It's not so awesome, actually....
 

When you have a very determined 10 year old who decided to take up hockey in January despite not being a strong skater, who has worked very hard to be good enough to play on a team, has attended a checking clinic and a draft skate and is all excited about finding he is good enough and that teams will be announced in a couple of days .....and then you find out that they changed the practice day without telling anyone.

They apparently did notice that there was a "typo" on the website some time last week (a couple of months after registration happened), and it said Wednesdays when it should have said Thursdays ....and so they "fixed" that. But they didn't announce the "fix" or change the printout on the office door, or the official start date, which is still a Weds (14th)

It particularly sucks when said 10yo is also on a soccer team. Which practices on Thursdays. And his dad is a coach and there are only 9 kids (7 players + 2 subs), so dropping out would hurt others. And of course NOW it's too late to move practice. Weeks ago, that could have been a possibility.

Maybe he could attend soccer games but no practice. Well yes, but he will need a ride there and if his dad is still coaching he cannot provide that... Being new to hockey and this being the season checking is introduced/allowed, no hockey coach worth his salt or mother worth theirs would allow him to play games without attending practice.

So it seems we have a choice between having paid out $300+ for a sport the boy loves and desperately wants to do but cannot, or letting down the team in the boys other favorite sport -the team he has been with for 6 years -and still paying $100 for that.

If karma works, then we're all destined for glory because no way have any of us been bad enough to date to deserve this shit.

Man, that sucks. Sorry monster.

WEll, it sucks all right, but in my very humble opinion:

Let the boy play what HE wants. I wasn't that good at basketball, but I played from 4th grade until senior year. I loved it so much I worked SO hard at it, and was always complimented on my 'hustle.' I won the Viking Award senior year (prestigious, given to the team member who exemplified teamwork and spirit and attitude) because I stayed on the team and went to every practice (hopping and shooting from on the side baskets) and dressed for every game even though I was sidelined by a severe knee injury...it was still my team. I got in one game for 15 seconds before my knee blew out again.

My point is, I loved it, and wanted to excel, and it taught me so much about working within the confines of things I wasn't so good at and things I was, and taught me how much my effort and loyalty could pay off in important ways.

Just mho. :)

On the other hand, my younger brother coaches his daughter's basketball and softball teams, and he gets so much out of that experience. So, that part really sucks. :(

he wants to do both.

I'm sorry. :(

Well, I've been checking around and I was right, no-one else knew about the day change either, so I'm hoping beyond hope that It annoys enough other people that they fix it properly.

Three little words can solve everything...


Soccer On Ice!

:D

(but please don't call it Hocker cuz that's just gross)

Excellent. Nothing like an angry mob of parents to get things done. Seriously.

names have been changed to protect the guilty, here's the reply I got. Bolding and italicizing mine.


Monster,

I sincerely apologize for the misprint on the website that was posted originally. Unfortunately changing our schedule at this point is not an option. Your right many families do run tight schedules with multiple sports running simultaneously and with siblings playing different sports. There will be kids missing hockey to play soccer, football, and baseball which is typical for this time of year. There was not a change from the original plan thus no announcement was necessary, it was human error on the website.


Again at this point all I can do is apologize and offer a refund of $205 for the program if you wish to drop. Please let me know asap as we draft teams tomorrow and I would like to know if your son will be participating so we can place him.


Wanker

Damn, that sucks. I've also experienced the schedule change/conflict problem, since I have 2 kids with busy schedules. Wrestling and Boy Scouts were a major conflict . . . but we knew that going in. It really bites to have them change it mid-way through. We've had problems with cheer/gymnastics, cheer/Girl Scouts, cheer camp/summer camp, yadda yadda. Always a problem signing your kid up for something when the schedules aren't nailed down ahead of time. I always wonder how other people do it, not knowing. Don't their kids have stuff going on too?

So I'm guessing that the deal is this - the coach wants it on Thursday and at some point he saw the site and thought "oh shit, Weds is no good for me! I have my small penis support group on that night . . ." and he figured that if he claimed it was that way all along, everyone would just go along with him and be embarrassed for being out of the loop.

If I were you, I'd get in touch with all the other parents, get them all riled up about the day change, and en masse threaten to quit unless he sticks by the original practice day.

If this is not possible, unfortunately, you're going to have to quit hockey and take the refund. Good thing they're offering a refund. Yes, it sucks, but life isn't always fair. :(

A little OT but my bro had the same situation, except that he simply wasn't good enough at his chosen sport, football (soccer) even to be a sub for the second team.

So the school made him a "reporter". Bless. He got to go to all the games, and feel like he was a part of things, then wrote them up when he got back. He was damn good too, in fact for a while I was worried he might go into sports journalism. Worried because I was supposed to be the writer in the family.

