From: hoebel@cs.rochester.edu (Lou Hoebel)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey
Subject: Re: Baldwin on rule committee
Date: 27 Jul 92 16:17:46 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

In article <1992Jul23.160555@beanpot.ma30.bull.com> mikem@beanpot.ma30.bull.com (Mike Machnik) writes:
>In article <1992Jul23.163230.20323@btree.uucp>, terry@btree.uucp (Terry Whalen)
>writes:
>|>
>|>3) Hockey is very expensive.  Much more so than baseball, basketball or
>|>football.  Here in San Diego, it can cost upwards of $100/month per kid
>|>just for ice time.  This makes the pool of kids small and thus, in order
>|>to play, they must travel, increasing the cost.  In Canada, and in some
>|>NE states I believe, Arenas are treated like parks, baseball fields,
>|>etc.  They are owned by the city and subsidized, thus costing very
>|>little for kids to play.  There are more kids playing and it becomes
>|>much easier to find used equipment, which also keeps the cost down.
I just finished my second annual summer clearance sale at Klein's. Its
a local general purpose sporting goods store. Decent hockey skates ( for kids)
for $10, good cooper shoulder pads for $5. Sticks ( new. woodrot?) for $8
Plus all kinds of other deals on NEW goods...not a vast selection but OK.
I wonder what kind of deals are available in SD or other west coast cities.
I went to a nice sports store in Palo Alto...a real price Bay Area city ..
and found the prices to be very reasonbable. They had a great sale on weights,
...no hockey stuff at the time. Its a smaller community out west so you might
just have to look harder.....just a slightly educated guess. Ice is way more
expensive for sure ! I hear $12 foir a way to crowded pick up game....might
include a few Calistogas ( sp).  :-)

>
>The sad fact is that in New England, hockey is becoming more and more of
>an elitist sport every year.  Besides the costs to outfit a young player,
>the financial difficulties faced by the NE states, Massachusetts in particular,
>have resulted in skyrocketing prices for ice time, even at public rinks,
>which are becoming run down and poorly taken care of.  The better young
>players are more often than not the ones whose parents can afford to buy
>them the best equipment, place them in the best and most expensive programs,
>get them the best offseason training, get them ice at the best privately-run
>arenas, etc.  

 The public rinks here in central New York ( Rome/Utica in particular)
are real cheap. The highest priced rink is just now charging $90/Hr. and we
often get more time if no one is scheduled after us. The cheapest is 40 or 50
...so pickup games cost about $4 and that includes beer!! Now there is talk of
building ANOTHER rink....that will be 6 plus th eUtica Memorial.
The Rome public school has won a few state championships as has the Rome 
Catholic high, one suburban school does pretty well and the very rich
college town ( Hamilton college..opps add one more rink) doesn't do as well.

I think Buffalo is somewhere in between the two extremes of high cost/low
available ice and the situation I describe above. Ryan Sitler went to a Buffalo
high school were tuition is about $10K...Christian Laetner's alma for that
matter.

>
>Look at where the top Massachusetts players come out of now.  It's not like 
>it was in the early 80s and before when you had John Carter out of Woburn High,
>Tom Barrasso out of Acton-Boxboro Regional, Jon Morris out of Chelmsford High, 
>Tom Glavine out of Billerica High, etc. - all public schools.  The best
>players, once they reach high school, desert the public schools if they can
>for the private Catholic and prep schools.  Very few public high schools in
>Mass. can field teams now that compete with the private schools.  If you look
>up and down the roster of schools like Boston College, almost every kid is from
>a prep school or Catholic school.  That's because that's where the best
>players go.
>
>I do think kids should take advantage of the best chances they have, but I
>know of too many who never had a chance to get into hockey at a young age,
>right in this area, because their families just could not afford it.  And it
>is getting worse.  It is just not like the fairy-tale stories of the kid
>growing up on a pond or a farm in New England and working his way to stardom.
>It just does not work that way anymore.

Clearly the "just as good kid" with the good ice and equipment and competitive
league will fair better...but talent wins out....and hard work!



-- 
->Louis Hoebel
  Computer Science Department 	hoebel@cs.rochester.edu
  University of Rochester       {ames|rutgers}!rochester!hoebel
  Rochester NY 14627            716 275 5414