The Beer Leaguer
The podcast for the discerning beer league hockey player. We cover all things adult recreational hockey from folks that never played professionally, but just want to have fun and get a little better every game.
The Beer Leaguer
When is it Time to Jump Teams?
One of the hardest things in Beer League is knowing when you should jump ship to a different team.
In this episode, Mason joins the show and we discuss a multitude of reasons for moving on to a new team. What are some ways to handle things with your old team, and do you even need to? We share stories of why we left teams and why we joined others and if they ended up working out in the end.
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Hey everybody, welcome back to another Beer Leaguer podcast episode. Once again, joining me is Mason.
SPEAKER_1:Heyo.
SPEAKER_2:And on this episode, I thought we would talk on something sort of related to what we've talked about previously, about what makes a good team, what makes good locker rooms and stuff like that. But the exact opposite of that. When is a good time to jump ship and leave your team? And what's a good reason for it? It's the start of the season for, I think, a lot of people, and maybe you're on a new team, and you're just kind of feeling things out. Maybe you're on a team that has changed a lot, and kind of seeing how things go. You know, when's the time to call it quits? Is it okay to do it? And what's being a jerk about doing it and what's not? That's kind of all the stuff I thought we should talk about. So I will kick things off with, I think, one of the easiest kind of ways to figure out if you should or shouldn't leave. And one of the biggest things that I hear about very early on is, if your team has moved what division or what group that they play in. Where in the Mason play, we used to have divisional play, one through five, for higher numbers is better players, lower numbers, more beginner players, three simple things. I think most places have some sort of similar structure to that. So one of the things that does happen is every year teams move up, some teams move down, and maybe you're no longer appropriate for your team. So I think that's a very, not necessarily easy call, but that's a very justifiable and easy to explain. If your team has moved up, you should be up there with them. You don't feel comfortable playing up there. The game's too fast for you, and you want to move down, or vice versa. If you're one of the better players in your team, your team moves down, and you've become the ringer that nobody likes because you're sandbagging it the whole time back there. That's another good reason to maybe jump ship.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah, that would be interesting. This hasn't happened to us, so I don't have any first-hand experience. But if I couldn't keep up with guys, I don't think I'd be able to hang. I'd just feel bad for the team if I was a liability. Probably wouldn't want to hang around a long time.
SPEAKER_2:So I think that's kind of the easiest one to explain, because you're just saying, like, hey, the team has moved up. I don't think I'm good enough to be up there with you guys. I think I'm hurting you. I want to move down and find another team, something like that. And in our league, that happens. I mean, pretty regularly in the beginning of the year, you have guys that shuffle around just because of that. That's a totally normal thing.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah, it would just be hard if you're pretty tight with your team. I mean, you may just want to stick it out, but yeah, I don't know. That would be a tough one.
SPEAKER_2:I think trying to stick it out is a lot easier for you if your team moved up and did move up significantly. They moved up like one or two spots and you're just slightly below what they should be. I think that's easier to deal with versus your team dropping down and you're too good. Because if you're too good, you're being a jerk to every other team. Whereas if you're not good enough, you're just being a jerk to your own team.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:I mean, they might be okay with it. They're okay with it. I don't know. It depends how competitive your team is and how much worse you are. I think I'm a drain on both teams that I'm on, but nobody seems to mind. So, you know, you guys all seem okay with it. So, yeah. Does that make sense when it goes different ways? How it's less of a thing?
