How Far Are You Willing To Drive For Sports Practices?

That is very unfortunate about your sons rink closing down I’m sorry! I am entering my senior year in college, I don’t want to give you the idea that I am a parent but I have had A lot of experience with this particular topic. I think there are a few more questions you need to ask yourself also. How old is your son? Does he really have time to find a new sport and be successful at it? Would he even want to find a new sport? Also how many times a week would you have to do the trek? Just to give you another persons story, maybe make you feel a little better. My sport was volleyball, I absolutely loved it! There was no way I would have been able to change sports. However to succeed in volleyball you slmost have to play year round club ball. (of course there are exceptions) This however posed a problem. I was from a small town and the nearest competitive team practiced 45 min. away. Prior to turning 16 that meant that my parents had to drive me there and back 3 or 4 times a week. For me and my family it was worth it. I also new girls on the team that had to drive about an hour and a half to get to practices. In my opinion an hour and a half is a little crazy but to each their own. Talk to your son and see how passionate he really is about hockey and then go from there! Good luck!

This is a very difficult choice and I am so sorry to hear of your son’s rink closing! We have a similar story, but we didn’t have a local rink from the start. Our daughter was an figure skater. She loved it and we simply did not expect her “for fun” group summer lessons to turn into a little dedicated gold medal synchronized figure skater scenario! However, the closest rink to us was 1 hr 40 mins away. We signed her up for summer group skating lessons just for fun as we live on a lake and it is great to know how to skate! We have friends who take their daughter to the same facility and they LOVE it. So we gave it a try. She took right to the ice and within a few short months she was on a synchronized skate team meeting every Saturday and eventually Mondays as well as private lessons on Thursdays that led her to winning a gold medal on her first freestyle solo routine. She also performed at collegiate level hockey games and several competitions. You can imagine our excitement and thrill to see her excel so quickly. However, week after week after week of missing events at home, missing friends’ birthday parties, cancelling appointments and meetings at church and school, not to mention 3+ hours on the road each and every time began to drain all of us. We also have a son and fortunately he was young enough at the time to not be overly involved in his own activities. However, he began to resent having to travel for his sister’s skating and was told no to both soccer and basketball clinics as it conflicted with our previous committments to the skate schedule (this of course would have been different if both activities were local). We were able to divide and conquer at times, but that is simply not always an option and what parent wants to miss either of their child’s big moments? As I am sure you can predict, we finally called it quits. Our daughter even went from absolutely loving skating to “I have fun, but I’m tired of sitting in the car.” Walking away after we all (even our son who made a little friend at the rink whose older sister skates) became attached to the fabulous coaches, other families, and programming was even harder! So my advice to you is… think it through and look a few years down the road. When the hockey gets more intense, will you be able to balance it with the needs of the rest of your family? Will your son miss out on tons of opportunities at home because he is always on a road trip to his sport? Will he struggle with school work because it is too dark in the car to get it done on the way home? For some, like our friends who are still plugging away at skating, it is worth it and workable (esp with only children). However, if it conflicts with the well being of the entire family (not to mention budgets due to gas costs and grades due to so much time away from home with little downtime for homework), think long and hard about how far you can take this… this may be the universe’s way of steering your son in a new direction! Only you, your son, and your family can decide this though! Good luck on making this very difficult decision!!