Mons, that is truly a sucky situation. No advice, just sympathy for a boy who's learning early that life isn't fair.

Tragedy defined! Sorry man, thats real awful situation:thepain3:

That is a really crappy situation. That coach is completely disorganized, so this is probably just a precursor of what you could expect if you went with the hockey. I'm not going to say you're better off without him, because clearly this sucks for Hector (we're talking about Hector, right?) But this coach is bad news so it's not all bad that you won't be spending a lot of time with him.

yeah, well a few (fairly unpleasant) email exhanges later, he's doing the hockey because he's decided that's what he really wants to do. And now I've made myself extremely unpopular there so i hope to hell we can find somewhere else for the fall. this is a different place from where Thor plays -the place we already left once, but Thor's place doesn't (yet) cater for Hector's age group.

I asked the coach to forward my response to that email to the rest of the board -which he did, so if there's a decent one among them, hopefully it won't happen again. The thing is, in organizations like this (and I have shitloads of experience running organizations like this) it never hurts to tell people stuff you think they should already know. Sure, they'll think your incompetant an unorganized, but the program will run smoothely because everyone will know what they need to know.

:mad: :(

I don't mind dealing with known schedule clashes -we do have a lot of activities, they required juggling and we're pretty goddamn practiced at it, but huge problems like this THAT COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED really piss me off. And the coach had the temerity to imply I ws a tosser for enrolling my kid in two sports on the same day. hello? HELLO? Anyone home? tit. that is all. maybe.

:(

sometimes only an emoticon will do! :lol:

OK here's an update..... we got the draft and found out the two kids from a different school who are on his soccer team..... ARE ALSO ON HIS HOCKEY TEAM. Now what? They also pick hockey over soccer. Poor soccer boys.

On the sorta plus side, the other soccer coach is also a hockey coach with that organization and has 4 kids who skate with that organization, so he knows what assholes they are.... but it doesn't help the team. And none of them are skating/coaching spring season.

Smells to me like the original schedule was always Wednesday, but "someone" has decided they prefer Thursdays, and so announced the "correction".

I hesitate to accuse someone of abuse of power when they are, I presume, volunteering to run kids' sport, so I'll just say that, whoever they are, they're a jerk.

The soccer coach -bless his heart- fixed up a Wednesday practice (and is now trying to dump the Thursday practice -sorry, people who like Thursdays).

Hector survived his first hockey practice. Just. Now we have a home game Sunday, away Monday night, away Wednesday night and then practice again Thursday. Talk about starting with a bang!

I am so glad those days of parenting are over and about to end. This Sat is my youngest dau prom. Graduation in May and then off to college in the fall. Just have to sell this house move and don't send any of them our change of address card. :p

My parents tried that, merc. It didn't work. ;)

In fact, when I graduated from college, I told my mom "well, you know, a lot of young people are opting to live with their parents for a couple years."

My mom replied "well, a lot of parents aren't GIVING that option." :lol:

We aren't either... unless in cases of short term duress. I figure if I sell this house and buy a 2 bedroom, we have 5, there won't be anyplace for them to stay, well maybe in the back yard in a tent..

Yes, and I knew, as I'm sure your kids know, that if I really needed them they would have taken me in. :)

Parenting never ends.

Ha, this wasn't the thread I was looking for, but it will do.

So, for those who don't know, Hector survived spring season ...and then decided he wanted to be to be a goalie.

The new house director and one of the main goalie coaches are members of our summer pool, so they kitted him out and we got him on ice twice a week in the summer, practicing as a goalie. The goalie coach said "let's dress him, stick him between thepipes and we'll soon know. They take a couple to the cage and they either come off crying or grinning like a nutter. the latter is goalie materia"l. We had the latter sort of child. We had a goalie candidate.

Then they did the draft in Sep, and we ended up on the same team as the house program director (yay) and his best buddy, the former house program director, our friend wanker, much quoted above. :lol:

We managed to bury the hatchet and are getting on OK -and he's the coach responsible for the goalie i.e. Hector during games. He's realized I'm a responsible, involved, intelligent asset of a parent, and I've realized he now understands that and won't fuck with me again! :lol: ;)

So all's well that ends well...

But what I was looking for was an appropriate place to post an update on Hector's goalie-ing. He played awesomely last night and tonight, but tonight's game was special because it was against one of the other teams from our rink, his Spring season coach's team. And the one the goalie coach's kid is on.

Tonight, after the game, he made a point of coming over before he spoke to anyone else -even his son- and said "Monster, you have a goalie". Hector was that fucking awesome.

/proudbraggingparent

Awesome.

When he plays at Nationwide Arena for the Blue Jackets, I'll get tickets!

Congrats Monster and Hector!!!

I wish we could wiggle out of daughter's cheer squad . . . it's awful. And I have to take her to Indy next week. Blah.