SPEAKER_1:I think it depends on your personality, too. Like, you could be really good and not be a jerk about it. We've talked about try-hards before, and it's like if you're just out there having a good time feeding your buddies with some sweet passes, like maybe it's not so bad. But yeah, if you're dangling through guys, going full McJesus, then it's probably a problem.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah. And okay, kind of along with what you said is another reason you might want to jump teams, you know, go a new team or even just stop playing for the season, is if your team's changed a lot. Like you said there, Mason, is a lot of the reason you stick around is because you're buddies with a lot of the guys and maybe you've played with them for a long time. But there's also teams that, for whatever reason, there's huge turnover. Again, I know for our league, which I keep using for an example, is especially the lower division teams, that seems to be something that happens in like year four, for some reason, like year three or four seems to be the big year of just a huge amount of turnover where people either decide they don't want to play anymore or they realize they're better than what kind of they were playing at and they move up to other teams that they've met or something like that. And the team has a huge, huge turnover. And that might be a reason you just don't want to play on that team anymore.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about or we've experienced changes in captains, not in our team, but on ancillary teams. And the new captain comes in and it's like a huge jerk. You don't want to play for that team anymore. I can imagine the same thing happens. Like even if you're not really good friends, you just bring in like one bad apple and it really ruins the team, ruins the dynamic. You don't want to hang out with those guys anymore. Take your ball and go home.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah. The way I've seen it is usually teams are looking for, hey, we need three or four guys for this upcoming season. And you have like one guy that brings in like two of his buddies, and then they kind of become a click on the team. And maybe they bring in one or two other guys that are on the team into their click. And now all of a sudden, when you had like a team that was all kind of hanging out, you have like a little click there that's now these like five or six guys that are kind of off to their side doing their own thing, and everyone else is kind of left, you know, not having friends to hang out with from hockey and not having people to talk to in the locker rooms or whatever.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah. This has happened a couple, well, this happened a few times now. We've had guys bring in their kids. It always worries me because it's like they could go, it can either be really good, the kid's cool or, oh my god, this kid's a douche. And fortunately, it's gone, you know, the kid's a good kid, and they're fun to play with. But yeah, I've seen other teams where it's not gone well, and the kid is a douche. And yeah, it ends up breaking the team, because like you said, the team has to move up because the kid's too good, or he brings more of his buddies, and the same problem, you keep getting better, and the other guys aren't getting better, so they got to stay back. Yeah, it could be real weird when you start injecting kids, your buddy's kids into the mix.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah, this is one of those things, I think, where we talked previously about what makes a good locker room. And I think this really feeds in with that, of being just aware of it and kind of seeing how things are going, so you're not dropping out at game five, because you realized, oh, wait, I don't like any of these guys that are on my team anymore. The five guys I like don't play anymore, or three of them left and two of them are like part-time players now. Just kind of being aware of that sort of stuff, I think, really gives you a heads up on it, and stops you from having to be a jerk that pulls out into the season, and then leaving the team shorthanded somebody.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:Because I've seen that. I've seen that not with teams that we've been on, other teams I've been on and stuff, and other teams I know from talking to people. But I've been on other teams where way back in the day, I played on a team that was like, I had family members on the team. That's who it was. It was like family members and good friends and stuff. And eventually, they all left. I stuck around and I knew all the guys, but it just stopped being fun because it went from being, like I said, family members and people I grew up with and super, super close friends to, well, now it's just acquaintances that I see once a week. And it's like, yeah, it's fun to play, but it's not, it wasn't the same anymore, because you show up, you play, you go home.
SPEAKER_1:Right.
SPEAKER_2:You know, and that's also one of those things that I think leads into people kind of losing their love of playing and leads to a kind of burnout.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah, I can see that.
SPEAKER_2:From hockey a lot. I think that can really lead into that. Another another thing I have for I don't know if there's a good reason, but a reason is playing on multiple teams. Because this is the thing I have seen, and both of us now play on multiple teams, is I know some people that play on, you know, we both play on two teams. I've seen people that sign up and, you know, are on four rosters and play in multiple leagues. And, you know, are like, I'm gonna be playing hockey, you know, five nights a week. So that's something that I see a lot with beginners, is people like just start playing hockey, especially when they start playing it kind of later in life, is they start playing like in their 30s or something, or 40s even, and they catch the bug, they love it. And their solution is, I'm gonna join multiple teams, I'm gonna join in a couple leagues, and I'm gonna go to like every open skate I can. And so they go from like never playing hockey, to playing once a week on a team, to then the next year playing on three teams and two leagues, and going to three open skates, or stick and pucks and all this. And usually they get really good, they get way better and everything. And then real quickly after like two years, three years, they're completely burned out. And a lot of times they'll end up getting hurt and stuff, because, let's be fair, if you're playing Beer League, you're probably not in the best shape, and you're not used to doing that much. But they end up getting hurt with things, or having nagging injuries, or if they are like married, or have girlfriend or whatever, they're complaining of why you at hockey every night sort of thing. And then it just gets to be too, too much. That's something I see, too.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah, I mean, I haven't run into that a ton. I have thought about joining other leagues just to get out there a little more. But again, it's like two nights, I think it's my max now. If I were to play more than two nights, like you said, my wife would not be happy. It's already expensive enough playing on two teams. I have a third team in the mix or even ad hoc things. It's gone up to $15 a session, at least here in Cleveland. So it just adds up quick. So I can definitely see where just physically, emotionally, and financially could get broke out really quick playing more than two nights a week.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah, so I think that's one, that's a good reason to stop playing on a team. I think that's also a cautionary thing for don't go from zero to a hundred. Like you can build this stuff up. Like I would tell somebody, don't join a whole bunch of teams at once. Maybe go to a whole lot of stick and pucks and drop ins and stuff like that, instead of joining a bunch of teams. Because if you get burned out, and you stop going to like, hey, I'm not going to go to the drop in on Thursday nights anymore. Okay, not a big deal versus I signed up for four teams. I'm not going to play for any of them anymore.
