It's a minor change that could provide major relief for stressed out parents of sports-minded children who want to play both hockey and soccer in South Delta.

Starting in the fall, South Delta United Soccer and South Delta Minor Hockey will become the second jurisdiction in the Lower Mainland to co-ordinate practice and game schedules for players aged eight and under in order to avoid conflicts.

'Benefits everybody'

"If soccer isn't enjoyable for the parent, that gets passed on to the kid," said South Delta United technical director Mark Rogers. "To alleviate some of that stress on both the parents and the kid just benefits everybody."

The initiative to co-ordinate game and practice schedules is aimed a players aged eight and under. (Stephanie Brown/CBC)

Soccer and hockey are the two most popular youth sports in Canada. But the problem is that the seasons for both sports happen at the same time in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island, where soccer has evolved as a fall/winter sport thanks to the mild winters.

As a result, parents of young children who want to try both sports often find themselves in a thankless tug-of-war — forced to miss games or practices due to schedule overlaps, letting down coaches and teammates on two fronts.

Sanity saver

Not surprisingly, many just end up quitting at least one of the sports for the sake of family sanity.

That early attrition is exactly what South Surrey's Semiahmoo Minor Hockey and Coastal F.C. were hoping to address when they became the first hockey and soccer clubs to synch their schedules two seasons ago.

Unlike the rest of Canada where soccer season is primarily in summer, in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island, youth soccer season is in the fall and winter, at the same time as the minor hockey season. (Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press)

"It was a grass roots movement in the sense that it came from parents who were frustrated with their child being scheduled out of a sport," said Dave Newson, the executive director of Semiahmoo Minor Hockey. "It seemed like a daunting task at first but really, it was a lot simpler than we thought."

Newsom says both the hockey and soccer associations have seen higher retention of young players since the partnership was launched.

More sports = better athlete

And beside the practicality, there's an even more compelling reason to co-ordinated schedules: research shows that over the long term, the best athletes are the ones who played multiple sports growing up, not those who specialized in one sport at an early age.

"We feel that a kid will be a better hockey player if he doesn't play hockey all the time. We also feel that playing multiple sports is not only going to make them a more rounded person, but it will actually help their hockey," said Newsom.

"Our national sport is hockey and that's the biggest danger, that the kids just play hockey," said Rogers.

"But early specialization is something everyone is becoming more aware of because kids are choosing far too young to play a single sport."