Hockey Heartbreak

The Hardest Part About Watching Your Kid Take a Pounding From an Exponentially Superior Team.

1. You love your kid so very much that seeing her suffer the consequences of the mismatch makes you question your judgment of letting her play goalie in the first place.
2. You drove six hours to get to the tournament. When it’s over, you’ll drive six hours home.
3. The hotel costs $200. Gas, food and related expenses will add up to another $150. You’ve completely ignored a $4,000 consulting assignment to be here.
4. You can’t help fantasizing about the awful lives that lay ahead for the players on the other team, imagining them suffering when their hockey careers end while your daughter thrives because she has more going for her than hockey alone.
5. You feel guilty for thinking bad thoughts about someone else’s child merely because she scored a goal while your kid was between the pipes.
6. Fighting the urge to spend $30,000 a year to enroll your kid into an elite prep school hockey program just so she could be on the other side of the 8 to 0 loss.
7. Getting over it. While your kid put the loss behind her within minutes of the final buzzer, you can’t seem to stop wringing your hands and gnashing your teeth long after the fact.

Just in case anyone out there is considering letting their kid play ice hockey.