The Best Gift Cards for Sports Families: 12 Picks That Survive a Whole Season
If you have ever stood in a freezing rink at 5:45 in the morning holding a coffee you did not have time to drink, we are already friends. Come on in. I have four kids playing hockey, ages 9 to 18, which means I have been doing this long enough to have opinions about literally everything. Skate sharpening. Hotel breakfast waffles. Which rinks have the good vending machines. And gifts, because every single year somebody asks me what to get my kids or what to get me, and every single year I have to stop myself from saying please, for the love of everything, not another sports-themed picture frame. Here is the thing that finally made this click for me. Youth sports is EXPENSIVE, and the expensive parts are not the parts people think. According to the Aspen Institute's Project Play survey, the average American sports family spent $1,016 on one child's primary sport in 2024, which is a 46 percent jump in five years. And hockey? Hockey is the most expensive youth sport in the cou...