1) Hockey is a fantastic exercise—Hockey is one of the best cardiovascular games your child could play.  Players are alternating between skating and rest at very rapid rates which makes hockey one of the best cardiovascular interval training sports.  This improves the speed at which your childs body brings oxygen to their muscles while burning tons of calories.  Hockey requires a high level of coordination; regular play can develop a child's gross motor skills, which leads to improvement with the more difficult fine motor skills, and improves eye-hand coordination, which can translate to a better understanding of spatial relationships.

2) Hockey builds character - Since hockey is a team sport, children learn the value of working with others.  Very quickly, they will learn to rely on teammates and understand that cooperation is the key to success.  Children on hockey teams experience a team spirit that encourages trust, responsibility, sportsmanship and a strong sense of accomplishment.  These skills are essential as teammates turn into colleagues.  

3) Hockey improves mental agility—Hockey is an extremely fast sport in which children have to cope with changes in split-seconds.  Plays develop, momentum shifts and opportunity open and close in a blink of an eye.  A child in this sport will quickly adapt their mental agility to be able to recognize these opportunities and their concentration will improve.  In addition, hockey players will quickly begin to project mental imagery of not just what is going to happen, but what will happen next leading towards greater mental agility as well.

4) You live in Minnesota—As Minnesotans, just as ice is part of our life in nature, ice runs native through our veins.  The very culture of winter sports bonds our communities together and accounts for the reason why Minnesota is #1 in physical activity in the nation.  Our heros of our winter sports are known to us all and our ability to attract your into our skating programs really knows no bounds.  

While the reasons above talk about why your child should play hockey, we as an association are dedicated to the cause of improving our youth and making them feel excited to play a sport that they will love.  We hope you'll join us next season and below we'll talk about how to get started.