The Perfect Hockey Vehicle

This year I finally upgraded my hockey transportation. In doing so I looked at a lot of factors, asked lots of questions, and thought about a lot things. Let’s talk about that stuff and get some ideas on what makes ‘the perfect hockey vehicle’.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_1: 0:22

This year, I finally upgraded my hockey transportation. In doing so, I looked at a lot of factors, asked a lot of questions, and honestly thought about probably way too many things for this decision. So, on this episode of The Beer Leaguer podcast, we're gonna talk about all the stuff that I did to figure out what I wanted to get, and really what was the perfect hockey vehicle. So, kind of set the stage for this whole thing. For about the last year, year and a half before I finally made my decision to upgrade my hockey transportation, I was driving around in a little Scion TC. I don't know what that is. It's a little hatchback, two-door hatchback car. And that's what I used to get back and forth to hockey all the time. It worked pretty well for me. It's a hatchback, which makes it super easy to get my stuff in there, fold down some seats. It was fine for just me. And that's a big point I'm going to make here is I was just taking myself around. Usually, I just drive myself back and forth to hockey. So it worked fine for that. But also, I was realizing when I was driving home from my games, usually kind of late, say past midnight, closer to 1 a.m., possibly later, you know, going out and stuff afterwards. And a lot of the rinks that I play at, I have about a half hour, 45 minute drive home. So it's not just down the street. And of course, beer league hockey generally takes place in the winter. I live in a wintery, snowy climate, and they don't really plow the freeway and especially don't plow streets kind of after midnight, really probably after like 11 p.m. most places. You know, they plow it again like five in the morning for morning commute traffic. So I was doing a lot of driving home late at night, kind of tired, and in a little car through some pretty bad weather, pretty junky snow and stuff like that. And that really made me go, hey, I probably need to upgrade this, get something a little bit better for this with this in mind. So I did. I eventually wound up getting a truck. You can say it's not a truck. That's fine. It's a Honda Ridgeline. It's got four-wheel drive and everything. It's got a truck bed. Everything throws in there super easy. Been great for it. That's where I ended up at. But the journey from little two-door car to truck was not very linear at all. So this is really what I'm talking about, is how I got from there to there and the stuff that I thought about along the way. And hopefully this helps somebody out. If you're kind of looking at your next vehicle and you're thinking about hockey, it's kind of a big point of it. Obviously, it's not the only thing, but kind of a big thing. So the first thing that I thought of was how easily is my hockey bag going to fit in there? You know, like I said, with my little Scion, the two-door car, my bag fit pretty easily in the back. I don't keep a lot of stuff in the trunk or anything. I don't keep anything in the back seat. So it's pretty easy to just fold down the seat to throw my bag in. Pretty easy to get out. Not a big deal. But if I had anything in the back seat or had stuff in the trunk, had it come out or had it be shuffled around and moved around. So that was kind of a, you know, not great, but not as big of a deal. But I want something that, again, still be easy. I know people that have, you know, just regular sedans, and got to put the bag either in your back seat, which a lot of times these sedans, the doors don't open all the way. So it's a real pain in the butt to get a hockey bag in there. Or you got to shove it in your trunk. Hopefully your trunk's big enough. Hopefully the opening for the trunk is big enough, because a lot of trunk openings are kind of small, if you haven't noticed. So, you know, that's something you got to think about. Obviously, like I said, now I have a truck. It's got a bed. Even with the bed cover on it, it's easy to throw stuff in. If you have an open bed, you know, you can throw whatever in there with stuff. And it's super easy. So it's something to really consider is how your bag's going to fit in there, especially if it is more than one person. Like, so if you normally drive with somebody else and you have multiple bags, if you have to worry about having kids that have hockey bags, like just in general, this is a thing to be worried about. And this does not even consider goalies, who have a whole other thing of, I mean, goalie pads are like the same amount of space as a full size hockey bag. So it's basically like you're always taking two hockey bags with you to everything, because your stuff is so big. So that's the first consideration of what, how easily can you get stuff into your vehicle and get it out? And what you keep in your vehicle normally, if you're somebody that keeps a lot of stuff in your trunk and you have to put your hockey gear in, you have to clear everything