Journey to becoming a hockey parent

We often get asked how we ended up joining the hockey parent cult, particularly as we live in an area where ice needs to be manufactured and cold doesn't exist.  Was it because we are originally from New England and grew up binging the Big Bad Bruins of the 70s and 80s?  Did one of us play pond hockey or formal hockey as a child? No.  We ended up living the youth hockey lifestyle because of a neighbor's 8th birthday party.  

But that's the simple answer.  The more complicated answer is that our son was bitten by the hockey bug.  After fighting to get our then-3 year old son, let's call him Z, on the ice for most of the party, we couldn't get him off once it ended.  For weeks after, he kept asking to go back to S's birthday party.  Eventually we smartened up and understood the toddler talk - we took him to public skate where he promptly made the connection between ice skating and ice hockey.  After another couple of weeks of begging daily, we finally gave in and put him in Learn to Skate. By 4 he had mastered Learn to Play and was in 6U rec hockey.  From there, it was only a matter of time before he started travel hockey, and the rest is history.

While it may not have been the sport we would have chosen originally, we wouldn't change it for the world.  Our program - not just our team - is our hockey family.  We have all made some of our closest friends through youth hockey.  Even our teenage daughter has her cadre of girlfriends - and don't get us started on the obsession teenage girls have with teenage boy hockey players, lettuce and all.  We have had the ultimate of highs (winning tournaments) and the lowest of lows (not winning a single game in a winnable tournament).  The proud moments (when our team came back from an 0 and 8 start to end up third in the state) and the scary ones (the thud of a helmet crashing into the boards).  We all cheer for the cellys and comfort the kids after a tough loss.  We have traveled and taken in the sights, visiting places we hadn't considered.  Our son has gained a level of maturity, organization, and determination that is not the norm for a 9 year-old.  

When starting Penalty Box Coffee, we decided to theme our company on the sport that occupies 90% of our lives, in part because of our love for hockey and our extended hockey family.  But more than that, we want to spread our joy for youth sports (while providing the elixir of life to tired sports parents) and help alleviate the expenses of hockey and other travel sports.  Let's be honest - equipment, tournaments, flights, etc. none of that is cheap.  All of our customers are part of our extended hockey family. And customers that buy using a youth sports fundraising code are helping us sustain our goal of making youth sports affordable for all.

Now we are curious:  Are you part of the youth hockey family or another sport family? How did your child decide what sport to focus on? And would you ever do things differently? Because we wouldn't.