myth: most canadian boys play hockey. reality: the numbers ... · heartland and the hub of activity...

20 | december 20, 2010 THN.mobi

d Wahl remembers the halcyon days of the 1960s and ’70s and it’s not just the rose-colored reflections of a baby boomer recalling the good times, even if they weren’t that good. He reckons that, when he was a youngster, 20,000 kids played hockey in Scar-

borough. The eight house leagues were overflowing to the point where players who’d been turned away on registration day would show up at the rink on Saturdays and wait all day in the hopes they could take the place of a player who didn’t show up.

darcy Singleton harkens back to the days when Arcola-Kisbey minor Hockey had a couple of teams in each age division. That was in the 1980s, when most people in the area were farmers with wide-open schedules during the winter and could get their kids to a 4 o’clock game on a Tuesday afternoon.

Scarborough is a huge expanse of land on the shores of Lake Ontario at the easternmost end of canada’s largest city. It encom-passes close to 75 square miles and is home to 600,000 people. In some places, it’s gritty and crime-riddled, in others it’s spec-tacularly picturesque and opulent. It’s home to more immigrants than anywhere in canada and more than two-thirds of the popu-lation is made up of visible minorities.

Arcola is a town of 600 people in southeast Saskatchewan that has one school, three bars and one strip club. It’s in hockey’s heartland and the hub of activity is the Arcola complex, rebuilt after it was destroyed by fire in 2001. A lot of people pitched in, including the NHL Players’ Association, which gave $40,000.

Myth: most Canadian boys play hockey. Reality: the numbers will shrink. And the fallout could be huge

By Ken Campbell

On the surface, Scarborough and Arcola couldn’t be more dif-ferent, but they have one very alarming thing in common: both locales are losing hockey players. However, they represent oppo-site ends of the spectrum with respect to the problems and ob-stacles facing grassroots hockey. There is no magic bullet when it comes to solving those issues and those encountered by Scarbor-ough and Arcola provide a glimpse of what Hockey canada faces in confronting the dwindling numbers in minor hockey – and the prospect of even fewer kids playing in the future.

To be sure, much has changed in the hockey complexions of Scarborough and Arcola.

Once a working-class Anglo-Saxon suburb of Toronto, Scarbor-ough has more per capita immigration than anywhere in canada with east Asians, Sri Lankans and Indians the most dominant groups. Four of the eight house leagues have folded, start-ing with the Wexford Hockey Association, a league that thrived for 50 years and produced future NHLers such as Adam Graves and Gary Leeman. After amalga-mations, there are now just two house leagues in the area and they provide hockey for about 2,000 players. About another 2,000 are playing in the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL).

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That’s about 4,000 kids, which is 80 percent fewer than the numberwho played in Scarborough 30 years ago, by Wahl’s reckoning.

“At the arena we used to play at when I was president of the cedar Hill minor Hockey League, we had 200 kids within a three-kilometer radius of the rink,” said Wahl, who is president of the newly revamped Scarborough Hockey Association. “Last year when we were independent, we had two kids. In our heyday, we had 1,200 to 1,500 kids in cedar Hill alone. If we were to turn it into a cricket league, we’d have 2,000 kids in a heartbeat. That’s not being racist, that’s the reality.”

In Arcola, all they have is one team for players under six, along with a novice, atom and midget team. The hockey association has an overabundance of ice time, allowing it to flip its ice to teams from bigger centers such as Weyburn and estevan, which are more than happy to make the drive for cheap, prime-time ice.

There are a total of 51 kids playing minor hockey in Arcola this season, which is unusually high. recently that number has been between 30 and 40. The novice team has only 11 skaters and a goalie, so nobody had better get sick on a game day. Twenty years ago, those numbers were double what they are now.

“I look at it and I would say, yes, minor hockey is dying in small towns because the numbers seem to keep getting lower and lower,” said Singleton, who is president of Arcola-Kisbey minor Hockey. “A lot of the dads these days seem to be working in the oil patch and they don’t have time to take their kids to the games. my son is nine years old and he’s the only kid in his class who plays hockey.”

Hockey is so woven into the canadian fabric that it has become by far the predominant tenet of its iden-tity. Insulin, the zipper, the telephone, the light bulb and the blackberry were all invented in canada.

