One family’s dedication to hockey
- Kate Smith
- Mar 20
- 5 min read
The Zondag family currently has four children playing on Goderich Minor Hockey teams.
This year, for the first time, each of the Zondag children – Luke (17), Lincoln (16), Emmit (13), and Hadyn (11) – competed in Young Canada Week (YCW) at the same time.
Despite an intense year when it came to coordinating schedules, with all four of their children competing in the same home-grown, historic hockey tournament has been the cherry on top.
“We think it’s great all four got to play in the same tournament,” Mike said.
“It’s Luke’s last year and Hadyn’s first. It can’t be repeated. There’s no other family that has ever been able to have all four children in this tournament at once.”
Dedication to their children's teams is a result of love for the game. When the children were little, Barb would load up with all four kids, plus children she was child-minding and get to the arena on time.
Mike would get his children dressed for their ice sessions, and while watching, try to keep the other children safe and entertained.
“It was a crazy time in our lives, but we made it through,” admitted Mike.
Luke played in his last Young Canada Week tournament this year and took part in the tournament for six years.
In 2019 he played against an Australian team with the U13 LL squad, earning bronze that year. In 2022, he won gold with U15 LL and played for the U18 LL team that year and won bronze. In 2023, Luke won bronze with the U18 Rep team, and won gold in 2024 with U18 Rep.
In 2025, in his final year of U18 Rep, Luke and his team aimed for gold but ended up earning second place.
Lincoln is in his fourth year playing at the Young Canada Week tournament. In 2021 during the pandemic, he didn’t compete, but in 2022 with U13 LL he won bronze, and in 2024 with U15 LL earned another bronze.
Emmit is competing in his third year at Young Canada Week, and Hadyn is in her first year at Young Canada Week, which leaves another six years to compete in the historic tournament.
“The kids love to play, and we are here to support them,” admitted Mike.
Their daughter Hadyn could have chosen to go play in an all-girls league, but she always felt like she belonged playing for Goderich Minor Hockey; despite being told she doesn’t belong with the boys.
“It makes her play harder to prove she does belong here,” added Mike.
Although neither one of Barb nor Mike coach, one of them is at every game they can get to. Barb has also acted as manager to several of the teams over the last 12 years.
Additionally, Mike and Barb both help at the biggest Goderich Minor Hockey fundraisers held in the summer by bartending at the Civic Holiday Weekend ball tournament.
Over the years and spread across their four children, the Zondag family has been part of 36 different Goderich Minor Hockey teams and have built great friendships with several of the families. Their older children also get volunteer hours with Goderich Minor Hockey.
“Hockey offers so many other opportunities,” added Mike.
From tournaments across the province, to competing at Provincials or skating with hockey star Ryan O’Reilly, the Zondag family have remained passionate and dedicated to hockey and Goderich Minor Hockey. In turn, they have had that love reciprocated with the opportunities and successes they have experienced over the years.
Young Canada Week isn’t just another tournament, it’s special to Goderich and Goderich Minor Hockey families.
“It’s so special because it’s ours, it belongs to our community,” remarked Mike.
There are grandparents, parents, children, teenagers and friends from the community all watching and cheering on the young athletes.
Mike believes the draw of this tournament is the community support from family and friends, but also that Goderich Minor Hockey and the Lions Club work together.
As with every organization, they can’t make everyone happy all the time. The Zondag’s understand that with every year and every executive member, Goderich Minor Hockey does a good job communicating, and tries to make decisions that are good for the whole organization, including families like theirs with several children registered to play.
Despite the stress of coordinating their children’s hockey schedules, Mike and Barb wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Each year, their children are given the choice to play or not, but Mike and Barb wouldn’t keep their children from the ice just because of how complicated scheduling may get.
To help, they often rely on other families for rides, and they believe it takes a community of hockey families to pull this off.
“It’s absolutely worth it,” Mike added.
“This is a community of hockey families, and we are so happy to be part of it.”
Playing a team sport has taught the Zondag children how to be coachable, and to understand that fair does not mean equal.
“Our children are all very in tune with who needs their help or who needs extra time,” admitted Mike.
“They also all look out for the underdog.”
Young Canada Week has remained a constant in the hockey world, and a tradition in Goderich. Year after year teams from across Ontario come to Goderich to play in the celebrated hockey tournament that once hosted Wayne Gretzky as a young boy.
The Zondag family believes the tournament continues to be successful because it changes when it needs to.
When it no longer had enough teams to fill a tournament for U13, it changed to allow teams into the current format of three divisions – U13, U15 and U18.
The tournament used to host players at local homes for the whole week, which has now changed to a couple of days for each age group.
In addition, having a partnership the Lions Club has helped with annual success of the tournament.
“March Break is a great time to do a tournament,” added Mike.
“People want fun things to do with their families. It’s one last tournament before the season ends.”
Over the March Break, the Zondag family has 23 games over the course of nine days. Over the season, their family took part in 120 games (plus exhibition games), more tournaments, and a few games left on the schedule. Couple that with four to 12 practices a week, and it’s safe to say it’s been an intense hockey season.
“We see young families trying to make it work, and we smile when they say they have so much hockey that week,” Mike said.
“We tell them it does get easier, and we encourage our four to make things easier for others.”
With their children at an age where they don’t need help getting ready, it takes a load off Mike and Barb, but the games get more intense.
“Our part of parenting our hockey players to accept the wins and losses gracefully isn’t always easy,” admitted Mike.
“We make it work. It’s not always smooth or pretty, but it’s our lives. We wouldn’t change it.”
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