During my career as a hockey coach, I spent a couple of years coaching midgets which are players of 15 and 16 years old. One advantage of that age group is there is less parental interference. I guess that is the age when parents start ignoring their kids. I rarely saw parents at the practices as over half the kids drove themselves.
One memorable family was the Stricker family from Harvard Illinois. They had five sons, four of which played hockey and the fifth played the violin. The family was of Swiss descent and owned a bakery in Harvard Illinois. Their product line was amazing. Cakes, cookies, donuts and rolls. They even sold their wares in the 320 Store in Rockford. The eldest son actually made it to the University of Wisconsin as a player. I had number 3 on my midget team, and he was a very good player.
When we had an away game, Mrs. Stricker would load their family van with an air pot of coffee and numerous boxes of donuts. Then their son, who was only 15 at the time would drive their van to my house, where I would take over the driving. We would drive around and pick up team members and head off to the game. We didn’t pick up the whole team, there were other cars with players in them. After the game. I would drive back to Rockford, drop off the kids and then Eric would drive back to Harvard. He only got stopped by the police one time in the two years. Mrs. Stricker had to go to court. She pled such a pitiful case that the judge let her off.
When it was a Sunday game, I always took the boys to Sunday Mass, although only a couple of them were Catholic. I figured like chicken soup, it couldn’t hurt.
Bill F
I think it was Eric who drove.