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The Dads who party like it’s Frosh Week

The dads are the worst. It is like university, and it is the guys that never get out, whose wives keep such a tight leash on them, that wind up going crazy at tournaments — while their kid is asleep in a hotel room. We had this one dad who got so drunk that he started smashing beer bottles and wound up in the hospital getting stitches in his hand. That was in London, Ontario. We’ve had state troopers come to our hotels. No one has ever been arrested, but it can be like prom night.

Crazy things do happen, and the dads are the worst

Part of the joy of it as a parent — is that it can be immature — and it is fun. We had t-shirts made for all the Moms on our team. We’ve had the Moms rent a limo to drive up to a game, so they could drink. But being a hockey parent is like being in a dorm in first year university. You get thrown together with all these different people, and you have dinners with them, and you go away for weekends with them, and some are people you would never hang around with otherwise — were it not for hockey — and you wind up becoming besties. But crazy things do happen, and the dads are the worst. — Justine Soler, Toronto Hockey Mom

The millionaires who buy teams so their kids get ice time

You meet Ivy League-educated self-made millionaires, doctors and lawyers and visionary entrepreneurs through minor hockey, but the second they walk into a rink they drop a chromosome. They lose every bit of common sense they have. They get infected with the craziness.

One father, and he is not the only parent to have done this, because there is a lot of wealth around minor hockey, but this gentleman bought into a team in the Great Toronto Hockey League and his son, as a result, had to play on it. If there had been open tryouts for that team this kid never would have made it. He should not have been on the team — and everybody knew it. And this kid, he was going to every extra skating class, every private lesson that you could possibly imagine, but it didn’t matter, because the poor kid just didn’t have it. Not everyone has it. So the coach wasn’t giving him a lot of ice time, and the dad goes straight to the other owners — and the coach gets replaced. The Dad ended up buying into another team and the kid went and played there. And he was a really bright kid, a really nice kid, but his Dad would use his money (the father denies this) to buy his son a spot on these teams.