Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Roar wrote:My son plays travel hockey at a Tier 1 level. We shut him down right after his season for a month (except for his private lessons 1x per week) and let him enjoy Lacrosse. I found that he's way more refreshed when he comes back to the ice vs. the year round kids.

If you think you're kid might miss out on making the upper team by not playing in the spring league, sometimes the opposite is true. The kids flaws get noticed during spring and it can taint the coaches vs. the kid who comes in fresh at the tryouts and looks like the shiny new object.

I also worry about wear/tear on joints and burnout, so letting them play something different is really great. A couple of years ago, Syracuse had a lax midfielder who was also Mr. Ohio in hockey. Syracuse coach commented on how much he loved that because 2 sport athletes can balance/time and pressure really well.

There is far more synergy between hockey and lacrosse versus many other second sports. I get what you are saying, but the sports are so complimentary to each other that lacrosse should almost be required by any ice hockey player.

This comment reminded me of what one of my college classmates - a sprinter from Jamaica - said while watching his first college lacrosse game. He said, "I get this sport ... its just hockey in the air"

Anonymous wrote:

Roar wrote:My son plays travel hockey at a Tier 1 level. We shut him down right after his season for a month (except for his private lessons 1x per week) and let him enjoy Lacrosse. I found that he's way more refreshed when he comes back to the ice vs. the year round kids.

If you think you're kid might miss out on making the upper team by not playing in the spring league, sometimes the opposite is true. The kids flaws get noticed during spring and it can taint the coaches vs. the kid who comes in fresh at the tryouts and looks like the shiny new object.

I also worry about wear/tear on joints and burnout, so letting them play something different is really great. A couple of years ago, Syracuse had a lax midfielder who was also Mr. Ohio in hockey. Syracuse coach commented on how much he loved that because 2 sport athletes can balance/time and pressure really well.

There is far more synergy between hockey and lacrosse versus many other second sports. I get what you are saying, but the sports are so complimentary to each other that lacrosse should almost be required by any ice hockey player.

Roar wrote:My son plays travel hockey at a Tier 1 level. We shut him down right after his season for a month (except for his private lessons 1x per week) and let him enjoy Lacrosse. I found that he's way more refreshed when he comes back to the ice vs. the year round kids.

If you think you're kid might miss out on making the upper team by not playing in the spring league, sometimes the opposite is true. The kids flaws get noticed during spring and it can taint the coaches vs. the kid who comes in fresh at the tryouts and looks like the shiny new object.

I also worry about wear/tear on joints and burnout, so letting them play something different is really great. A couple of years ago, Syracuse had a lax midfielder who was also Mr. Ohio in hockey. Syracuse coach commented on how much he loved that because 2 sport athletes can balance/time and pressure really well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this area, kids who play a sport only at the recreational level will have great difficulty making the varsity team at the big public high schools and the larger private/Catholic high schools.

There are some exceptions of course. For instance, there are always a few recreational team coaches i any rec league that are as good at training players as the typical travel team coach. And some recreational leagues provide tiered levels of competition which can largely mimic the competition found at the middle to lower levels of a travel sport and thereby challenge even the best rec players and teams. Those are pretty unique circumstances, however, and if you are not playing rec for a talented knowledgable coach and at the top of a tiered rec league, your kid is falling further and further behind his/her travel team peers each season.

I think this depends greatly on the particular sport. If you are a good enough athlete and are blessed with size and speed sports like basketball and football, track (possibly), cross country, wrestling can be played in HS without tremendous travel experience.

Baseball, soccer and LAX, to a lesser extent, require more experience but is largely dependent upon the player pool.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this area, kids who play a sport only at the recreational level will have great difficulty making the varsity team at the big public high schools and the larger private/Catholic high schools.

There are some exceptions of course. For instance, there are always a few recreational team coaches i any rec league that are as good at training players as the typical travel team coach. And some recreational leagues provide tiered levels of competition which can largely mimic the competition found at the middle to lower levels of a travel sport and thereby challenge even the best rec players and teams. Those are pretty unique circumstances, however, and if you are not playing rec for a talented knowledgable coach and at the top of a tiered rec league, your kid is falling further and further behind his/her travel team peers each season.

I think this depends greatly on the particular sport. If you are a good enough athlete and are blessed with size and speed sports like basketball and football, track (possibly), cross country, wrestling can be played in HS without tremendous travel experience.

Baseball, soccer and LAX, to a lesser extent, require more experience but is largely dependent upon the player pool.

PP, here and yes my comments were directed towards team sports where year round travel teams operate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this area, kids who play a sport only at the recreational level will have great difficulty making the varsity team at the big public high schools and the larger private/Catholic high schools.

There are some exceptions of course. For instance, there are always a few recreational team coaches i any rec league that are as good at training players as the typical travel team coach. And some recreational leagues provide tiered levels of competition which can largely mimic the competition found at the middle to lower levels of a travel sport and thereby challenge even the best rec players and teams. Those are pretty unique circumstances, however, and if you are not playing rec for a talented knowledgable coach and at the top of a tiered rec league, your kid is falling further and further behind his/her travel team peers each season.

I think this depends greatly on the particular sport. If you are a good enough athlete and are blessed with size and speed sports like basketball and football, track (possibly), cross country, wrestling can be played in HS without tremendous travel experience.

Baseball, soccer and LAX, to a lesser extent, require more experience but is largely dependent upon the player pool.

Anonymous wrote:In this area, kids who play a sport only at the recreational level will have great difficulty making the varsity team at the big public high schools and the larger private/Catholic high schools.

There are some exceptions of course. For instance, there are always a few recreational team coaches i any rec league that are as good at training players as the typical travel team coach. And some recreational leagues provide tiered levels of competition which can largely mimic the competition found at the middle to lower levels of a travel sport and thereby challenge even the best rec players and teams. Those are pretty unique circumstances, however, and if you are not playing rec for a talented knowledgable coach and at the top of a tiered rec league, your kid is falling further and further behind his/her travel team peers each season.

Anonymous wrote:Our 6th grade old loves basically all sports and plays a lot of them. He isn't the very best on any of his teams, but seems to be within the top quarter, and the coaches always say he's a strong athlete and should be doing more of x sport (whatever the sport is they are coaching) and he could really excel, has so much potential. He loves them all and can't seem to choose to give one up, so he ends up doing them all on a rec level, with multiple sports per season, and seasons start to overlap. Of course, we want him to enjoy his sports and don't want to take that away just because it's not on a certain track that other kids are on -- on the other hand, we don't want to hurt his chances of excelling at a certain sport by not playing travel and practicing a lot which seems to lead to specialization and high school teams.
Any advice from those with older kids? Athletic kids who have done a variety of sports for longer than most but still played high school sports? we keep meeting families whose kids are specializing in one sport year round younger and younger. Thanks.