Minor hockey needs to grow up
By Letter to the Editor on December 13, 2019.
I have had my two kids in Medicine Hat Minor Hockey Association (MHMHA) for the past five-plus years and have some suggestions. The association is about 1,000 kids and run by volunteers. It’s basically affordable and people are trying their best. But there are some big problems that everyone seems to talk about in rumours because they’re afraid of hurting their kids’ chances at making the next team. Here’s what people are talking about. Minor hockey needs to grow up. Ice: The thing we all complain about the most every year. Nearly every other association has set ice. For example: Midget house 9 p.m. every Monday, Timbits 8-11 a.m. Saturdays, etc. Medicine Hat gives out random schedules each month. No consistency, no stability, no equality, lots of excuses. Oh and can we get the schedule more than two days before the next month starts? Is it really that hard to make a draft for the year with set ice? Evaluations: Does it seem fishy to anyone that a league director or GM is leading an “independent, fair” evaluation but then his son and friends end up on the AA team and the dad is the coach? MHMHA needs transparent, fair evaluations. This shouldn’t be based on who is friends or who is family. Also, it seems MHMHA only wants to evaluate games not skills or practices. Take a look at other cities and know this is narrow-minded. Are we telling our players the only important thing is wins and goals? Not every player shows their full skill during a full-ice novice game on FLC’s Olympic-sized ice. Coaches: How does MHMHA pick coaches? No idea. It’s another closed door friends/family thing. People can “apply” but then it is a big secret. Three years ago my son got a coach who had been suspended the year before. How did that happen? Don’t we need to develop coaches just as much as players? Privacy: Why does MHMHA put the full names of players and their ice times public on Facebook and the website? I tried to find another association that does this and there are few if any (except CAHL and other travel teams). What if I don’t want my abusive ex-husband to know where my kid is at all times? Too bad, MHMHA posts everything publicly. Board: I don’t know much about the board and I don’t go to much meetings. Every year people talk about the “friends and family clause” in the bylaws that lets the chair appoint whoever they want to the board. Why is that a closed door process too? Seems to be the way of MHMHA. Every year we hear how great our teams are doing but how we need to develop more top players. Well, some of the things above would help. A lot of us parents care a lot about hockey and Medicine Hat Minor Hockey Association. Let’s make it better. Jen Nelson Medicine Hat 10-9
Jen, instead of complaining all the time, why don’t you get off of that abused little butt of yours and help out? It always amazes me on the fact that your kind whines and complains at everyone on how poorly they run things. Yet that is all you do, bitch and complain.
Every hockey team I have been a part of, had a mom just like you. I raised two boys single handed and put them through Medicine Hat minor hockey, was it perfect? no it was not. I volunteered every chance I could but raising two boys on my own wasn’t easy.
By the way Jen, my ex wife was very abusive, she was arrested many times for her drunken disorderly conduct. However, this is not the place to discuss this, you write to complain at Medicine Hat minor hockey and throw in that you had a abusive ex. Are you sure you weren’t the abuser Jen? Sure sounds like it.
This woman has hit the nail on the head. There is zero financial transparency, and if you ask about it at all they become extremely defensive. Can we keep in mind that this is a non-profit and should exist to provide opportunities for kids in sport? Instead it has become a popularity contest and is all about who you know. What Jen has written here is what a lot of people are thinking but are too scared to say incase their child is blackballed.
Additionally, just because you cannot coach for the league does not mean that your children don’t deserve to be treated fairly and equally. I was told by someone in Redcliff league that they get calls every single year with parents from Medicine Hat looking to get out because of issues like this. The person said 200 calls, and keep in mind that is just Redcliff, as I can guarantee Irvine gets calls too. If there are only 1000 kids playing and 200 parents want to get out, that means 20% of your base are so unhappy they are looking for alternative ways to go. The leagues blame the parents instead of being introspective and looking for why and how they have contributed to this problem.
Why is it that you have to pay $250 more if you miss registration in June? You can motivate people financially to register early, but $250 is just gouging. Clearly. you can afford to have them play for $250 less than you’re charging, so why not make it $50 or $100.
I shudder to think of how many kids who want to play are unable to for financial reasons. Hockey is so expensive that even KidSport only coverers a very small portion of the fees. They next Sydney Crosby or Wayne Gretzky could be sitting at home in his mom’s basement because she can’t afford the fees. I know multiple people whose children were unable to play because of the cost. Hockey will always be expensive due to expenses like ice time etc, however why can’t they league tell people how much it costs for one player? What are the costs for one player to play? Ask them! They can’t tell you, they don’t know. So how do they set fees if they don’t know the cost per player? Enjoy your custom painted walls in your offices while parents scrape together pennies to pay their fees. Can you say out of touch?
House leagues become more and more obsolete as they add on layers of rep teams to appease parents whose kid’s didn’t make the cut. There are sometimes just three or four teams in house after a certain age, what does that tell you? It completely takes the fun out of the good old fashioned hockey game, and leaves you with paying an arm and a leg for your kid to play rep hockey because there is no one left in house.
As for the names being posted publicly, it is absolutely true that there are situations with custody and it is unsafe to be making every child’s name and location available to the public. The statistics show that children are most likely to be abducted by someone they know, and statistically speaking it is an estranged parent. Jen is right to worry. What Mr. Black has said above is disgusting. She wasn’t making it about her, she was making a point that it is dangerous to be publicly posting children’s names. You say writing it here isn’t the place to discuss it, but also throwing your business out there… pot meet kettle. She was making a point, Mr. Black is having a tantrum. Also, way to be gross to an abuse victim. Nasty. So nasty. I am truly sorry for the abuse Mr. Black suffered from his ex-wife, but that doesn’t give you license to say these horrific things.
The point is, hockey should be about hockey. Not who you know, not scratching your friend’s backs to serve each other, not building a culture of elitism to serve the few at the expense of many. It is about giving children the opportunity to play the game they love, and somewhere along the line MHMHA has lost their way.