Haven't posted on here in awhile, but I needed to vent a little. Why is it that parents think it's acceptable to just drop their 8/9/10 year old son off at a stick and puck and just leave? This has been an on going problem at the rink where I play at for a while now. You pull up for a stick and puck and see a convoy of minivans parked in front with their hatches open, unloading bags, sticks, and kids. Walk into the locker room and there is a dozen pre-teen kids in there. Bags, sticks, helmets, etc scattered everywhere. Kids running around screaming/shooting practice pucks/shoving each other... it's like a ******* daycare in there. When you finally make it out onto the ice, it's a free for all. There's no order to anything. Kids are throwing their sticks around, fighting with each other,playing inside the nets, it's completely ridiculous. What's worse, i out look into the bleachers and there is on average one or two people up there. That tells me that these kids are here completely unsupervised. The other day it came to a head. All of the pucks from my end were in the net. I look around, don't see anything pucks so I skate In and start retrieving the pucks out of the goal and CLANK, some little brat skates in from the other end and rips one off the cross bar not six inches from my face.
I was absolutely livid.
I had to chase a kid down the other day when I kept noticing him trying to shoot a puck with a stick that was twice his size, only to realize that it was MY stick that I brought as a back up and left in the locker room. After giving him a stern talking to about not taking something that wasn't his and getting a lot of eye rolling as a response, I decided to head to the administration office to have a chat with them. After explaining what happened along with a hand full of other issues with these kids being out there unattended, I got an apology and a refund. I was told that in the future I might want to start coming in for the earlier stick and puck that there's usually not as many kids. Okay, problem is, I work. I can't come in at noon to play hockey during the week. Forget about the weekend, the place is like chuck e cheese on ice. I know I'm not the only one who's complained about this. Ive spoken with a couple other adults and even some of the college kids who come up to practice and they have all voiced their concerns to the office. I tried suggesting a late night 16+/18+ only stick and puck and was told there wouldn't be enough people to warrant it. I even inquired why they weren't concerned about one of these kids getting hurt and not having a parenton site to notify. I was told that was their problem and not mine. I mean come on, you know good and we'll that if little Billy got hurt and had to go to the hospital, it wouldn't matter that his mom dropped him off and left. she'd sue that place in a heart beat. She'd probably try to claim it was the rinks responsibility to watch her kid.
Sorry for the rant, just needed to get it off my chest.