High school hockey as we knew it is dying.
Seventy-eight cities and towns have dropped boys’ hockey since 2001-02, according to MIAA records. Fifteen new co-op programs were created. In the last eight years, 240 fewer boys and 237 fewer girls signed up.
By Matt Porter Globe Staff, Updated March 5, 2025, 5:00 a.m.
www.bostonglobe.com
I have saved the entire article as a PDF so you can download it.
Some of those in Massachusetts who coach, parent, and play hockey at the amateur level say something is broken in the way we develop players. At the grassroots level, they say, the sport has lost its way.
Clearly, the last 25 years, the ground here has shifted.
Gone are the simple days of playing town hockey, then for the local high school, then heading off to play in college. We are now the wild west of the east.
Private money has taken over the game, charging exorbitant prices for spots on exclusive teams with the promise of making it big. Families dump thousands of dollars into a sport where a bottleneck at the top — so few spots, so many players — has made playing in college a rare feat.
Taking a shoulder-to-chest hit in all of this is the MIAA, once the place where future pros developed. The club teams that grow our best players shrug, saying they’re just serving parents and kids who want more, more, more.
Seventy-eight cities and towns have dropped boys’ hockey since 2001-02, according to MIAA records. Fifteen new co-op programs were created. In the last eight years, 240 fewer boys and 237 fewer girls signed up.
By Matt Porter Globe Staff, Updated March 5, 2025, 5:00 a.m.
Boys' high school hockey is ‘having an existential crisis.’ It starts with the rinks. - The Boston Globe
The MIAA was once where future pros developed. Now, prep schools and club programs have shifted the balance of talent. “Massachusetts is having an existential crisis,” one expert said.
www.bostonglobe.com
I have saved the entire article as a PDF so you can download it.
Some of those in Massachusetts who coach, parent, and play hockey at the amateur level say something is broken in the way we develop players. At the grassroots level, they say, the sport has lost its way.
Clearly, the last 25 years, the ground here has shifted.
Gone are the simple days of playing town hockey, then for the local high school, then heading off to play in college. We are now the wild west of the east.
Private money has taken over the game, charging exorbitant prices for spots on exclusive teams with the promise of making it big. Families dump thousands of dollars into a sport where a bottleneck at the top — so few spots, so many players — has made playing in college a rare feat.
Taking a shoulder-to-chest hit in all of this is the MIAA, once the place where future pros developed. The club teams that grow our best players shrug, saying they’re just serving parents and kids who want more, more, more.
