Invariably, when you publish a game schedule, some teams get early morning games. The loudest teams to complain are those that are only an hour away, they gamble that they won’t get early games and they lose. When they are wrong, it is your fault that they have to get up extra early.
But, what is really sad and frustrating is when they use the now my kids have to wake up an hour earlier and you are putting my team at a disadvantage and my all-time favorite I’ll never go to your tournament again.
Please. From a soccer parent who has had more than fifteen years of early-morning tournament games, I can tell you with 100% certainty that no matter how early the kid needs to wake up to drag his or her sleepy butt to the car, they are not going to be missing one minute of sleep on the drive to the tournament, regardless of how far away it is. And, if the parent is sleepy, then that is why Target, Wal-Mart and Amazon.com make soccer chairs.
Our Advice: Someone has to get the early morning games. Some teams don’t like it, but if you had your last year’s schedule published, it did not come as a surprise to the teams. They applied in full knowledge that they ran just as much a risk of getting early games as did every other team. The fact that they did not book hotel rooms for Friday (or the day previous) is not your fault. You should tell them as much.
Teams should plan to compete at the first possible game and should plan to go all the way to the finals. If that means getting extra rooms for the entire weekend, then that is what it means to compete at the travel soccer level. If the only reason they don’t come back to your tournament next year is they had to play an early game, that is ok… there is always a coach out there getting up even earlier; staying healthier, wealthier and wiser than his competition.