Are kids having fun?

[Nostalgic Nerd]

I posted this at the boys MB too. Great topic on how were raising our young players. Any thoughts?<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://p100.ezboard.com/fmnhsfrm45.show ... opic">keep it fun</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p>"Dream as if you'll live forever; Live as if you'll die today." --James Dean</p><i></i>

[Nostalgic Nerd]

Another excellent read from these message boards. The second column isn't necessarily hockey as it is the decline in athletic participation.<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://p100.ezboard.com/fmnhsfrm45.show ... ic">Demise of rink rats</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/ ... .html">The shrinking pyramid</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>" We see the pervasiveness of the problem in our schools. Mandatory physical education is a hit-and-miss proposition depending on your state or locality. According to Jack McCallum's April 24, 2000, article in Sports Illustrated on the decline of PE, only 26% of American kids get daily physical education. Many of the places that do have PE seem to have forgotten the whole point of PE. A PE teacher once told me that they got rid of the old presidential physical fitness tests because some kids could not succeed at the various challenges. By the same reasoning, we should eliminate math beyond pre-algebra, we can forget about literature beyond Dr. Seuss, and why even begin to describe the wonders of the atom?!<br><br>Kids do not do push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, timed runs, or anything remotely connected to developing physical fitness (composed of, in order of importance: endurance, strength/speed, flexibility, agility, and eye-hand or eye-foot coordination). Instead, PE teachers have become over-compensated recess monitors, while kids play such challenging games as mat-ball (a tamer version of slaughterball) and scarf-juggling.<br><br>The abdication of PE by schools not only has contributed to the decline in general fitness it has also meant that fewer kids are identified in PE as talented. Coaches used to mine the PE classes for kids with above average cardiovascular ability to fill up their teams. Without this resource, fewer kids are going to be encouraged to participate.<br><br>Outside of school we also see this decline in youth sports. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association website, teenage participation in informal traditional sports has declined. In contrast, there has been a big increase in newer athletic activities like skateboarding and in-line skating, and an increase in organized team sports. However, these increases have not made up for the drop in general sports activity, and an increase in skateboarders does not portend a bright future for the development of world-class runners, swimmers and bicyclists. The summary of the report states: "Of the 28 activities for which data exist for both 1990 and 2000, participation declined in 15 of them. When we factor in the 20% growth in the teenage population that occurred during the decade, we see that 21 of the 28 most popular sports actually lost ground in terms of attracting teenage participants."<br><br>We know the causes for this societal decline: computers, video games, television, fattier foods, and the lousy PE curriculum briefly described above. If the smart folks who make their living from selling sporting goods cannot seem to budge the numbers in the right direction, what chance have we amateurs at getting kids to set aside the Gameboy?<br><br>Some sports have made good progress in making their sport more consumer-friendly, but have not reversed the trend. For example, tennis has developed much more enjoyable methods and surroundings to learn the game than when I learned with an old wood racket in my tennis whites. Kids get to wear their choice of clothes, have easy to use rackets and attend classes with much more interesting instructional methods. U.S. Tennis and the industry have spent lots of money getting kids to try out the sport. And yet, ball sales are down and it is easy to find an open tennis court.<br><br>When I see a sport like tennis�with the money, role models and built-in fun�fail to reverse the trend, it worries me about the prospects for such hard-work sports as running, swimming and bicycling. And these sports each have their additional challenges. For example, U.S. Swimming's magazine Splash had a recent article on the struggle against male body embarrassment to keep boys in the sport. It seems that boys do not like to wear speedos and they hate to be beaten by girls (who develop earlier). Bicycling has safety and equipment costs. Running has soccer and now lacrosse pulling prime athletes away.<br><br>If you take it as a given that we are trying to swim upstream by improving elite performance while the number of entering athletes declines, the strategies change from an earlier era that had an abundance of kids willing to try our sports. In that earlier era, you could have a whole range of coaching from early high-intensity to a more gentle approach through all of the teen years. It did not matter much in developing a high number of elite athletes because so many entered the fray. From an elite athlete production viewpoint, we did not have to worry about the burnout rate (I agree with Scott Molina that this is mostly a psychological issue).<br><br>However, with fewer highly talented kids, indeed fewer participating kids period, the coaching and career development have to be smarter. Coaches should take as great care of their young charges (much as Mel Gibson took care of his gasoline in Mad Max). Indeed, coaches should adopt the Hippocratic oath�first, do no harm. This, of course, should have been the creed even back in our heyday of the 60s and 70s, but the macro-impact of a careless approach to coaching was not felt because of the sheer volume of talented kids.<br><br>This argues against high volume, especially at young ages. It argues for keeping the sports as fun as possible while still providing enough work so that the talented kids can begin to shine. When they start to shine, that is when they will get motivated and become passionate about their sport. Steady increases in volume then lead to improved performances.<br><br>It is exactly backwards to start with a strategy of higher volume. Volume in endurance sports means more work. Work is the opposite of fun for kids. Peruse any one of the many books out on the problems in youth sports, such as Why Johnny Hates Sports, and the number one reason kids give for dropping a sport is that it ceased to be fun and there was too much adult pressure." <p>"Dream as if you'll live forever; Live as if you'll die today." --James Dean</p><i></i>

[keepitreal]

