Here is best of the content form MomsTEAM.com from this week:

Attention hockey moms and dads: The air you and your children breathe at the rink may be hazardous to your health. The culprit:  gas-, diesel- and propane-powered ice resurfacing machines which spew out a toxic stew of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter, all which can result in potentially serious health problems.

With the start of the winter sports season comes the opportunity for parents, coaches, and athletes to get on the same page.  MomsTEAM’s Founder and Publisher Brooke de Lench says the best way to begin the season is to hold a meeting before the season starts to ensure that everyone is playing from the same playbook once it begins, and lists 21 questions to ask. While some of the topics  and topics will seem obvious, they are all important; if they aren’t covered in some form (whether it is at a meeting or via written handouts or on a website), parents won’t feel as comfortable as they should be going into the season.  Not only is this uncertainty likely to increase the chances of conflicts developing between parent and coach, but it could put the physical, psychological and sexual safety of your child and their teammates at increased risk.

Whatever the sport, whether it be football, basketball or hockey, playing time is a huge issue at pre-high school levels.  Playing is the number one reason kids play sports, by a wide margin, so the number one mission for every youth sport coach, says longtime youth sports expert, Bob Bigelow, is to make sure kids get meaningful playing time in every game.

Prompt reporting of concussion symptoms and proper concussion management should allow an athlete to play contact or collision sports as long as they want.  It is athletes who hide symptoms, return to play too soon or sustain multiple injuries whose careers may be cut short, says Dr. William P. Meehan, Director of the Sports Concussion Clinic at Children’s Hospital Boston and author of Kids, Sports, and Concussion.

One of the questions MomsTEAM asked top sports dietitians and nutrition experts during its month-long special blog series on sports nutrition was what they thought of nutritional supplements.  Not surprisingly, most thought that athletes should meet their nutritional needs by eating whole, minimally processed foods, with most saying a multi-vitamin is okay to fill nutritional gaps.