Kindly make sure you are never playing on my kids team! We all signed up for this knowing damn well what is expected... and tournaments are just a part of it. We had kids bail on us last Xmas tourney and we had to play bantam hockey with 9 players. You sign up to be part of the team.. that means all team events, not just the ones that are convenient.
I agree. Once you are on the team, no excuses, except major emergencies.
I remember years ago, as a squirt, my kid had a math-field day and a playoffs game almost at the same time. He represented his school in a math competition, so my wife was going to divorce me, if hockey took precedence. On the other hand, this was the game we had to win, to qualify for the next round of playoffs. He did the math competition, missed the last 30 minutes of it (we left early), drove to Valencia as if we were in a car chase, we missed the first half of the period but played for the rest, and he scored the game-winning goal in OT against the Express. Then we went back to the school and collected the medals his team won in math. It was exhausting, but unforgettable. We did everything in our power, to make it work, and I wouldn't do it any other way. And now, this kind of commitment to hockey is starting to pay dividends in many different ways.
(Btw this was the team that beat us 12:1 in the regular season, but we beat them in the playoffs. Had my son taken the easy way out, we would have been elinimated.)