FOR FUN OR TO WIN Editorial by Penny Benjamin – Leduc, Alberta
I wrote this and submitted to the local paper, whether they will publish it or not is yet to be seen. I feel that it happens in a
lot of minor sports, though, my son is in hockey, it is scary because I can see what we are instilling in our children, I fear,
like rink rage, it will only get worse. So many people sit back with complaints about how a league or organization is run,
something that was meant for the children is being run by adults without though for those children. It saddens me that no
one speaks out. How do we expect our children to learn the fun of the game and the purpose of the sport if no one stands up and fights for the kids?
For Fun Or To Win? That is the question.
When is comes to sports, what should it be? Ask any parent and the answer is sure to be winning. Ask any child outside of a parent’s hearing and they’ll say being with my friends. To a child it is not so much whether they win or lose as long as they get to be with their friends. For the chosen few who excel and eat sleep and breath the sport, there are Rep
teams to be had.
What is a Rep team? A rep team is a team made of the best in that division, age or
categories? Right? After all the team is designed for the soul purpose of Representing their town or city in that sport. To those of us who know the meaning
of representation, we understand this, but to those, usually the executive members of whichever league your on, it
means honor thy neighbor, for if you are a friend or if you have the money or whatever the executive comities deem worthy then
you have a chance of making the team. But wait! You as a parent are not playing. Are you?
For those children whom the sport in which they are in is not the “be all end all”, or for parents that do not meet the above
criteria, there is another place to go. This is a place, or so I have been told where the sport is just a sport, a way for
children to get out have fun, learn something new in a social environment. That is as it should be. I totally agree. House
league sports, like any level of sports, are for the children, without the added stress of having to worry about being the
best.
It should be a good mix, children and parents out to promotes having fun, learning new aspects of a game, increasing your
abilities, it is what it is all about? Right? It should be?
Yet, unfortunately it is not. With each passing year house league sports are becoming more and more political. Why is
that? Children do not know politics? Do we as parent not have enough problems with politicians that we need to practice
and hone our own skills? Makes you wonder doesn’t it? It should.
Just what are we teaching our children? What are we saying about right and wrong when the lies we often tell come back
to children? Whatever happened to the most famous quote ‘it does not matter whether you win or loose it is how
you played the game’ or how about this one ‘winning isn’t important as long as you had fun’.
Too many times, with those times growing greater and greater in number as the years go by, wanna be parents, who no
longer remember what it was like to be child, push their children to a level in which they can not possibly compete, and
when said child can not make the all important Rep team and are consigned, in that parent’s eyes, as the bowls of hell, that
parent often insinuates himself into the executive ranks, somewhat like a plague over running the earth, they creep in and
bring politics to the lower ranks. Thereby stamping out the fun altogether.
My son has been on winning teams, and he has been on loosing teams, and amazingly enough, quite often it has been
within the same season. At the end of game topic is not who won or lost but which friend can spend the night.
Personally I think it has come to a time when the adults of minor sports such hockey take a step back and realize “It is for
the children, and like or not you were supposed to have grown up long ago. Sit back relax, and let the kids be
kids!”
