By Leslie Postal
OrlandoSentinel.com/momsatwork
My son is playing his first season of ice hockey. This, I've decided, may be a mistake.
It's not that he's not having fun. He is. Or that he isn't learning a lot or getting a great workout. He is. And he's got a great coach and teammates he likes, and ice hockey games go on, no matter the weather outside. So that is all good.
My problem is with the stuff. Hockey requires what seems to the newbie (that's me) a ridiculous amount of stuff.
Hockey requires more equipment than just about any other sport - and to a non-Hockey-knowing Mom pressed sometimes into equipment manager role, this is a bit dicey.
Consider what must be packed for every practice and every game: Helmet with full-face guard, shoulder, elbow and shin pads, gloves, padded shorts, ice skates (of course) and a hockey stick. Plus, jersey, hockey stockings, socks, mouth guard and certain required undergarments. Oh, and a special water bottle with a pointy spout, so you can drink with that cage-like helmet on your head.
It probably goes without saying that all this equipment does not fit in any normal-sized duffel bag. So hockey players have ginormous special bags - bags so big and unwieldy you could not board an airplane with them without paying some extra, ginormous, over-sized-bag fee. Little kids cannot even get these bags from parking lot to ice rink without a fair amount of parental help.
Hockey bags makes my son's baseball bag look slim and dainty.
So I am questioning stuff-heavy hockey, though maybe in time it will seem second nature, and I won't find myself doing this mental checklist before we leave the house (2 gloves? Check. 2 elbow pads? Check. Helmet? Check). And at least my son isn't a goalie, which looks to require a whole bunch more stuff.
Still I am happy my daughter is playing soccer this spring because that's just shin guards and a pair of cleats. And I was intrigued when she said she want to be on a swim team this summer - swimsuit, goggles, towel, right?
But then my husband said, Don't swim teams practice at like 5 a.m.?
Okay, a heavy bag doesn't seem so bad.