These are great threads. As mentioned in the demise of the rink rat thread, I think a major problem is the culture of fear we live in. When I was a child I would disappear all day and most nights after school to the local rink and no one gave it a second thought. My childhood was filled with hours-upon-hours of shinny at the local rink, no matter how cold. Rinks would be filled with 30-40 kids in one game. Little kids would play alongside the big kids and get their butts kicked, but it made them better and tougher players. Eventually they grew up and the cycle continued. Indoor ice was precious, so we would make up for it in the winter and hunt out small ponds on the local par 30 that would freeze as early as Thanksgiving. It might have been ten below on Christmas morning, but I have vivid memories of being alone on a fresh sheet with a stick and one puck, and it was heaven.<br><br>Maybe it's different in Warroad or Roseau, but today, I know of few people, myself included, that would let my young children go to a neighborhood park unattended. That's a major reason why outdoor rinks are empty, creativity is suffering, and the one-hour timeclock and pressure to run a "efficient" structured practice is taking the fun out of it. It's a terrible state of affairs. <br><br>The best and happiest players I see now are those who have, or live in close proximity to, a backyard rink where kids can play for hours at a time without a parent fearing their face will end up on a milk carton. <p></p><i></i>

[FACMAN]

keepitreal,<br><br>Awesome post. Those are my memories to a tee. I also think your last two paragraphs are right on. <p></p><i></i>

[ghshockeyfan]

This is so true. Not only the memories, but the state of affairs today. I think my age group may have been some of the last metro kids to grow up spending all that time at the rink, on the ponds, all the time. It just doesn't happen anymore. I'm saddened to drive by the rink where I spent countless hours skating as a youth, only to see it empty, and have watched as the ice rarely gets used. Without that type of ice & opportunity, we wouldn't have the game we have today in this state I don't believe. It's really sad to see.<br><br>On the creativity side and playing with older/bigger/stronger/better kids, that was what it was all about. You got better, so much beter, as a result of that. It's what I remember most about my hockey as a youth (notice I don't say "youth hockey" as that's all so structured now...).<br><br>I know that some initiatives have been taken to try to address these concerns at the highest levels. Unfortunately what it will take is a grass roots effort and also I don't know if we will ever get back to the way it was when we as a society could trust letting our kids go to the rink alone. Sad I think, but it's true.<br><br>What also sickens me to no end though is the amount of ice that sits unused at some indoor arenas. And on that note, I have to say that the single greatest improvement I ever saw from a team I coached came as a result of using some of that unused ice. I was able to talk one of my assistants into getting a job at an area rink one year, and he was able to get us in whenever the ice was empty. We made this optional and were able to do it for about one year (although we couldn't be involved outside of the summer contact period that year obvioulsy). There was some structure enforced by a couple of the hockey parents, but largely this was shinny hockey on an area indoor ice sheet. The kids would skate late into the night many nights, and the parents trusted them being there as there was supervision, it was inside, etc. this also was a young team in general - in that they didn't have a lot of the social/HS demands on their time. So, they wanted to spend their time playing hockey, just shooting pucks, skating, doing some drills, but mainly playing "pickup" hockey. Some of the older siblings (brothers mainly) played, some kids invited their friends form other teams, it was great. Of course, this was at no cost to anyone, and that made a difference too in this St. Paul City location. It's too bad that more of this can't be done today... <p></p><i></i>

[Nostalgic Nerd]

So about when did the decline begin? I seem to remember even 15 years ago in my local area kids were out there without supervision. Crime has always existed. So why now? <p>"Dream as if you'll live forever; Live as if you'll die today." --James Dean</p><i></i>

[xk1]

Many cities are closing rinks because of lack of use and the cost of running them. They closed the rink in our nieghborhood about 10 years ago, I drove my daughter to a rink in Edina whenever I could but it's not the same as walking up to the rink every day after school, coming home only long enough to have dinner and warm up. <p></p><i></i>

[ghshockeyfan]

Many rinks are closing.<br><br>I believe that the decline started with the Mighty Ducks grant $ and also there was an end of the innocence when Wetterling was kidnapped as far as kids being alone in public. These things seem to coincide with when the decline started. Late 80's through early 90's...<br><br>I believe Roseau/Warrod/Hibbing/etc. leave their indoor rinks open for kids to use like we used to use the outdoor rinks? <p></p><i></i>

[OnFrozenPond]

When I was a kid I was a constant fixture at the parks afterschool and on weekends. I walked about 10 blocks with my buddies. I loved the warming houses and the park culture. It was a civilization all of its own.<br><br>In addition to the stated dangers of leaving children alone today, the fastest speed limit I had to deal with was 30 mph on a residential street. My kids have to cross and walk along 50 mph traffic to get to the nearest rink. We are forced to drive them. It's not a big deal, but it is limiting. Second, when I was a kid, we had practice (Outside) two to three times a week. Between games, practices, tournaments and scrimmages, my son has had over 90 hours of Indoor hockey. That kind of schedule cuts into the park time. <p></p><i></i>

[Nostalgic Nerd]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I believe Roseau/Warrod/Hibbing/etc. leave their indoor rinks open for kids to use like we used to use the outdoor rinks?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>No wonder why they are always in it. <p>"Dream as if you'll live forever; Live as if you'll die today." --James Dean</p><i></i>

[ghshockeyfan]

I think that the indoor ice (90 hrs) cuts into the outdoor. I agree. I had probably 200+ practice hours this year w/my HS kids, but they still wanted to go skate outside. that's the mark of a true hockey player I think. Some though have never even been outside on ice! That's a shame! And others yet have no exposure to the game at all as it has become an elite activity I think in this respect.<br><br>One thing that I think too is an issue is technology. So many kids are playing video games, watching 100's of channels of TV/Movies/etc. on demand, are on the internet all the time, etc. In this respect, this is a bad thing I think.<br><br>And - if you take away all the travel, etc. to prep for going to those 90 hrs of practice time you could likely get 3 times that if you had a rink within walking distance for your child and they were safe there... <p></p><i></i>

[OnFrozenPond]

You look at other factors as well. Mom use to be home when the kids got home from school. They could grab their skates and go. Today so many kids have to stay at after-school programs or daycare while both parents work. By the time everyone is home, it is dark. <p></p><i></i>