About us
I started this site to help parents and players inform each other about experiences they’ve had within different sports organization. I provide an anonymous free platform where people can be honest without retribution.
Ive noticed a trend over the last ten years where youth sports organizations are becoming for-profit enterprises. I’m seeing less and less non profits in competitive sports and fewer volunteer coaches. With this shift coaches and organizations need to be held accountable. Unfortunately the balance of powers does not allow a parent to confront or be honest with a coach in many circumstances.
Many parents are afraid of retaliation against their kid if they speak out. This leads to parents spending six months of their time, many thousands of dollars, and being unhappy with the outcome.
Parents and players, this is your platform to speak up! We’d love to hear about your season and hope to help future participants.
Our Families Story
We moved our family from Idaho to Canada for our 13 year old to attend Rink Hockey Academy in 2021. This is a competitive hockey program in British Columbia where they produce many WHL top draft picks- many of these kids will go onto to be drafted into the NHL. They promise excellent hockey development with many former NHL players acting as coaches.
After spending one season we knew the end result was not worth the cost nor the educational sacrifice. It cost us close to $85,000 after accounting for academy fees, international tuition for all three kids, and rent. What bothered us the most was that parents not happy with the program we’re not willing to speak up. We are the customers spending over $30K to be at the academy however there is little intel about these academy programs.
About a month into the season we saw how poorly the academy was being run. Sometimes busses we’re an hour late for picking up players. Players would be getting on the ice thirty minutes after practice started due to transportation issues. Workouts we’re routinely cancelled for all sorts of reasons. Promised video sessions we’re once a month instead of once per week. The NHL alumni coaches we’re mainly there to coach their kids. Were paying all this money and we have parent coaches running our teams albeit NHL alumn or not. The romance of this prestigious hockey academy soon turned into a disappointing situation with parents routinely venting.
Upon the season ending I was dumbfounded to see these same parents leaving positive reviews on google. This was after they spent six months complaining about how terrible the program was. Why would they do this? I don’t know… I wanted to take to google and leave an honest review however I was worried about future retribution against my kid as well. The end result is everyone keeping silent and the academy bringing in 19 new players not knowing what they are signing up for.
As I write this today there are only seven reviews on google for this academy. Zero negative reviews from parents.
Ive built and funded this platform to empower parents to speak up, hold these for-profit sports organizations accountable, and inform the next group of players coming in.