out every time. Or if you're to put it in your back seat, but you always have car seats back there, you have to take those out every time you're going to go to hockey. And if you're going to hockey once, twice a week, that's not great. That was the first, easiest thing that I thought about and ruled out a lot of vehicles for me for just for ease of getting my stuff in and out. And a little bit even more complicated than your bag is your sticks. So that's always a tricky thing of where do you put your sticks? You know, like I said, with my old car, easy, I would fold seats down and they'd kind of go, you know, between the front two seats and all the way through with the truck super easy, just go in the bed. A lot of stands have kind of that pass through. I think it's they usually call it like a ski pass through sticks go in there. You can usually angle them in somehow in a back seat or in a passenger seat to and do that. But not all of them are great with it. And depending on how well you maneuver stuff through and how careful you are, you might start marking up the ceiling of your car with hockey tape, because hockey tape, when you start rubbing it on stuff, especially if you use black hockey tape and stuff on the either end, honestly, on your blade or on the butt end of your stick, that will mark up stuff. And it's kind of paying the butt to get it out. So that's something to consider just because you can wedge your sticks in there. If you have a car that you got to put the sticks not in the trunk, you might be marking your car up, which maybe you don't care about, but if somebody else uses the car, they might care. So that's a big thing is, where do the sticks go? That's a big thing to consider. I did find out, because I did this, you can totally take your hockey stuff with you when you're shopping for cars. I don't know if you need to take your entire fully done hockey bag with everything, but you can take it with some stuff in it and kind of get an idea and have a hockey stick with you and kind of see what fits and what doesn't fit. All the dealerships that I went to and I was checking stuff out, they really didn't care about that. They didn't want me throwing it around everywhere and marking up cars, but just to kind of get an idea of stuff. When I said this is what I'm looking for, something to do this with, it was totally a thing you could do. Most places didn't care. So definitely keep that in mind. Another thing to keep in mind when you are looking at getting your bag in there, and I will say this from now experience, if you do get a vehicle that easily houses multiple hockey bags, more than likely, you're going to get suckered into being a driver for anything out of town. So just be aware of that. And yeah, just be aware of that. Probably going to happen if you can fit multiple hockey bags, especially if you fit multiple hockey bags and multiple people pretty easily. You're probably all of a sudden recruited into being a driver for any out of town tournaments for things. So that's kind of the, to me, one of the biggest things is that how does stuff fit in there. Along with that, if you do normally take other people with you, or if you kind of like carpool to games or kind of ride share to games, back and forth who drives, got to make sure it can fit everything. You don't want to be like, oh yeah, I'll carpool with a guy with a minivan to games, and I have a little, I have a Mini Cooper. Not really going to work. Not really going to work that well. Also, if you do do away tournaments, you know, you, or I guess if you're kids as well, but if you do go to away tournaments and stuff, can it fit your hockey stuff and your luggage if you're going to be driving? Even if you're just by yourself, if you have a pretty small car, it might be a tight fit. And if you have to bring anybody else with you, it might be a really tight fit. Even if there's somebody that doesn't play, like if you're going to an away tournament and you just have a small car, you have to put your goalie gear in there, and you're bringing like your significant other with you, and you both have luggage, it may or may not fit. So that's something to think about if you do go to that kind of stuff. And having a way to do that, having a way to bring all of what you need with you to this stuff. So something to think about, think about how much stuff you bring. If you bring to an away tournament, I am someone that probably over packs my hockey gear when I go out of town. I do bring like drying stuff and extra just things with me just in case, in case somebody forgets their jerseys or forgets gloves or whatever. I usually bring extra stuff with me. And if you're someone that does that, you're gonna need more room. So that's another thing to really think about. One of the big points, like I said, that I really thought of with this is, I live in a place where it snows. So hockey's played in the snow time of the season. So I wanted something that could get through snow pretty good. So if you're in somewhere where you barely get any snow, probably doesn't really matter. But if you're in somewhere that rains a ton, that matters. Like I said, for