Former prime minister Lester b. Pearson was one of the world’s great diplomats and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. He was instrumental in the forma-tion of the United Nations and NATO and was the father of modern peacekeeping. canada has given the world an array of academics, Hollywood heroes, comedians and musicians, but it will always be de-fined both within its borders and outside them by its aplomb with a stick and puck. current Prime min-ister Stephen Harper is a hockey history geek and there is even an illustration of kids playing hockey on the back of Canada’s five-dollar bill.

So you might be surprised to learn that only 15.7 percent – that’s one in every 6.4 boys – actually plays the game in canada. When you bring girls into the equation, the number of players goes down to 9.5 percent. In fact, if not for the boom in female hock-ey in canada, the drop would be more precipitous. Hockey canada lost almost 8,000 players from 2008-09 to ’09-10 to just more than 577,000, even though the number of female players went up slightly. Over the past decade, the rate of five- to 25-year-olds play-ing has never been lower than 14.6 percent or higher than 16.0 percent.

And after recently studying birth and immigration rates in the country, Hockey canada is bracing for the worst. In 2006, there were 2.1 million children aged 10 to 14 in canada. However, by 2016, that number is expected to drop by more than 300,000 to about 1.79 million. Assuming the 9.5 percent participation rate continues to hold through that period, Hockey canada could be looking at losing about 30,000 play-ers in its most important age group.

“When you really start to look at the data, there are some scary things there,” said Hockey canada president bob Nicholson. “It’s not a crisis today, but if we sit here and do nothing, it’s going to be a major crisis.”

Jonah mceachern is the director of operations for Hockey canada and he was the one most responsible for gathering the statistics that have the governing body so concerned. He realizes that, even if Hockey canada does a good job of selling the game to canadians, there will eventually be fewer customers.

“I’ve been ringing this bell for a long time,” mceachern said. “We’re almost at 2011 now and I tell bob, ‘I don’t want to get overly dramatic, but I get scared because we’re going to get whacked here.’ We don’t want to wake up 20 years from now say-ing, ‘Gee, why do we only have 400,000 kids playing?’ ”

When you think about it, there’s no constituency in hockey – from the NHL to equipment manufacturers to The Hockey News to local arenas – that isn’t in some way affected by what happens at the grassroots level. This is not really a question of develop-ing elite players because canada and other countries will always have enough top-level players to stock the NHL and be competi-tive on the world stage. but as Hall of Famer bobby Orr, who’s passionate about this issue, says, “We forget about developing fans. If kids don’t have a good time while playing minor hockey,

they’re not even going to be fans. They’re going to get turned off the game.”

The three most prominent issues identified when it comes to the obstacles faced by minor hockey are cost, a lack of facilities and declining interest from a chang-ing population. but how can it be cost when you could rent the ice for an hour in the northern Ontario com-munity of Smooth rock Falls last season for 35 bucks, while in nearby Hearst, people were up in arms when their hourly rate recently went up to $52 from $48 the year before? How can it be a lack of facilities when hockey associations in small towns are giving back subsidized ice time because they have more ice than kids? How can it be declining interest when – with the exception of Scotiabank Place in Ottawa – every ticket for every NHL game has been sold in canada since the lockout, television ratings are through the roof and the country is piling up gold medals?

“As a national association,” mceachern said, “we have to try to figure out what we’re trying to solve. If we’re fine with 9.5 percent, no problem, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll keep motor-ing along. but if we’re trying to build a national sport, shouldn’t we try to get into every living room?”

The problem is canada is a very large, region-alized country. The obstacles and solutions

that apply in downtown Toronto are for-eign to those in Flin Flon, man.

Whereas small towns in canada are, in some cases, begging for players, cities such as Toronto, calgary and Vancouver

have more players than available ice-time slots. Teams in Toronto, where

a publicly funded rink has not been built in more than 30

years, can pay up to $400 an hour for ice time. Infra-structure is crumbling, there is no money for new rinks and no will-ingness on the part of taxpayers to subsidize





years, can pay up to $400 an hour for ice time. Infra-structure is crumbling, there is no money for

equation, the number of players goes down to 9.5 percent. In fact, if not for the boom in female hock-ey in canada, the drop would be more precipitous. Hockey canada lost almost 8,000 players from 2008-09 to ’09-10 to just more than 577,000, even though the number of female players went up slightly. Over the past decade, the rate of five- to 25-year-olds play-ing has never been lower than 14.6 percent or higher

