WELCOME TO ESSARAY HOCKEY
Welcome to Essaray Hockey:
Growing up I played just about every sport possible. If it wasn't organized, I played unorganized with the kids in my neighborhood. Frankly, the lack of kids playing unorganized sports these days is a post for another day. The friendships I created, the lessons I learned, and the fun memories I created, I truly believe, I would not be able to have experienced through other avenues. I’m not sure when I first dreamed of playing college hockey and making it to the NHL, but I am confident the reason I started and continued sports had nothing to do with wanting to be a famous soccer or lacrosse player. I played each year because I loved to compete and hang out with my friends. While we had occasional overnight trips for hockey, all my other sports were largely local and games were just up the street. I am confident that being able to make a lacrosse and baseball game in the same day, or a soccer game in the morning and the neighborhood kickball game in the afternoon were great for my development. Not only on the athletic and social side, but the value of priorities and decision making. Beyond these things, the barrier to entry for a lot of these town sports was minimal. I am confident my parents were much more eager to put me into these sports knowing the travel was limited but the return on the experience was immense.
Fast forward to today, and I don’t believe my experience mentioned above is even attainable. Between what I see on social media and what I hear from family and friends, kids are specializing at younger and younger ages, and if they aren’t specializing, they are quitting sports altogether. With hockey in particular, parents continue to sign their kids up for more elite camps at various places across the country. Many families are paying tens of thousands of dollars for a full season of elite hockey at ten years old. There is no need for this at such a young age. NHL players constantly talk about how playing multiple sports helped them growing up and if they haven’t said it explicitly, I doubt there are any that feel like they were a worse hockey player because they played other sports.
Furthermore, it is not just the parents that are making some of these spending decisions. Social media and the impact on our youth, I would argue, have been overall extremely negative and toxic. There are plenty of studies that show the impact of social media on teenage development and rarely does much positive come out of it. Kids see all these kids doing private lessons and traveling across the country to play for certain teams and then they tell their parents they want these things too. Or on the flip side, kids think because someone they see on instagram is stickhandling really fast or shooting really hard, why bother trying to improve? The “Keeping Up with the Joneses” from both parents and kids is doing real damage to our youth today.
While the post has been a bit critical, I commend any parents that work to provide the best opportunities for their kids, especially if their kids have a passion for those sports. I also commend kids that are passionate about their sport and want to invest more time and energy into their growth to be even better. Ultimately, though, I think we have lost the plot on what makes sports so great. Between the amount of kids quitting and the amount of families that can’t afford to participate and force a kid out of an opportunity for personal growth, something needs to change.
My hope with Essaray Summer Camp is to lean back on my experiences growing up and pull them forward. At Essaray Summer Camp, there will be plenty of on ice development, but campers will also have the opportunity to play other sports like kickball, capture the flag, and spud, as well as discussions on mental health and sports psychology, leadership, and team building. I want to create this camp to be a place kids want to learn and get better because every day is challenging and fun. The people they will compete against in games both on and off ice aren’t in a far-away land behind some screen but right there, getting to know you as a person and a competitor and hopefully, after a week, a friend.
Beyond just the summer camp, I hope to provide options for players that want to continue to develop beyond the ice. Between this blog page providing info to players and parents, I have found that some of the best development for players is through video sessions. The plan is to roll out both individual as well as group sessions to break down personal video or go into some NHL video and talk about various skills and hockey sense that is being displayed.
I am curious to hear what your thoughts are on the state of hockey and youth sports and always want to get feedback. Don’t hesitate to reach out or sound off in the comments!
