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I have two in hockey and they've played lacrosse in the past. We don't have the luxury of choosing between rec level and travel. Travel hockey is all we have. That means one is in town Saturday at 7:30am while the other is 100 miles away at 9:00am. Sunday may have one at home at 8:30am and the other miraculously at home but it's not until 5:00 pm. Or they're both at tournaments but they're across the state from each other. Oh, and we have the joy of equipping a goaltender so extra $$$.
I can understand the expense in hockey. Ice time is not cheap and it's not something you can improvise with like basketball or soccer. A sheet of ice is required to play so you are forced to pay for what's available. Our club has so many players we bounce between two rinks in the Milwaukee area. I don't understand why lacrosse is so expensive. Besides the gear all you need is open space and some nets.
Hockey is the only sport that everyone in our house is all in on. The kids love to play so they go to power skating once a week during the summer and they go to hockey camp for a week and our goalie goes to goalie camp for a weekend. And we are at the lower end of the commitment scale. A lot of kids play summer league, tournament league, competitive roller hockey, etc. etc. Summer is the time for hubby and I to play .
We can afford it and the kids ask for it. If they burn out they can choose a different activity. They still have plenty of time (and freedom) to ride their bikes around town, play with friends, swim at the lake, etc. etc.
We slow down for the summer and the kids play rec tennis and are casually on the swim team. We don't make great commitments for summer swim.
Oh, my girls are only 8 and 9.
I can understand the cost of hockey due to paying for ice time. Not like there are ice rinks on every corner like baseball and soccer fields. But I can not for the life of me figure out why lacrosse cost so much to play.
I have 2 daughters. Oldest daughter was always, and is still, a passionate basketball player. She asked me to put her in club basketball. I was appalled at the idea of taking a game of the urban streets and throwing money all over it, forcing into our capitalistic mindset, etc (I lean pretty far left anyway). I did put her in some leagues, and I believe we even did a few private lessons, but I refused to do the club basketball thing.
By high school, only the kids who were in club were even considered. My daughter, though talented and proved herself on the court, was not given an equal "shot" (LOL).
For the above reason, I decided when the 2nd daughter got involved in volleyball, I would not make that same mistake twice. My second daughter is even more talented in her sport and I did not want her overlooked. We put her on a travel team to the cost of about $10k/year and about 30 hours per week on tournament weeks, 10-12 on practice only weeks.
The outcome was my youngest lost her passion and no longer plays (I still cry about that- I love love sports)
Still hate throwing money at everything like we do in this country, but also don't want to move from the US and be away from my babies, so I have to suck it up
I can understand the cost of hockey due to paying for ice time. Not like there are ice rinks on every corner like baseball and soccer fields. But I can not for the life of me figure out why lacrosse cost so much to play.
My daughter has been playing club lacrosse for years and I never thought it was that expensive. We paid ~$2k per year, including travel, for two seasons of games and tournaments and offseason training. Soccer, when you factor in travel costs, was actually a lot more than that. And my daughter's soccer team was cheap compared to other teams which had a lot more national travel and probably cost closer to $10k.
I think I shot myself in the foot when I posted this yesterday. Last night we got an email from the club president saying they are switching from 1 practice a week to 2 per week during the offseason. Guess they hired a former pro player/coach which they say will bring our "level of play" up to par with other area clubs.
oh, bummer. But yeah, sounds pretty much like my experience, unfortunately. I thought rec teams were supposed to be about having fun and enjoying the game, with some appropriate guidance to learn how to play it right. But nope, they are just competition teams in disguise now.
I can understand the cost of hockey due to paying for ice time. Not like there are ice rinks on every corner like baseball and soccer fields. But I can not for the life of me figure out why lacrosse cost so much to play.
I think kids sports has been turned into big business. Instead of it being fun and healthy recreation that teaches good life skills it has turned into an expensive years-long program for a chance at a college sports scholarship. Kids do not know how to do unstructured play anymore in some of these cases. Further, a kid has to pick his passion sport when he's practically in Kindergarten these days to be competitive. No longer can someone decide they might want to try basketball in grade 7 or 9 without having already been playing for years - in many cases it is now too late for those kids - and thus you see a growing divide of the have and have-nots when it comes to child sports. Play early and often at great expense, or not at all is what it is becoming for many kids these days.
While a few thousand a year may not seem like much to some, we have plenty of kids on free/reduced lunch where a few thousand is out of the question - even a few hundred is out of the question. Pay to play creates a big divide.
I think kids sports has been turned into big business. Instead of it being fun and healthy recreation that teaches good life skills it has turned into an expensive years-long program for a chance at a college sports scholarship. Kids do not know how to do unstructured play anymore in some of these cases. Further, a kid has to pick his passion sport when he's practically in Kindergarten these days to be competitive. No longer can someone decide they might want to try basketball in grade 7 or 9 without having already been playing for years - in many cases it is now too late for those kids - and thus you see a growing divide of the have and have-nots when it comes to child sports. Play early and often at great expense, or not at all is what it is becoming for many kids these days.
While a few thousand a year may not seem like much to some, we have plenty of kids on free/reduced lunch where a few thousand is out of the question - even a few hundred is out of the question. Pay to play creates a big divide.
Just positive rating is not enough. Yes, this is what I was trying to say. Public school sports should be enough. Colleges don't even recruit from there anymore. High school sports is to "just keep you warmed up" until club sports season comes back around. The only sport where that is not true is football. There may be some real talent out there that is untapped because the single mom working for $10/hr and living in subsidized housing cannot even hope to let her kid play club sports. Just another case where only rich people get to have any sort of hope. Sad.
Wife and I decided that football was not going to be one of our son's sports. Put him into lacrosse instead. Still some contact, but nothing like football.
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