camps in some cases are cash grabs lets be honest. But if you have a young skater and want to see where they compare to others their age then yeah go for it that’s a development thing.
On the flip side I see parents chasing the dream going to camps and waiting to find one that will tell them what they want to hear. This is the wrong way to go about it and honestly in my humble opinion they are not doing their skater justice. Let them fail let them tell you I want to do more but lets not push as a parent every stinking summer camp out there thinking your son or daughter is the next Bobby Orr or Connor McDavid when in reality the kid cant skate or stick handle very well and needs to work on is or her skills on their own.
Granted times are different when I was a kid there were not as many options to play hockey after high school. Now there are pay for play hockey all over the US and Canada. And as a kid I couldn’t afford to go to a development camp much less any prospects camp.
The things about different era was I was able to play summer baseball, go fishing, play some golf, and heaven forbid have a summer job. I am not knocking the way things are now necessarily but I am stressing use the summer for developmental camp but do things on your own as a player. And be a kid because time goes by so fast you never get that back as a youth.
Just a short little note from a former kid now an adult in his mid life age trying to pass along some tid bits on life what mistakes I made and learned from. Yes I wish I could have done some things differently but I am very happy to have made the summer relationships that I mad through just being a kid and doing what kids do. Enjoy your summer and youth and parents enjoy it as well time flies by too fast.
Just a some thoughts from this former Sid the Sieve as I jokingly call myself. Stay healthy my friends!
