Sorry OP, I have no advice or help for you. Just wanted to say by his age, I watched @CypressCity play at Iowa State between drinking in the parking lot during intermissions.

My kids don't play, but I have two full bags of kids gear from them giving it a shot.  Most NHL teams sponsor the youth programs with free gear for their learn to play.  I would recommend doing hand-me-downs from Facebook or something first until they get the hang of it.  Do the NHL sponsored program to get the nicer free gear after that once they get serious because it'a nicer and they always want new stuff.  It will probably last a little bit longer and you can go one size up on gear to make it last even longer if your kid is growing quickly.

The kids gear is insane and a lot of it costs more than men's gear, except skates.

kids gear is way way way cheaper than men's. Each bump from youth to intermediate to junior to senior comes with a nice little price increase.

Yep. My oldest are in an intermediate skate right now. Hope to get another season out of them.

Then it's big $$$$ time.

same here.  all of his equipment will be senior next time around.

A bunch of good info here, but I’ll add a few more things I didn’t see mentioned.  

At your daughter’s age the pads are really there to protect against falls, no need for any thing extravagant.  Will echo others that the rental skates are beyond bad for multiple reasons let alone for the fact they probably have zero edge.  If she sticks with it, yes good skates are a must, but at age 5, a mid tier skate (cost wise) is perfectly fine.

Get her signed up for an ADM program.  This is USA hockey’s American development model. They’ve done a really good job of standardizing this across the country in terms of what skills the kids should be focused on at this age group.  

Cost really isn’t too bad when the kids are that young, but it’s a definite bait and switch as they get older and want to keep playing.

My son is entering his first year of 14u, has played since he’s 5 and was on the ice a lot younger than that.  I’ve been coaching since he started playing ADM and am heading into my 2nd year as head coach.

I also played growing up, but things have changed immensely since then.  If you any specific questions, shoot me a PM, happy to give you my thoughts.

lol what years were you there?  I played in the early 2000's in the old and new rink.

Just spent the weekend down in Belgium for a U15 tournament. Definitely a different vibe than back home, but there was some good hockey.

My sons' team is basically a select team from
three different Dutch teams. They were 6-1-1 on the weekend, winning the 1st place game against Antwerp. Games were 20 minute, running clock with no icing. So, the play was pretty quick given the larger ice surface. Our goalie will probably end up in Sweden, Germany, or maybe the NAHL in the US in the next couple seasons. The kid is probably 6'2" at barely 14 years old. Awesome skill and a good kid overall.

Same, AA/AAA level growing up. Didn't bother with Juniors, I was going nowhere.

I would recommend hockey to ANY parent with kids who could afford the costs. House leagues are great, and a LOT of fun!
Once you get to more competitive levels, it will consume you and your families lives . Between the hotel stays, flights, long car rides, monday morning naps in class, annoying/asshole parents, and politics (especially with high level youth hockey), it is a LOT.

But I wouldn't trade my time/memories with the boys for anything. The sport made me into the person I am today. I miss it.

Understood.  I meant they usually don't have lower tier of whatever brand equipment for youth in a store like Pure Hockey.  The lower tier gear that most men like is cheaper than the gear your kids are going to make you buy.  Of course you can buy men's gear that blows the price of every other gear out of the water.   The youth and parents prefer expensive stuff with more padding while men prefer cheaper and less padding.

Nobody has even mentioned sticks yet.  The kids absolutely have to have the best sticks for some reason once they get past beginner.  You're probably going to be into it for at least $400 a year in sticks once they get past 10 years old.

The gear is the cheap part. IIRC if they really get into it, the travel will kill you. Gas + hotels + restaurants + time. At one point it seemed like a job for my aunt and uncle. Cousin played in gradeschool and high-school. Traveling may have been caused by the lack of local teams?

Around here club is way more popular than town youth and there's a rink every 10 miles.  The kids can play youth still, but the chances of playing with friends is diminished.  The time commitment these days is insane.

If she is good you will be spending more on hockey than your house payment.   It is pretty inexpensive in the beginning.  

And you won’t mind it at all

They have lower tier for youth as well. I just looked, the cheapest youth shoulder pads on PureHockey is $10.


As far as sticks, I know a guy that knows a guy. I can get high end sticks for $160-180.  Me and my kids have Hyperlite2s and Hyperlites

I played until the wallet was empty.  Mostly in high school.

Dek hockey is more my budget.

Lots of travel and lots of money.  Looks fun though, if you can handle the time and money involved.

Hey travel hockey parents, what's your craziest travel story as far as getting to a tournament or game goes?

Up until this point mine was driving back to NoVA from Ottawa through a crazy ice storm just outside Ft Drum. It was around 19:00 and pitch black because it was January. Huge deer jumps right in front of us and I barely missed the damn thing. If we hit it we would have been screwed.

In June we're headed to Sheffield, England and will be take an overnight ferry from Rotterdam to Hull so we can drive our LHD cars. Should be about 70 miles to Sheffield once we make landfall.

We played a tournament in Charleston. There was a small snow storm on the way home. I should have been home at around midnight. I didn't get home until around 4am. The area around DC had maybe an inch of snow. It was like the apocalypse. There were cars abandon on the side of the road. Cars off the road. Cars spinning out. My son's team made and won the championship earlier that day. If they would have lost the game in the morning, I would have made it home and missed all of that.  Oh well

This year we played in an "outdoor" tourney in Buffalo.  Very cool rink that was right on the Buffalo River.  Our boys played a night game that was in the teens.  The day we're supposed to come back we decide to run up to Niagra Falls (having never been there)  We check out the falls and, as we're leaving, get a call that our flight from Buffalo is going to be delayed.  Which means we won't make our connection at LaGuardia.  But, that's ok, because we can just hang out in LaGuardia for 10 hours until the next flight. Umm...no.  My wife spent 2 hours on the phone until we were able to change our flight to Detroit and home.  Ended up getting home about 30 minutes later than we would've.  Thanks United.

Having Chris Pronger back into my car at a Mexican Restaurant at Notre Dame.

Our kids teams would end up playing against each other in the Final. We lost by 2.

Our travels were pretty much uneventful...Got used to the white knuckle driving along Southfield Freeway making our way to Allen park

we played at that rink in a tournament this year too. It was extremely cold. Fun though

Buffalo River Works is awesome. We had a blast at a tournament there in late 2019. Pretty fun to bring up a bunch of Virginia kids to win the whole thing against NY and ON teams.