A great time in the home of the Great One

Wow.

Inside my head I've been saying that over and over for the past four days.

The family and I just returned from a whirlwind of a weekend in Brantford, Ontario and the 44th Annual Wayne Gretzky International Tournament. We were there with the Valley Forge Colonials Peewee A team, filling in for some of their regulars who couldn't (or didn't) make the trip.

The trip was incredible. We got there on Friday around noon, after a long drive and overnight stay in Buffalo. Our first game was at 2pm and from that point on there was hardly a second to breathe! There's so much to write about - I'll try to focus on a few things.

Survey Results! Youth Hockey: A Game for the Rich?

Results are in from the latest Beeski survey on the cost of youth hockey.

Inspired by an article by James Mirtle of The Globe and Mail, I asked you what you spent on youth hockey in a recently completed season. I wanted to find out if hockey has become, as the article says, "a game strictly for the rich".

Results after the jump.

Survey Results - Conclusion

Stay or Go?

Ok, parents. You've waited long enough. The last section of the survey cuts to the question at hand - how many families are moving to a new hockey program next year, and why? Let's get right to it.

(You can find results from Part 1 of the survey here and Part 2 here.)

Survey Results - Part Deux

Welcome back for more results from the Hockey Parents' Satisfaction Survey. This is the second installment of survey results. You can find the first part of the survey results here including some background information on the survey and the respondents. 

The first post was a summary of the "How satisfied were you" questions. I originally intended to release the survey results in two blog posts, but as I was preparing this one I decided to make it three. There's so much information that this post was getting too long. And this way I could get the second installment to you sooner.

This post begins with parents' priorities. I wanted to see what it is that drives parents to a certain program. After that we explore the parents' view of the coaches' priorities. The next post will pick up from there with the reasons for leaving or staying with a hockey program.

Survey Results are here!

Hockey parents are tough. We’re dedicated. And we’re not afraid to tell you what we think. It was no surprise then that I got so many responses to the first of what I plan to be annual surveys of hockey parents.