And after recently studying birth and immigration rates in the country, Hockey canada is bracing for the worst. In 2006, there were 2.1 million children aged 10 to 14 in canada. However, by 2016, that number is expected to drop by more than 300,000 to about 1.79 million. Assuming the 9.5 percent participation rate continues to hold through that period, Hockey canada could be looking at losing about 30,000 play-

shouldn’t we try to get into every living room?”The problem is canada is a very large, region-alized country. The obstacles and solutions

Hockey canada lost almost 8,000 players from 2008-09 to ’09-10 to just more than 577,000, even though the number of female players went up slightly. Over the past decade, the rate of five- to 25-year-olds play-ing has never been lower than 14.6 percent or higher

And after recently studying birth and immigration rates in the country, Hockey canada is bracing for the worst. In 2006, there were 2.1 million children aged





years, can pay up to $400 an hour for ice time. Infra-

It’s not a crisis today, but if we sit here

and do nothing,

it’s going to be a major crisis.

– bob Nicholson


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them. many smaller cities view taxpayer-subsidized ice time as an investment in the young people of the community and are willing to have their tax money diverted to that.

There is the question of getting new canadians involved in playing hockey, a challenge in urban centers. Hockey calgary has a program to introduce the game to young Sudanese players and hopes to expand it. Toronto has a number of programs, but peo-ple there note it will take a generation to see their efforts bear fruit. Second-generation canadians, they say, are far more willing to put their kids into hockey because, even though they didn’t play the game, they have spent most of their lives immersed in it. Which is what prompted the Scarborough leagues to band to-gether with a common purpose of growing the game.

“We didn’t have competitive minor atoms and atoms last year and if you don’t have minor atoms and atoms, you don’t have a league,” Wahl said. “We’re at the very bottom of the well right now. We’ve hit rock bottom. And we had to hit rock bottom to make the changes we made.”

Hockey canada doesn’t want to hit rock bottom, which is why it’s in the midst of some revolutionary changes to the way mi-nor hockey is played and administered in this country. There was a time when the rules of minor hockey were pretty simple: you paid, you played when you were told and you made what-ever commitment was necessary. but Hockey canada has found that modern families are far less willing to work their busy lives around a September-to-April hockey commitment, so it plans to work hockey commitments around people’s busy lives. Hockey canada now refers to players as “customers” and throws around words such as “recruitment” and “retention.” It is finally in the position of having to sell the game after never having to do so.

One of the major foundations of Hockey canada’s new recruit-ment and retention program focuses on a model that would see the minor hockey season parsed into three or four mini-seasons. Players could choose to play in just one or all four, depending upon the commitment they want to make to the sport. If a player plays the first two seasons, that would leave him or her open to pursue other sports – such as skiing and swimming – for the oth-er half of the winter. “How do we be more flexible and make the system fit with the modern family?” McEachern said. “You can still have the traditional competitive hockey season, but maybe we need to offer four hockey seasons and you play in as many as you want. There are no out-of-town trips and limited cost, so maybe that single mom with two boys can afford to do that.”

Nicholson also sees the day coming when players and parents will have the choice of having their children participate in con-tact and non-contact leagues. The bodychecking debate in minor hockey has been fierce, with valid points made on both sides. currently, bodychecking in canada is a hodgepodge: Whether your child is subject to bodychecking in peewee and bantam hockey depends on the province in which you reside.

but the problem for Nicholson and Hockey canada is that they’re dealing with myriad of provincial bodies and, beneath them, hundreds of minor hockey associations. many of them would not exactly be thrilled with the thought of the national body imposing its will on how they do things. “It’s an education in minor hockey,” Nicholson said. “We’re coming in with this and (minor hockey associations) think we’ve got three heads. ‘What do you mean we’re going to have a six-week schedule?’ but what people have to realize is that this isn’t just about Hockey canada getting this idea from mars. We’ve done our homework on this and we know we have to do some things differently.”

In the near future, the royal bank of canada will announce a major initiative with minor hockey in canada and the United States where it will put about $1 million a year into the growth of the game at the grassroots level. but Nicholson envisions getting

The northern Ontario town of Kapuskasing has been hit hard by a sagging economy, but it still has about 300 kids in its minor hockey program. That’s a little more than half of what it about a decade ago, largely because those involved in the exodus from Kapuskasing have been young people and young families. Almost half the school-aged children in the town play hockey.

