An explosion of intensive summer sports camps catapults kids onto premier sports teams and gives busy working parents a high-quality summer environment for their children. But some look back wistfully to summer days of pickup baseball and wonder whether kids are missing out. Mitch isn't outside on a playing field or sandlot, however. He's in full hockey gear inside Drake Arena in St. Paul, huffing and puffing through a series of stick handling, shooting and skating drills with 90 other kids at Mike Foley's SPA Summer Hockey Camp.
Kids play hockey all summer.
Youth soccer seasons start in the spring, last most of the summer and begin again in the fall. High school football players attend special skills camps in the summer. Basketball players are in the gym from June to August. It appears those days, like your old baseball card collection, are long gone. Some kids will spend as much as six weeks skating inside at Foley's SPA Hockey Camp this summer.