A review by llax11
Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent by Rich Cohen

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.