Start times of high school hockey games

Tonight I was covering a high school hockey game that was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. I arrive at the rink at about 7:40 and a youth hockey practice is on the rink. The practice finally gets off the ice around 7:55. After the ice is resurfaced, lineups are announced and the national anthem is played, the puck is dropped around 8:20.
I know ice time is expensive, but why can't somebody tell the youth hockey people somtime around 7:40 "There's a game that's supposed to start at 8. Can we wrap it up?"
It always seems to be a practice, never another game, that causes the game to start late.
Does this happen at a lot of high school hockey games in other places?

 

The correct answer is: There's never a good time for high school hockey.

 

Be thankful the game didn't start at midnight or at 7 a.m.

 

High school hockey has become very big in our area and start times range from 11 a.m. (on weekends) til 9:30 p.m. and sometimes the "9:30 game" doesn't start til 10.

 

High school hockey starting times are always "estimated." We work on the assumption we'll be lucky if the game starts within an hour of the announced starting time.

 

Sounds like more of a problem with the announced game time than anything else, they should probably know the game isn't starting until 8:20 p.m.

Rink time, at least in most places, isn't like gym time where game times can vary incredibly. In most cases, you pay by the hour and they'll buzz you right off when your time is up so it can be resurfaced. I'm not sure why you'd have such inconsistency, unless there was a tournament or game with continuous overtime — but good schedulers usually include a buffer for such instances too.

 

When I was in an area that had high school hockey, Friday night games would have an announced time of 9:30 p.m.

Fortunately, my hockey teams were horrible so I didn't have to go to their games as often as I might have if they knew the stick from the puck.

 

Around here, barring double-overtime, the games are usually spot on. Of course, some aren't even scheduled to start until 9 or 9:30 on a Friday or Saturday night. Oddly, those games don't get much coverage. Amazing how many of the 6:30, 7 or 7:30 games get covered. Quite a phenomenon.