On a daily basis there is a lot of the blame on struggling junior hockey franchises that begins at the top of the organization, ownership, GM and then a good majority of the time it’s the head coach, when are we going to start putting some of blame on the parents? Junior hockey at the pay to play level has taken a serious hit over the past couple of seasons with a record number of teams joining and coincidentally folding their respective leagues, the talent level across the board is way down including the Europeans. Just about every player has a pay to play team within 3 hours of their house and most of the time the teams are in different governing bodies (AAU, USA Hockey, USPHL) which allows them to just pick up and leave a team and switch to a different league with little to no repercussion.

Over the last couple of years it has been amazing to see that parents sign a contract for their son to play for a team, everything starts out great, practices are scheduled, gear is handed out and gym schedules are set, then when things don’t go as well for the player, as in not as much ice time (especially power play time) as they thought or in situations where the team struggles to put up a single goal every night, parents feel they don’t need to finish paying their obligation to the team and or to the billet families. The billet families is a different situation for some teams as the player pays their fees directly to the billet, billets are tough to come by, so burning that bridge doesn’t help the team succeed in any way. These billets cook for the boys and include them in their lives all of which costs money, so how can a parent think that it’s ok to not pay these fees? 

As for the team fees, they cover all of the operating costs, ice time, equipment, jerseys, track suits, team bags, hotels, bus fees, pre and post-game meals and so on as ticket sales are not a usual money maker at the pay to play level. Yes, I realize there are teams that do not provide a lot of these things or take the billet money from the players and never pay the billets, but I do know a lot of teams do and it’s nothing for these kids to quit without paying, then walk off with team merchandise and equipment. Much like buying a car, after 3 months of driving it you say, “this car isn’t fast enough or this car gets terrible gas millage and so on”, do you just walk away from your $10,000 loan, my guess is no as the repercussion of your credit score will affect you for the rest of your life. So, doing your due diligence is part of the process in choosing your next (car) or junior team as is fulfilling the obligation when you sign the contract to both the team and your billet family.

Parents are setting their sons up for failure, not only in junior hockey but life. What kind of lesson is taught to your son when things get tough you just pick up and go somewhere else, walk away from your financial obligation and start over? I’d say 90% of the blame falls on the parents and the other 10% falls on the organization who takes a player. Although many teams have taken players from other leagues, you would like to think it’s when a player gets released or simply doesn’t play, in these cases communication between the coaches is essential although rarely done. 

There are countless teams that actually “steal” players away promising more ice time or a guarantee call up to Tier II (which almost never happens), either way I agree something should be in place to stop this altogether. The desperation of putting a full team that can actually can compete is a daily struggle for the majority of nontraditional hockey markets regardless of the set up you have, again I know this first hand after winning a league championship just one year ago. On 8 or 9 recruiting trips this past summer, I managed just 6 out of town players, in the past, those 9 trips would have landed me 15 or so players. 

A lot of this has to do with parents and players thinking they are better than what they actually are and all them wanting some kind of discount. While I fully agree a player that returns to a program year after year deserves a certain percentage of a discount each year, does a new player new to junior deserve 50% off tuition, well that’s exactly what coaches are running into. Funny thing is do parents realize the jeopardy they put their sons in at the NCAA level for taking this discount? I have seen it many times where teams are called out for not taking care of their players and their financial obligation, it would be nice to be able to publish a list of players that do not fulfill their obligation and have that readily available to the colleges or other junior teams that are interested in these players, I think that might stop some of it?

In a dream world where hockey was once again about the players, when players were held accountable and worked harder for more ice time, put in the extra work to get better and not a parent who knows next to nothing about hockey tells the coach how things should be done. If a parent stepped in said even one word to a coach back when my generation was playing, you never saw the ice again, they knew better, so there we very few that did. Most of us growing only heard, you need to work harder, a sentiment that is long gone.

Parents, I get it, there are some difficult situations out there, do your homework, once you commit to a team, do just that.