SPEAKER_1:Now you screwed four teams. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_2:So I think that's a little bit more of a cautionary thing to watch out for, for stuff.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah. With that said, I would say it would be easier if you find like you're unhappy on a team, like, oh, I really like this other team that I'm playing on. So I could easily be like, yeah, guys, I'm not coming back and just move to another team. That is one advantage of playing on multiple teams. But yeah, you're right. You don't want to overdo it.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah. I think there's nothing wrong with playing on multiple teams. It's just, like I said, it's the thing of people going from zero to 100. Like I said, I see that a lot with beginner people and people that maybe just start, you know, play like in high school and then haven't played for, you know, 15, 20 years. And it's usually the people, like I've seen that more. People do that and they come back in and they play on one team, go, oh, that was a ton of fun. I loved it. I had a blast. I'm going to sign up for three teams now. And it's like, it's not a... To get very mathy, it's not a very linear progression of how that works, for how much joy you usually have. It's much more of a hockey stick graph, they call it, where it really spikes up very quickly at a certain point. And everybody is different. It might be your limit is one team, might be your limit is two teams, might be your limit is one team and going to a regular pick-up or stick-and-puck or something like that. All right. You know, also at a lot of these pick-ups, I run into people that used to play on teams are just like, I just do, I don't play on any teams anymore. I just do like this drop in and this drop in. And sometimes this stick and puck because, you know, it's super fun. I still get to play. I play regularly. But then if I got too much going on or whatever, I can just skip it for a week or two or even a month. And not a big deal, right? And then the, for me, the last thing I have on my list that I came up with for what I think are kind of valid reasons for jumping ship is just if you want to play with your buddies. That's the thing I see very commonly where people join a team and, you know, maybe you don't know anybody really well. Maybe you kind of know some people. And then you have friends that maybe you encourage to get back in to hockey, or you try and get them to start playing, or they switch over to playing in a league you're in, or you've gotten good enough to play with them or something like that, and you just want to go play with your pals.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:You know, I think that's totally a good reason, a legit reason, a very valid reason to do it, to drop and switch teams. I see that all the time in our league, people doing that.
SPEAKER_1:Right. Yeah, I agree. I kind of did that when I joined our team, our first team.
SPEAKER_2:Getting to play with all your pals on the team.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah, you. But that kind of leads me into one reason that I was thinking of that would be a good reason to switch teams, is if the league you're in is poorly managed. I've played in three different leagues now, and the first one was pretty garbage. They didn't have like good divisions or levels, so our team was just getting trashed all the time. So like you said, like getting moved up a division, we're already in the lowest division, so there's nowhere we could go, but we're getting trounced every game, so that wasn't fun. And then I switched. Well, I actually moved. So I went to a new league on the east side of Cleveland here, and it was pretty similar thing. Like it was run poorly, there was not great communication. The teams were very unbalanced, and then I met you and started this league, and it fluctuates, but it's mostly like a lot better than any of the other leagues that I've played in.
SPEAKER_2:I'd say our league is a lot more consistent. I don't know if I'd have to say things like always better, but it's more consistent, which is nice.
SPEAKER_1:Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah. That's a good reason. I've played in multiple leagues too. Like kind of here in the Cleveland area, I think there's a lot of the rings have kind of their own mini league, but I think there's kind of two major leagues here that most people play in where we play, which it's pretty big, but it's fairly consistent, not perfect by any means, but pretty good. And the other league is just a very wild west of things, of just teams playing each other that have no business playing each other. You know, like I remember I played in it after I started the beginner class. So we were a beginner team. There was a bunch of people that, honestly, a lot of us at the time hadn't played organized hockey ever. Like there was a ton of people had like bought their skates to join the beginner stuff. And there were a couple of people that kind of knew what they were doing. I hadn't played organized ice in forever sort of thing, but it was very, very beginner. And we went out there and one of our first games was a team of kids that had just graduated from one of the really, really good high schools around here that was playing summer together. And like, you know, we're a bunch of like middle aged, out of shape, don't know what we're doing. People that are falling, hopping the boards and stuff. And these are all kids that are like, you know, 18, 19, 20 years old. They have just competed in like state championship hockey and everything. And it was awful because they were also not cool about it. You know, they were doing the thing of, well, let's see how many of us can get five goals this game. Can all of us get five goals? That'd be cool. You know, it was, yeah, like that was just terrible. So that would be a good, that would be a good reason to leave because we only played, we played one summer there and we were like, nope, we're done, we're out.
