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[quote=Anonymous]I was a 10-year participant in the Youth-Industrial-Sports-Complex (YISC).  My athlete is now about to start his junior year in college, so its behind me now.  He played at the highest level available locally for his sport (ice hockey). 
 On the whole, the experience was massively positive, both for him and for us as a family.  He learned a ton about teamwork, leadership, advocacy, and (generally) had a very good time doing it.

The one piece of it I really hated was the tendency of people to start talking about (and planning for) "next season" as soon as January rolled around, even though 35-40% of the current season remained.

There was turnover almost every year.  Sometimes it was just a few guys, sometimes it was much, much more.  Plenty of kids left our team for what they thought were greener pastures, which generally meant a better opportunity to advance to play high level junior hockey and/or play in college.  For some of those kids, that meant going to our team's one local rival, for others that meant heading to more distant locales for prep schools or "hockey academies" in places like Boston or Pittsburgh.  Kids starting doing this at age 13, though it really picked up as they hit 15, 16, and 17.  Three years after the end of my kid's youth "career" some of the kids who left have really bloomed and are playing NCAA D1 or D3 hockey (or are committed to teams, which is a much shakier place to be). Some are still grinding away in junior hockey (one kid is playing in northern Alberta!), and some are playing ACHA-level (club-level) college hockey, and some have completely quit playing.

My kid stayed "loyal" to his club through his departure for college, and that helped him develop some (positive) relationships that I think are going to be with him for a long time.  And it used to annoy me when people left for what seemed to me to me no good reason.  But I knew then, and I can appreciate it more now, that decisions were being made in what was thought to be the best interests of their kids.  Whether they were right is a different question, but I think that generally people we acting in good faith.[/quote]

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