Special Announcement from the YHP gang.

What is the worst thing that someone on your own team has said to you? I can tell you that the nastiest comments come from your "friends" in the stands.

Rolly has some history with parents who have tried to get him banned from a rink. Rolly! The nicest guy around.

Lance is pretty well known all over the country for the skirmishes with parents on his own team

Lance has a great topic. How do you deal with the outcast on the team. Is there a way to draw them in? Is it better to leave it alone or rally to a cause.

Rolly talks about how friendships are not formed under duress. Sometimes kids need be left alone in dealing with roster issues.

Randall talks about parental friction. Hint. There is lots.

Rolly knows stuff. He shows it in this episode. He takes on the profiling of skates and how that effects a skater and what they can do on the ice. He mainly sticks to two of the systems for profiling skates, but he gives great advice for those in the market to do some aftermarket upgrading of the blade.

Randall talks about how he always trusts any skate shop that employs a guy named Doug. Doug knows how to sharpen skates.

Lance asks questions about when skate profiling should be on the agenda for a young skater. He also manages to make us all laugh twice.

Randall has a story from his kids playing league hockey. One kid was getting a beat down and the other came to the rescue. It's not fun to get in a fight, but a brother can sometimes be good at having your back.

Rolly has insights on teams that have multiple returning players and those that are fresh starts for everyone. The chemistry is different. The culture is sometimes different.

Lance loves the ducks. He credits them for the formation of ice in So. Cal. A duck could crap in his path and he would shine his shoes with the droppings.

Rolly talks about some of the meager options to watch your kid play hockey at tournaments and local rinks. New Youtube options are especially interesting to the crew.

Randall talks about hockey for girls. His daughter is currently playing. The landscape is interesting and the rules are different (just like in the game). But in the end, the sport is a great one for the maidens of mayhem (a real team in Iowa).

Lance is so checked out that when I listened to this, I took a shot every time he talked. Stone cold sober at the end.

Lance does not like the new numbers for youth sport participation. He remembers some things that pushed his kids away.

Rolly thinks that coaches need to modulate their approach to the younger groups.

Randall thinks that the phone somewhat is replacing the kids' enthusiasm for activity. It also is replacing other parts of the growth of some kids.

Kathy joins the podcast with invaluable insights on how a kid views hockey. And how a mom views hockey through their kids' eyes.

Randy to update

The podcast talks about how teams sometimes fold in the middle of the season. It's something that seems like it's an extraordinary circumstance, but it happens more than people think.

Lance talks about how both his kids were pushed up on the same team then treated less than generously when the season ends.

Rolly gives us a cautionary tale about sandbagging.

Randall takes a listener's email on tournaments and turns it into a frenzy of conversation.

Rolly talks about the Boston tournaments that only have two periods for the regular games and only one period for the semifinals and finals. He also has a take on the Brick tournament in Edmonton (in a mall).

Lance talks a little about Quebec peewee tournament.