Family Vs. Family Hockey

My wife and I are big into hockey, as are all three of our kids. We live in Northwest Montana, about 60 miles from the Canadian border, and hockey is a breakout sport in our valley.

The last three years we have organized a tournament at the end of the season that pits families against families. We call it the "Family Hockey Challenge", a 4-on-4 hockey tournament featuring Mom, Dad, and a handful of kids.

Hockey is a great sport for an event like this, as the families of our hockey community spend years together, locked in frozen buildings, traveling around our region, watching our kids grow up together.

Ice fees are high, and few families are large enough to have subs that can play. So a number of rule changes are necessary to make the games quick and decisive. At the end, you want to crown a champion that, in that year, has the best combination of age and skill, youth and energy, craftiness and cunning.

Step 1 Rent a rink, or clear a pond

We typically rent out our local rink for two to three hours of ice time. In this time you can work through a single elimination tournament with 12 teams. Our ice fees are about $100 per hour, so this works out to about $10 per family per game they play in.

Games in our system work out to two 5 minute halves with a minute warmup and a minute in-between. Time is of the essence to get all the games complete, so it really helps to get a professional time keeper and referees.

Comments

[yokozuna]

I've only skated twice in my life and I want to play. Fantastic job sir, and if I wasn't sold on the ible itself, your avatar is exuding sweetness. 5 stars!

[Horny Toad]

only in MT. Bravo Hankbobs. I really love the bit about the goalie requirement. "hard working sieve". So true, it's fun to score alot of goals.