“It’s not that kids aren’t playing hockey,” said Kapuskasing Minor Hockey Association president Larry Torok, “is that we don’t have enough kids.” That is a common problem for small towns, which is nothing like what the bigger centers in Canada face. The Greater Toronto League and Hockey Calgary face the problem of having to either shorten ice times to accommodate the number of players, or turn teams and players away.

And the ice time they do get is very expensive. Hockey Cal-gary has an unwritten policy of not turning players away, which means less ice time for more players. The minor hockey groups in Calgary get ice time for $150 an hour, but non-minor hockey hours are $225. And rinks are giving less and less time to minor hockey because those hours generate less income.

“There’s an ever-increasing desire for rink and facility manag-ers to be topping up their capital reserve funds and aging facilities are requiring more capital expenditures,” said Hockey Calgary president Perry Cavanagh. “And the minor rates just don’t cut the mustard, from a sustainability point of view.”

Cavanagh is encouraged that Calgary is building new rinks, but said it won’t alleviate the minor hockey problem if adults continue to migrate to the earlier prime-time ice. As it is, midget games are ending as late as 11:30 p.m. on weeknights. “They give that ice to adult groups at prime time,” Cavanagh said. “The city expects sports and rec groups to at least break even; they’re in business, too. But does it give me heartburn? Yes.”

The biggest problem in Toronto is also affordable ice. City-subsidized ice for minor hockey runs about $150 an hour and

about $250 at private rinks. Practice times are even more expensive because there is no gate

– each player and spectator must pay $6 to get into a GTHL game

– and much less revenue is earned from concessions. The GTHL is forced to go to private rinks because of the dearth of public ones, which in turn increases overall costs.

“The reason is that municipalities don’t have to pay taxes on the land of their own arenas,” said GTHL president John Gardner. “Whereas the private op-erators pay top commercial property tax. They’re not trying to gouge us, they’re trying to keep their heads above water as well.” – KC

even more expensive because there is no gate – each player and spectator must

pay $6 to get into a GTHL game – and much less revenue is

Nicholson also sees the day coming when players and parents will have the choice of having their children participate in con-tact and non-contact leagues. The bodychecking debate in minor hockey has been fierce, with valid points made on both sides. currently, bodychecking in canada is a hodgepodge: Whether your child is subject to bodychecking in peewee and bantam hockey depends on the province in which you reside.

but the problem for Nicholson and Hockey canada is that they’re dealing with myriad of provincial bodies and, beneath them, hundreds of minor hockey associations. many of them would not exactly be thrilled with the thought of the national body imposing its will on how they do things. “It’s an education in minor hockey,” Nicholson said. “We’re coming in with this and (minor hockey associations) think we’ve got three heads. ‘What do you mean we’re going to have a six-week schedule?’ but what people have to realize is that this isn’t just about Hockey canada getting this idea from mars. We’ve done our homework on this and we know we have to do some things differently.”


earned from concessions. The GTHL is forced to go to private rinks because of the dearth of public ones, which in turn increases overall costs.

“The reason is that municipalities don’t have to pay taxes on the land of their own arenas,” said GTHL president John Gardner. “Whereas the private op-erators pay top commercial property tax. They’re not trying to gouge us, they’re trying to keep their heads above water as well.”

Nicholson also sees the day coming when players and parents will have the choice of having their children participate in con-tact and non-contact leagues. The bodychecking debate in minor hockey has been fierce, with valid points made on both sides. currently, bodychecking in canada is a hodgepodge: Whether your child is subject to bodychecking in peewee and bantam

but the problem for Nicholson and Hockey canada is that they’re dealing with myriad of provincial bodies and, beneath them, hundreds of minor hockey associations. many of them would not exactly be thrilled with the thought of the national body imposing its will on how they do things. “It’s an education in minor hockey,” Nicholson said. “We’re coming in with this and (minor hockey associations) think we’ve got three heads. ‘What do you mean we’re going to have a six-week schedule?’ but what people have to realize is that this isn’t just about Hockey canada getting this idea from mars. We’ve done our homework on this




earned from concessions. The GTHL is forced to go to private rinks because of the dearth of public ones, which in turn increases overall costs.

municipalities don’t have to pay taxes on the land of their own arenas,” said GTHL president John Gardner. “Whereas the private op-erators pay top commercial property tax. They’re not trying to gouge us, they’re trying to keep their heads