SPEAKER_1:This is awful.
SPEAKER_2:But nothing to do with this. What else I do is someone that has run a league. That's also, it's really hard to put that stuff together too with people when you have a small league.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:That's the other issue is a lot of these, a lot of these like house leagues are very small and have, you know, five, six teams. It's hard to split it up.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:Because you probably have one team that's terrible, one team that's amazing. And then like four or five teams that are well, right. There's somewhere in between, you know, kind of depends who they have. Yeah. So I think that's a reason not just to like jump ship on a team, but yeah, a good reason to jump ship on a league and start looking around. But that's all I had for my ideas. I don't know if you had any other thoughts, Mason, on good, valid reasons, or things to kind of look out for, why you should, I mean, it's not just a, you know, what's a justifiable reason, but stuff that you should look out for on your team of warning signs or something you may want to start asking around.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah, that's a good one. I can't, I can think of things. You know, there's, it's like a toxic relationship, right? Like people start talking badly to you, or like yelling at you, like that's a warning sign. That should be a red flag. And again, like a toxic relationship, it can be hard to recognize that and be like, dude, I gotta get out of this thing, but like that's one, for sure. I would say if you're just not, if you just don't have fun anymore, like whether it's a skill issue, you're not, maybe you're not winning games, maybe X, Y, Z, like if it's just not fun anymore, maybe, maybe switch teams, mix it up, you know, if you're thinking about quitting the game because you're not having fun, you know, it could be just get out there and try a different team, meet some new people, some good new stimulation, that could help.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is if you're not having fun with it, that's when you should start looking. You know, and that's, that's a good time to talk to other people, talk to people on other teams, talk to people, you know, kind of see, you know, what they say, if they, you know, maybe they say their team is awesome. You know, that's, you know, I try to not toot my own horn a whole lot on this, but at the end of every fall season, I always have a ton of people asking if we're looking for new players.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:And that's 100% the reason why is because they talk to people that are on our team, and they have fun. You know, we haven't been a very good team the last couple of years.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:But like people, you know, and that's not great, but people don't really, that's not the most important thing. They don't really care as much. It's more, oh, yeah, no, they have a ton of fun with us. And so there's people that, you know, have that ask like, hey, if you need anybody, you know, I'll gladly drop my team because I'd like to play. And, you know, I have whatever issues with them. You know, they have, you know, we have teams that we play against that, you know, have mandates on how many people show up for a game, and, you know, they find people that don't show up. And, you know, like, kind of just ridiculous team. There's some teams that have, like, ridiculous team rules for things like that.
SPEAKER_1:Right.
SPEAKER_2:You know? I'm sure there's a whole bunch of ridiculous team rules that we don't even know about that teams have that people don't like. And we don't have anything like that. And so that's the thing that I know people will ask, you know, hey, do you guys need anybody? You know, we're looking. You know, I'm looking to get away from this. You know, I still want to play. So that's a good thing to talk to people. That's why I always try and have, like, open dialogue with most of the captains. You know, I mean, you see it. I talk all the time to different other teams. You know, I talk to referees. I talk to every, you know, I just kind of know. And then that way, it's just, it's kind of having this community of people that, you know, you talk to, it doesn't have to be like deep conversations with what you're friendly with. And then that way it gets to, you know, hey, it's the end of the season or something, or hey, I'm in the beginning of the season. You can go, hey, do you know anybody that's looking for somebody? Like, I'm kind of not loving this team I'm with. You know, anybody that needs a guy or something like that. And those are conversations that happen all the time. All the time.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah. I would say, too, like, something I don't even really think about until just now is, like, if you don't feel safe on your team, like, you may want to jump ship. I think this is, I've read a few posts now, and, like, the hockey players read it from, like, some female hockey players where they don't feel safe on the team, or they're, like, getting sexually harassed. And, man, some of the weird locker room dynamic, like, doesn't make sense to me.