me, it snows, and we can get some pretty good snowfall around here, a couple of inches overnight, not insignificant. So I wanted something that could pretty easily go through that. I mean, you could just slap a pair of snow tires on whatever car you had. That's 100% what I used to do. And it works, it's totally a viable thing. But sometimes we get kind of hairy weather at night with the snow. Sometimes it's snowy and icy and not great, and I wanted something a little bit better than that. So that's something to look at. That's a big selling point on something that's four-wheel drive, something that's higher off the ground. That's a big thing for those kind of vehicles, especially if you're gonna be driving home late at night from your beer league games. Kind of the final thing, I think, to think about when you're getting your perfect beer league vehicle is any kind of extra stuff that you may or may not want to have with your vehicle that would make it kind of cool. You know, they have all kinds of extra stuff with your, I don't want to say cars, but with your cars and your vehicles nowadays. You know, they have stuff like mine. My truck has a in bed waterproof trunk that they tout that you can throw ice and beverages in. You know, so if you're somebody that, you know, you guys do like a lot of post games in the parking lot and stuff like that, that could be really neat. If you, you know, need power to do stuff, again, like a post game parking lot kind of thing, having, you know, in bed or easily to get to outboard power for a vehicle would be kind of handy. You know, a lot of EVs, a lot of hybrids and stuff have stuff like that where they can power stuff. A lot of them, even too, a lot of these like more rugged camping vehicles have, you know, built-in stoves, like little pull-out camping things. You know, I know there are people that love to have like a little grill and grill up, you know, some food in the parking lot after games, especially in the summer for things. And I mean, if you have like one of these camping vehicles that just has that built in or just slide it out, and you can kind of, you know, it's kind of a tailgating kind of thing, do that. That's a cool add-on thing to have. So that's something to think about. Also, you know, having stuff like remote start, having like a remote start that you can use if you live in some place cold, just to kind of let your vehicle warm up as you're getting to it. You know, that's a handy thing to have if you're in super cold environments, having some kind of built-in block heater if you need it. You know, because again, this is not like regular during the day running to the grocery store travel. This is probably hopping into your vehicle after it's been sitting for a couple of hours at 11, 11, 30, 12 at night doing this stuff. So it's a little bit different than going in the morning unless you have very early days. So that's something else to think about. Another thing to think about, if you have a really fancy vehicle that you're looking at, they have coolers and heaters for your beverages inside the vehicles. Some of your... Some of your cup holders inside of your vehicles in the more higher end model of things have built-in cooling and heating, which would be a lovely thing to have a chilled or heated beverage on your drive home. So, something to think about, you know. But this is, that's kind of the overview of all the stuff I thought of with things that I brought out there, you know, and stuff, I think, to think about if you're looking for a new hockey-specific vehicle. Well, that being said, what kind of vehicles did I look at and what kind of stuff did I see? The biggest thing is I looked around what I saw in the parking lots, you know, when I go to games, and I noticed it really trended kind of in three different things that I saw. And I'm sure, I think this is pretty standard most places of what's out there is one, trucks, but tons of trucks you see at the hockey rinks. Two, lots of full-size SUVs, lots of them, especially more so, I think you see those, at least I was seeing those more so at like kids' games that usually take place before the beer league games, saw a lot of those. And it's, I don't know what category, it doesn't really fall into either one of those categories. It's its own category, Subarus. Subarus seem to be the hockey vehicle. And just coming out after games and seeing what kind of vehicles people drive on the various beer league teams, Subarus I think is probably the number one brand of vehicle out there because it kind of covers all these things that I talked about. You know, it's easy to get multiple hockey bags in there. You can haul people, haul stuff. They kind of do everything. So that always, that seemed to be the biggest number one thing that I saw out there was Subarus. So that's obviously I looked at those. But that's something I would definitely, definitely consider there. Other things that I've seen, and I know people drive. Like I said, trucks I think is a super easy choice if you like trucks. Obviously, they're helpful outside of hockey for hauling stuff around. But if you don't want something that big, SUVs, compact