Nicholson also sees the day coming when players and parents will have the choice of having their children participate in con-tact and non-contact leagues. The bodychecking debate in minor hockey has been fierce, with valid points made on both sides. currently, bodychecking in canada is a hodgepodge: Whether your child is subject to bodychecking in peewee and bantam

but the problem for Nicholson and Hockey canada is that they’re dealing with myriad of provincial bodies and, beneath them, hundreds of minor hockey associations. many of them would not exactly be thrilled with the thought of the national body imposing its will on how they do things. “It’s an education in minor hockey,” Nicholson said. “We’re coming in with this and (minor hockey associations) think we’ve got three heads. ‘What do you mean we’re going to have a six-week schedule?’ but what people have to realize is that this isn’t just about Hockey canada getting this idea from mars. We’ve done our homework on this




earned from concessions.

municipalities don’t have to pay taxes on the land of their own arenas,” said GTHL president John Gardner.

erators pay top commercial

Helping the Kids Just Doesn’t Pay

MINOR THREAT


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his hands on the technology the corporation has to translate its promotional literature into 17 different languages. If Hockey can-ada can tap into that, it can get all kinds of things into schools in the form of childrens’ books and brochures and, more important-ly, hockey literature into the hands of every new canadian.

“We don’t need that dollar to survive,” Nicholson said. “Getting that service is way more important.”

but most of the stakeholders agree that more – much more – needs to be done, particularly in defraying costs. In the big cit-ies, at least, that means building more rinks. Nicholson maintains there are more rinks built in one year in the state of minnesota than there are in all of canada. calgary has eight more sheets of ice opening within the next two years and another six in the two years following that, which will give the city a total of 67 in-door rinks. but the GTHL, the largest hockey league in the world, turned down 50 teams that wanted to sign on this season be-cause it didn’t have the ice to schedule games for them.

The GTHL uses 42 arenas, about half of which are municipally operated. The others are private for-profit rinks that charge more than $250 an hour for ice (See sidebar on pg. 24). “If you want to find a corporation willing to put $50 million into an international sports center, we can do it,” said GTHL president John Gardner. “We have the plans, we just don’t have the wherewithal to get it started. We have the plans for a beautiful four-pad facility, with one major one that would be used for everything from square dancing to distributors’ shows because that brings in the rev-enue that covers the upkeep of the facility so it isn’t looking like a dog’s breakfast 10 years from now. Listen, one word can solve most of the problems in hockey. It’s called money, my friend.”

Where that corporate will is going to come from is anyone’s guess. It’s one thing for a company to donate equipment for the OneGoal program or $50,000 to the NHLPA’s Goals & dreams, but it’s another to pump millions of dollars into building rinks so more players can play the game more affordably.

bauer president and ceO Kevin davis said cost is something of a red herring when it comes to the minor hockey debate because the fact is a player starting out can get equipped in basic gear for a very reasonable price. For instance, bauer has an entry-level skate that retails for just $49.99.

“At the entry-level price point for beginning players, not only have they not changed in retail in probably more than 10 years, the technology that is in that product today is so much better than it was five or 10 years ago,” Davis said. “This game has a lot of challenges around perception. When you watch the playoffs, you see commercials where mom is rolling over and hit-ting the alarm at 4:45 in the morning and dragging the hockey bag across the snow-filled walkway. That’s really a mythical thing for youth hockey. could you practice at 5 a.m. if you wanted to? Sure. could you play seven days a week and have 80 games for a nine-year-old? Of course you could – but it is mythical that this is the requirement for you to get involved in this sport.”

Would a company such as Bauer pump millions of its profits into building arenas? Probably not, davis said, because he’s not convinced that’s the core problem. (To be fair, bauer owner and chairman Graeme roustan is working with the montreal cana-diens and spending his own money to build five outdoor rinks with refrigeration systems in less privileged neighborhoods.)

It’s a multi-layered, complex issue to be sure. Perhaps hockey is simply not the national obsession in canada that many people think it is. Perhaps, in the 21st century, having one in six boys and one in 10 children playing the game isn’t a bad showing, given all the other avenues children have to pursue these days. Perhaps that’s the best Hockey canada can expect.

“Our vision is that every kid plays hockey,” Nicholson said. “That’s what we think. And it’s not that way at all.”

The United States has 10 times the population and 100,000 fewer hockey players than Canada does, but that doesn’t mean the USA is lagging that far behind when it comes to growth.