SPEAKER_2:I'm not laughing at any of those. I'm laughing at some of the other, not the ones where, like, there's women that don't feel safe, because, yes, you should definitely jump teams, you know, a hundred percent get the hell out of there and find a team that you feel safe with. I know on, in our league, there are, we have, we have women that play not a ton, but they do seem to kind of migrate to the same teams. Because it's like, if you get one or two women on a team, I think they see like, oh, hey, this team must be okay with it, you know? So I'm gonna say if I can join that team, because I feel comfortable not being the only girl on the team.
SPEAKER_1:Right.
SPEAKER_2:So that's not what I was snickering at. I was just snickering at some of the other weird crap, because I was looking at stuff like that as well, and the hockey players read it. And man, there's some weird, some weird people out there in the locker rooms. And we have weird people, we've had weird people on the team, we still have weird people on the team, we play with weird people. But there is like, I don't even know what to call it out there. Like stuff that I would not want to be around regularly.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:At all. And that would be a good reason to... I would say mention it to somebody else, because more than likely, if you're thinking that, probably other people are, or maybe it's time to get that other person to switch teams.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah. True.
SPEAKER_2:But yeah, that would be definitely a good reason if there's the multiple people like that. Or like I was saying before, if people bring in their buddies, and all of a sudden they get a little click, and that's a lot of times when people get comfortable, and they can start being really weird in the locker room together.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah, that's a good point. That's a very good point from Weird Locker. I have all these awful thoughts from these posts in my head of stuff I've read about it.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah, it broke some glass for me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah. Fortunately, we don't have that, I don't think. So that's good. We just have normal weird people.
SPEAKER_1:Right.
SPEAKER_2:So yeah, that's definitely something to consider. And also, that's a good reason why if you are jumping to teams, especially if you're on a team and you're looking to switch to another team for whatever reason, something a little bit more serious, like you don't feel comfortable with them versus something of, hey, I don't think the guys are fun to hang out with. They don't want to do what I want to do. You want to go hang out after games and nobody on the team hangs out or something like that is, not to just pick up any random teams to try and latch on to, is talk to the people and see what people do, and get to know them a little bit and have some kind of dialogue, so you don't wind up with that. Because that's the thing I've seen is, and we know people that are like this, that they like to go hang out after games, go to the bar or whatever afterwards, and they're the only one on their team that does that. And so, they feel weird because no one wants to. You know, and that wouldn't be fun. But if you wind up going on to another team, and it winds up nobody else wants to go out, you're just back in the same boat. You know. So, I think that's an important thing to talk. Talk to somebody on the team and kind of see, you know, what kind of team dynamics are like and how they are. You know, and some teams are a big part of your team. Some teams are games over, everybody leaves right away. Some teams hang out in locker rooms. You know. There's a lot of different stuff people do. And it's just whatever you're comfortable with. There's not a good or a bad with it.
SPEAKER_1:Right. You know, it's... Yeah, it's a personal preference.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah. And I don't think anybody... I know for me, I wouldn't think anything less of somebody if they were like, hey, listen, I'd rather, you know, I'm going to jump over to this other team because of something like that. I'd be like, oh, well, you know, I mean, it might suck because if they're a good player or whatever, but I would be mad about it.
SPEAKER_1:Right.
SPEAKER_2:Exactly. That's a very good, very good, very good point there of things.
SPEAKER_1:Thank you.
SPEAKER_2:I think that that kind of, I think that covers probably everything.
SPEAKER_1:The big things.
SPEAKER_2:At least everything we can think of.
SPEAKER_1:Yeah. I'm sure there's more.
SPEAKER_2:Yeah.
SPEAKER_1:Hit us up.
SPEAKER_2:You can't. You can hit us up now. You can email the show. You can also leave a comment if you're watching this on YouTube. You can leave a comment in the YouTube comments, or you can also text the show. We're trying to be better about remembering this. You can text the show in the show description. There is a link. It says, text the show. Click that, and you can write a fun text. Let us know reasons you've left a team, reasons you think are good to leave a team, or maybe somebody left the team for a really dumb reasoning, you want to make fun of them.
SPEAKER_1:Bring it on. Craziest story wins. Shout out.
SPEAKER_2:When something from Mason, not from me.
SPEAKER_1:I'll shout you out on the next one.
SPEAKER_2:So yeah, let us know. Love to hear some feedback on that. Love to find out some reasons you guys have done that. We'll bring this up again. We'll talk about it at a later date on another show, a follow-up of things. Or if there's something really good, I'll throw it into a shorts episode and bring that up, and I'll laugh to myself. All right, well, I think that wraps up the episode. Mason, thank you very much, as always.
SPEAKER_1:My pleasure.
SPEAKER_2:And thanks, everybody, for listening. And catch you in the next one.
