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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the system is totally screwed up and a money-making machine. And I tried not to participate.

But my kid fell in love with ice hockey, and by around age 10 then were no kids left playing house league who could actually skate. It was basically watching kids falling down and not passing, and he’d play the same team every week. And because he was decent, people kept coming to to him and asking him to join various travel teams, and of course he wanted to. He’s 15 now, and none of the parents on his team have delusions of grandeur, but we are a family in many ways because we spend so much time together, and it’s been a lot of fun. (And I do not even drink.) But, even though the experience has been good, I still think the system is super dumb. If everyone abandoned travel, we could be having the same fun minus the travel and the expense.

But to stop the madness, all the parents would have to ban together and just stop buying in at the same time. (I’d certainly do it if everyone else did.). But of course that isn’t going to happen—for the same reason we can’t stop climate change. Once something huge gets rolling downhill, it’s very hard to stop it. Maybe it would be easier to stop it in sports where tons of kids play. But here, even with those sports, the rec leagues are pretty gutted by age 10 or so. If your kid is athletic and improves at any decent clip, you would just be watching them own kids week in and out. It’s not that you even think your kid is getting a college scholarship—it’s that the current system guts the rec leagues and almost forces you to move over. [/quote]

I think “travel” comes in all different flavors, so wouldn’t paint it with a broad brush.

You have soccer, where all the decent kids play travel starting in 1st grade (!!) but it is community-travel so the furthest they’re going is 45 min away. Luckily DS doesn’t like soccer so we bowed out - but it was absolutely painful to see the mismatches at times - one really good kid scored 20 goals on the other team 😂

On the other hand, Ds LOVES baseball and is starting travel next year - its a community based travel league which is actually part of the same organization as the local rec baseball league, so they make all of the travel team players play rec league as well (aside from the top team starting at I think age 10). I think it’s a nice way to balance out the desire for better competition without decimating the local rec league. We’ll see how it goes! And let me tell you, the kids are SO excited to be on the travel team - no one’s parents are forcing them.
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Yeah for hockey we are going as far south as Tampa and as far north as Pittsburgh this year. And this is AA hockey not AAA hockey (AAA flies all over the country). It’s just super dumb. If we all stayed put and created a local/community league, there would be plenty of kids at various levels to play. You could just divide the leagues by skill level just like the adult leagues do. Sure maybe you have some less talented kids with some more talented kids, but every team would. Who cares. We do not need to be so obsessed with churning out elite athletes. [/quote]

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