MIKE'S ICE ADVICE

For the parents who’s kids have been identified by Teams that have entries into the BRICK summer tournament please PAUSE!! People are asking me why PAUSE? The answer is quite simple for some , but at the same time very difficult to comprehend for others.

The TOURNAMENT which is held at the WEST EDMONTON MALL is a fantastic venue to hold a summer tournament of elite 10 year old kids from all over. Toronto has 2 FRANCHISE teams 1-PRO HOCKEY DEVELOPEMENT which was the only team representing basically ONTARIO until 2- TORONTO BULLDOGS got access to becoming another franchise from the area when the 1991 born kids were were entering at that time MINOR ATOM which is now U11.

Ever since that time 24 years ago both franchises have grown in terms of now running it as a bigger type of business. Parents can’t restrain enough to walk away from their kids having a chance to be on one of the teams that plays in the tournament. Bigger type of business means that the cost to have your kids play in the tournament have soared, thus causing some parents to do outlandish things and spend crazy amounts of $$ to have their child on one of the teams.

The US was represented by organizations like HONEYBAKED, CONNETICUT YANKEES , TEAM ILLINOIS. I obviously haven’t followed it very closely, but the word is that the 2 Canadian entries have so many people trying to get their kids on one of the teams that they are actually calling coaches of US based teams for tryout information. I have always been a proponent of Parents can do what they wish and who am I to tell them any different.

The $$ that it costs to play in this tournament I can only imagine are very high, but the thing that people do not realize is that it is the accumulated costs of all the tryouts, and spring tournaments to hopefully get their child selected could be dare I say FUCKING CRAZY!!

If you ask me or my family, we had an opportunity to play in it as our coach was our sponsor for certain kids, and paid our way. We as a family covered the hotel costs, but looking back at the whole picture we couldn’t have afforded the whole trip. Double, triple the cost today and in between costs to have your son/daughter play on one of the 2 TORONTO based teams.

The kids obviously want to play in a tournament like this where it’s a highly coveted event, but in the grand scheme of things, the overall picture is just as muttled as everyone’s else’s is. Unless they change the age where kids go on to play Jr or College then it’s one tournament in the rollodex of many they will play in over the course of growing up.

Don’t lose any sleep if they don’t get selected to play. In my opinion actually thank them, because you will have saved an awful lot of $$, which in turn could pay for let’s say their EDUCATION!!

Good Luck

Mike Tanev

mtanev24@gmail.com