The travel hockey season runs from September through March. As a sport, travel hockey is expensive and requires serious time commitment for games and practices, as many of the games are out of state. Depending on the team they can travel from state to state each weekend and practice late on school nights.
Seniors Sophia Whiteaker and RJ Alvarado spend most of their free time with their teammates on the ice or the road pursuing the sport they love.
“It’s extremely difficult, I am in the car for at least six hours total per week. If I travel for the weekend then it can be upwards of 20 hours,” Whiteaker said.
As female competitors in a male-dominated sport, Whiteaker’s team faces some additional obstacles.
“As girls, my team does not get the good ice slots so our practices are very late, and I don’t get home until eleven, sometimes one a.m.,” Whiteaker said. “This doesn’t leave much time for homework so I usually do it in the car.”
There are some important benefits of being part of a sport that isn’t usually offered at most high schools in the Midwest, including traveling to locations like Denver, Chicago, or St. Louis.
“I like traveling, so going to Denver in January was really fun,” Alvarado said. “Getting to go to the mountains, and Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre was pretty fun.”
The schedule and travel are not the only challenges that travel hockey presents.
“It is very physically taxing, too,” Whiteaker said, “and there is not always a good time to recover properly.”
Teachers aren’t always sure how to handle when a student is gone multiple days a week every week, so it can be difficult to keep up.
“You really have to be on top of communicating with teachers. Sometimes they want emails; sometimes you have to ask in person,” Whiteaker said. “I am fortunate to mostly have teachers this year that are very understanding, usually they know I am a good student who’s on top of their work.”
Whiteaker said she has not always felt that support from teachers in the last two years.
“Sometimes they don’t like to offer help as much if I am gone,” Whiteaker said, “I play hockey in order to play in college, and they don’t always take that into consideration when dealing with me being gone.” Whiteaker has committed to play at Concordia University Wisconsin.
Despite these difficulties, Whiteaker said she appreciates the options hockey has created for her.
“Always choose to do something you love even if sometimes it feels extremely difficult to keep up with everything else,” Whiteaker said. “In the long run, you will be thankful you followed your heart.”
