NHL Star Kane Weighing Youth Sports Future For His Son

On the one hand, Patrick Kane is an NHL superstar. He’s one of the best to play the game over the most recent generation of hockey.

And yet, at the same time, he’s just like the rest of us - a father of a young child about to set out on the youth sports experience. And Kane is determining which path he should follow with his son.

Should he go with the path he followed of sport specialization, or take the route that is recommended by experts in the field, that of allowing his son to enjoy all that the multi-sport experience can bring to a child.

“I think there's definitely a benefit to playing other sports,” Kane said.

It certainly wasn’t the path Kane followed that led to an NHL career that will eventually conclude with his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He was consumed by hockey 24/7, virtually all year round.

“From playing summer hockey I felt like I got maybe a little bit better through that time of the year to help me start the regular season,” Kane recalled. “But yeah, if I took a week off when I was younger, it would be a long time for me. So I was skating honestly like 350 days a year. 

“Whether it was some type of skate and shoot, practice hockey camp. I mean, whatever it was, it just always seemed to be that I was on the ice when I was younger. I also think like I said, I had a little bit of an advantage going back to my winter hockey clubs from playing so much hockey in the summer.”

While Kane became one of the 1% of youth sports participants who go on to play the game professionally - quite sensationally, in fact - there’s also the reality that Kane was sidelined from the game for a significant time due to injury. He was required to undergo an experimental hip resurfacing surgery on June 1, 2023. This was due to a hip impingement that caused the grinding of bone on bone. 

The surgery involved trimming and capping the femoral head with metal, as well as cleaning and replacing the hip socket with a metal shell.

It’s fair to wonder if this injury was the result of overuse from playing the same sport year round for virtually his entire life.

Patrick Kane III is still learning about hockey.

“He's still pretty young,” Kane said of his son. “He's four years old. I think with him it's almost like he's got to learn how to skate first. He's got to see how much he likes it. 

“I think he likes the idea of it. He likes being around the game, he likes being at warm ups and different things like that. But yeah, we'll just, we'll see how it goes. 

“I mean, I'm not saying my recipe was perfect for anyone else, or him, or whatever. It seems like a lot of guys had success from just playing hockey in the winter and then playing other sports in the summer. So I don't think there's one correct answer for it.”

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