chocokatet's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars! Interesting insights into a sports crazy parent
americanpragmatist's review against another edition
4.0
Quick read, resonated with me as a parent of a suburban Chicago hockey player (where Cohen himself played). I would have liked it even more if he had reported objectively on a peewee team ala Friday Night Lights instead of writing from the parent viewpoint. I found his analysis of the players, other parents, and coaches very interesting, but there seemed to be a lot missing about parenting a travel athlete other than being concerned about playing time. Or maybe he really was obsessed only with the game to the detriment of all other aspects of family life.
llax11's review against another edition
2.0
Rich Cohen details a standard hockey season for his son, Micah’s peewee hockey team (ages 11/12). At the beginning of the book he describes a pre-season coach/parent meeting where the coach asks the parents to rank the importance of each aspect of a hockey season: winning, fitness, learning to play hickey, learning to appreciate hockey, teamwork, fun, self-confidence, and memories. The coach then provides feedback to the parents on how winning is not the primary goal for engagement in youth sports, clearly. It’s so much more than that. The irony is Rich Cohen authoring a book about a youth hockey team and then proceeding to denigrate 11/12 year olds for over 150 pages. While what he shares is the unfortunate reality of youth hockey in many places - gossiping parents, badmouthing kid’s athletic performance, ulterior motives of parent coaches, yelling at officials, and uplifting “winning” as the only option - it is extremely unfortunate that the author doesn’t rise above these insidious qualities and try to bring hockey back to its roots of passion, sportsmanship, and teamwork. As a hockey participant (player, ref, coach) of over 28 years, I was excited to read this story and follow this teams journey; however it left me more confident in my decision to no longer be involved in youth hockey for the reasons described above.
celebrationofbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
4.5
While I didn’t love the first book of Rich’s I read (The Last Pirate of New York), I DID enjoy his writing style. When I discovered he was writing a hockey book, I was thrilled. As a childhood skater and athlete, as well as lover of all thing sociology and children’s psychology (it’s the teacher/historian in me, I cannot help it), I was really excited to read about the subculture that is children’s sports leagues. My observations first started when I was dragged to attended my sister’s soccer games. Laura, who I’m still not sure enjoyed the sport, was frequently a defender and occasionally a goalie in the early days of her young soccer career, and the coach’s daughter was always the star forward. Whether or not she could actually kick the ball.
Children’s sports are weird. There was a whole group of us who were the older siblings of the players who all more or less knew each other. We’d pal around while our parents, who clearly didn’t really like each other, made polite small talk and did lots of subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) bragging about how great their child played in last week’s game. Suddenly parents who didn’t know a soccer ball from a football (or that soccer is called football everywhere else in the world), were all of a sudden experts and yelled at the coach to tell the other players to give their child the ball, even if their child was the goalie. Didn’t matter, their kid was most important and therefore should get all the action.
My childhood hockey playing took place on our lake. I loved skating outside, though would occasionally skate indoors but only once global warming prevented our Pennsylvania lake from freezing anymore. We didn’t have any leagues where I grew up so I had to find other outlets for my hockey obsession – I played lots of floor hockey and street hockey, and hallway hockey (an invention of our dorm at Pitt). And I was always a goalie. Because I couldn’t skate that well. And was clumsy, and fell over a bit. Well, a lot when I was little – but I could catch just about anything. My love of the sport was entrenched from a young age, as was the culture. I loved goalie fights (I even instigated one once), hat tricks, and my Hershey Bears (one of the oldest teams in the US). My biggest complaint and childhood regret, one I still complain about today, was the fact that I didn’t get to play in a league with other girls like Laura did with soccer.
So now, I get to live vicariously through Rich and his son, but through the lens closer to Rich’s than his twelve year old son’s. I’ve already been tapped by my friends with children to be their kids hockey aunt at games when they get older, so I decided to read up on what my faux-parental obligations at a game might entail. Rich is an entertaining writer, and while he’s written so many books about historical events and people, I think it is here, as a quasi-memoir/pee wees-expose, that he truly shines.
His humor is spot on, and his ability to satirize and poke fun at himself and other hockey parents along the way is tremendously entertaining. It transcends just the pee wee hockey community, but is the perfect book for all parents of child athletes (it’s a great give for the parents this spring!) as well as for recovering child athletes who got fed up with their parents living vicariously through them.
Pee Wees is a brilliant addition to the (albeit slim) pantheon of great ice hockey books. I know it’s a bit niche, but there are some amazing hockey books out there and I’m so excited to be able to recommend yet another.
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