As parents with very little hockey ability or knowledge, we find ourselves a little apprehensive about encouraging our children to learn how to skate and eventually play hockey.
For many parents, youth hockey was never something that was readily available when we were growing up. There was football, basketball, baseball........then everything else. The extent of our hockey experience was watching Wayne Gretzky dominate opposing teams.
If our parents wanted to take us skating, they would need to drive an hour (one way) to the nearest rink. It just wasn't practical and that seems to be the common reason why parents don't encourage their kids to play hockey.
But as we become adults and our children are old enough to try different sports, we notice that our child loves watching hockey on television. We then buy tickets to an NHL game and find that not only are our children hooked on hockey, we start to become more familiar and more interested in the game. Which naturally leads us down the road of our children wanting to play hockey.
Once you and your child become hooked on hockey, where are you to begin? You have no to little hockey experience. You are not a good skater by any stretch of the imagination. Where do you take him or her to skate? What equipment are you supposed to buy? Is he/she old enough? Those are questions every parent new to hockey asks themselves.
There are parts of the United States where hockey is just now starting to catch on and there are parents in the same position as you. Youth Hockey Guide will outline the potential steps that your child can take from the time they learn to skate, to the time they wear the cap & gown at their high school graduation.
Youth Hockey Guide is built around USA Hockey's American Development Model. It is the backbone by which hockey is taught to children in the United States. Some areas do not follow this model but most major programs around the country do follow it......and so shall we.
DESIRE
The single most important thing to consider when encouraging your child to play hockey is simple. Do they want to do it? If they don't have the desire to learn, they will never be able to play hockey.
Hockey is much different than nearly all other sports due to the fact that skating is involved. If you can't skate, you can't play hockey. If your child doesn't have the desire to learn how to skate, they will never learn how to play hockey.
Some parents are lucky to have children with a built-in desire to learn how to skate and play hockey. It always makes it easier when they have a built-in desire to learn and never had to worry about pushing them into something they don't want to do. If you have to force your child to go to skating/hockey lessons, they probably aren't going to love it. It's really that simple.