SUVs, any of those seem to be pretty good for doing stuff. A decent amount of minivans. And especially people I know that have minivans that you can take these seats out either the third row or the second and third row or stow them away. Man, that is so easy to get your hockey stuff in there and get it out. Minivans are pretty amazing at that for just hauling stuff. I don't know if it's the best like winter and poor weather vehicles out there. I mean, I know they're pretty sturdy and pretty safe and stuff like that. But man, if you get one of the more modern ones that have, like I said, seats that stow away or fold down or hide or whatever like that, you can easily get a ton of stuff in there. For getting from place to place. So I have seen that for sure at a lot of games. Like I said, a lot of pickups. I'd say not too many like sedans or coupes. Not as much. Less and less of those. And I think just, you know, I think you generally probably still see those a lot on the road as much as you used to, but also for hockey, it's kind of tough to get all your stuff into a little car. Especially if you have just like a smaller, even four-door car, it can be tough to get everything in there. Very few sports cars. I see almost nobody with sports cars and stuff. I can't imagine trying to like, you know, drive to hockey in like a Miata. That just seems ridiculous. But I have seen it. And I have actually seen people ride their motorcycle to hockey. I have seen people that, you know, have like a backpack bag or just put their bag on. Like a backpack and fashion some way to attach their sticks to their bike. And take a motorcycle to a game. I can't imagine that that is anything outside of ridiculously dangerous. But kudos to those people. So it's possible. I have, I know one guy that drives his motorcycle to everywhere, drives it in the middle of winter and all the time like that. And he has a little trailer. Almost looks like one of those little trailers that you would put your kids in on a regular bike. He has one of those for his motorcycle. And his hockey stuff goes into there. His bag fits in there super easily. And he's got little hangers on the side so he can put his hockey sticks on there. And that's how he gets to hockey all the time. I actually don't know if he owns anything besides motorcycles to get around on. If that's all I ever saw him drive. So it's a thing. You can totally do it. Yeah, I can't imagine riding around though with like your bag on your back, but it's a thing people do. You know, same thing if you want to have a little two-seater sports car, you could somehow make that work, get everything stuffed in the seat next to you, and you would do it. If it's a convertible, don't worry about the stick sticking out. It seems kind of ridiculous and probably more hassle than it's worth, but people can do that. So hopefully that was a little bit of help, some stuff to think about if you're looking to buy a new vehicle, and you're considering how is this vehicle going to work or not work for hockey. Like I said, I think the biggest thing for this is just making sure your bag is easy to get in and get out. Just because it fits in doesn't mean that it's easy to get in and get out, and you can take it with you when you go look at cars, or trucks, or vans, or whatever you're looking at. But also sticks. I think sticks is the biggest thing people forget about because they go, hey, my bag will easily fit into the trunk. I can get it in there, no problem, and then it sticks. It's where do they go? And not thinking about how they can mark up the inside of your vehicle. So I think that's the biggest thing is to consider that, especially if you use longer sticks. That's something to really think about because it's going to be harder to get it into places. And if you're going to have to be adjusting seats every time to get stuff to fit in, or taking out, like I said, if you have car seats and stuff, you have to take out every time. It's doable, but it's not ideal if you're playing hockey multiple times a week, even once a week, and you have to go in and do all that kind of stuff just to get ready for hockey. And then when you get out of hockey, get home, drag your stuff in. If you're like me and you're really lazy about bringing your stuff in that night, you have to go back and get the car seats back in. Go put whatever junk you normally have in the trunk there, put that back in. That's not fun. That's not fun. So you got to think about how much it's worth it to you to have whatever car that you're thinking of that might need that versus getting something slightly different. We don't have to do that as much. So again, hopefully this was helpful. If you have any ideas on what else you should be looking for when you're buying a hockey vehicle or other thoughts on hockey vehicles in general, I'd love to hear from them. You can get ahold of the show. Leave comments. You can text the show. Find out that in the show notes. Text show. Let me know what you think. But as always, guys, any likes, comments, subscriptions, reviews, any of that stuff, all greatly appreciated. Helps the show grow. Catch you in the next one.