Thanks to more rinks being built and better organization at USA Hockey, membership numbers continue to climb to a high last season of 474,592. The game is now played on some level in all 50 states and non-traditional hockey states such as Cali-fornia and Florida are beginning to churn out elite players.

Sweden, on the other hand, continues to go in the other direction. In 2005, it had 51,000 registered players compared to just 40,000 last season. Birth rates in Sweden vary annu-ally from 85,000 to 125,000 – right now, it’s estimated to be at about 95,000. Sweden usually gets about six percent of children playing hockey. “We’re looking forward to a couple of years where there were low birth rates and you can see that with the kids who are fi ve, six and seven,” said Swedish Ice Hockey Association director of hockey development Tommy Boustedt.

“But this year we had close to a record year when it comes to births. So it goes up and down all the time.”

Boustedt said Sweden started a national program called the Tre Kronor Hockey School three years ago, which sees each child who plays hockey get a national team sweater to wear to school. But the major focus is on improving coaching, which he believes is the main problem in retaining players.

“We need highly-educated coaches on the lowest level, because if we have good coaches on the lowest levels, then it’s not so hard to retain players,” Boustedt said. “But if we have bad coaches there, it’s for certain very hard to retain players. There are many other things to do and lots to choose from. So if they get treated well, they stay. And if they get badly treated, they

leave hockey.”In Finland, the numbers of both

players coming into the system and staying in the system beyond their teenaged years has dropped in

recent seasons.Arto Sieppi is Finland’s

director of hockey development and he said soccer is “stealing our kids from kindergarten” and hockey must be more proactive in recruiting children to play. If 33,000 boys are born in any particular year, Sieppi estimates three of them will go

on to play for the national team.As far as Russia is con-cerned, there are 50,156

boys registered as hockey players and 1,116 girls.

That’s in a country of more than 142 million

people with a rich historical hockey

tradition. – KC

Mixed Outlooks Internationally

WORLD VIEW

more players can play the game more affordably.bauer president and ceO Kevin davis said cost is something

of a red herring when it comes to the minor hockey debate because the fact is a player starting out can get equipped in basic gear for a very reasonable price. For instance, bauer has an entry-level skate that retails for just $49.99.

“At the entry-level price point for beginning players, not only have they not changed in retail in probably more than 10 years, the technology that is in that product today is so much better than it was five or 10 years ago,” Davis said. “This game has a lot of challenges around perception. When you watch the playoffs, you see commercials where mom is rolling over and hit-ting the alarm at 4:45 in the morning and dragging the hockey bag across the snow-filled walkway. That’s really a mythical thing for youth hockey. could you practice at 5 a.m. if you wanted to? Sure. could you play seven days a week and have 80 games for a nine-year-old? Of course you could – but it is mythical that this is the requirement for you to get involved in this sport.”

Would a company such as Bauer pump millions of its profits into building arenas? Probably not, davis said, because he’s not convinced that’s the core problem. (To be fair, bauer owner and chairman Graeme roustan is working with the montreal cana-diens and spending his own money to build five outdoor rinks with refrigeration systems in less privileged neighborhoods.)

It’s a multi-layered, complex issue to be sure. Perhaps hockey is simply not the national obsession in canada that many people think it is. Perhaps, in the 21st century, having one in six boys and one in 10 children playing the game isn’t a bad showing, given all the other avenues children have to pursue these days. Perhaps that’s the best Hockey canada can expect.

“Our vision is that every kid plays hockey,” Nicholson said. “That’s what we think. And it’s not that way at all.”

“We need highly-educated coaches on the lowest level, because if we have good coaches on the lowest levels, then it’s not so hard to retain players,” Boustedt said. “But if we have bad coaches there, it’s for certain very hard to retain players. There are many other things to do and lots to choose from. So if they get treated well, they stay. And if they get badly treated, they

leave hockey.”In Finland, the numbers of both

players coming into the system and staying in the system beyond their teenaged years has dropped in

recent seasons.Arto Sieppi is Finland’s

director of hockey development and he said soccer is “stealing our kids from kindergarten” and hockey must be more proactive in recruiting children to play. If 33,000 boys are born in any particular year, Sieppi estimates three of them will go

on to play for the national team.As far as Russia is con-cerned, there are 50,156

boys registered as hockey players and 1,116 girls.

That’s in a country of more than 142 million

people with a rich historical hockey

tradition. – KC

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myth: most canadian boys play hockey. reality: the numbers ... · heartland and the hub of activity...

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