Sports parenting often means going all-in for the love of the game, but sometimes that investment comes with a price.

After spending a small fortune on goalie gear, one parent’s decision not to lend it out sparked an icy reception from other parents.

Read on for the full story.

AITA for not letting teammates use my kid’s goalie pads?

My 8 year old plays goalie in a recreational hockey league.

This activity has been a huge investment for their family.

Through birthdays and Christmas gifts, we’ve outfitted them with a full set of equipment: helmet and dangler, chest protector, leg pads, goalie pants, blocker/catcher.

All in, nearly $1000.

The norm so far has been to share equipment between the kids.

Because it’s a rec league, the expectation is that the kids will rotate into different positions at the start of the season.

The league has a limited number of sets of goalie pads to borrow. Most are beaten and there’s no guarantee you’re getting stuff that fits properly.

But that didn’t work out well for their kid.

Last year, the set the team had were far too big for my kid’s spindly legs. They had to play with their skater’s shin guards under the goalie pads just to get a big enough diameter for the straps to tighten around their leg.

More than a few parents have mentioned borrowing my kid’s equipment when their kid is in net.

Their requests didn’t sit well with the parents, knowing they had already invested so much into the gear.

Things like, “oh, we’ll have to really loosen all the adjustments up on that stuff to get it on my kid next week”, or “I’d want to clean it before [her kid] puts it on, is it safe to throw it in the washing machine?”

I told another parent, “Sorry, it took us a long time to get everything adjusted for my kid and we’re not comfortable lending it out”.

The other parents didn’t react well to this.

It’s created a rift with the other parents.

Where we used to be part of the group chit-chatting in the stands with the other parents, now we aren’t.

Invitations for my kid to play outside of hockey used to be plentiful, now they have dried up.

AITA?

The real challenge here isn’t happening on the ice.

What did Reddit have to say?

An ex-hockey player affirms that this kind of request just isn’t reasonable.

How someone responds to being told no tells you a lot about them.

You know what they say about making assumptions.

It’s clear to this redditor that these parents are folks you want to stay away from.

Ultimately, playing by their own rules didn’t have the outcome these parents expected.

Sometimes the price of saying no is surprisingly steep.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.