Arthur Morgan
Registered User
families cant even afford their homes and food. hockey is doomed moving forward. only the rich kids will play.
OK, so I'm the father of three boys, two of whom play hockey, one at a high level.
The decline of hockey registration is important and concerning. But I want to clear up a few reasons of what AREN'T the reasons:
-cost of equipment. Hockey has always required equipment. That can't possibly be the reason why registration is down. Just because you can spend $600 on a stick doesn't mean you need to - you can buy a $25 wooden stick (or a $50 composite) that'll work just as well for 99% of players.
-cost to play. Look, if you just want to play fun hockey / house league / whatever you call it, it's really quite reasonable. My youngest who doesn't play hockey (he tried and it and didn't like it) does martial arts - it costs just as much as house league hockey.
-cost to develop elite athletes. Again, you don't have to play at that level to play hockey. Plus the cost to develop elite athletes in any sport is huge.
-immigration. Look, on the one hand, if you're fresh "off the boat" from the Punjab you don't immediately sign your kid up for hockey, I get that. But you know around the rink I see lots and lots of kids from "new Canadian" families. Now they might be second generation Canadians, but if you spend time in Canada you start following hockey - even if it's just to talk with your neighbors about how the Leafs or Oilers did the night before. But you grow to love the sport, and then you want to get your kids involved. Or the kid grows to love hockey and bugs his parents to play.
I think the problem is more insidious. It's about the growth of technology and the atomization of society. Look I saw some statistics about hockey registration in the 1970s. Really - what was there to do if you're a kid in the 1970s? You had a TV with three channels on - maybe. There were no video games, no internet, no smartphones. You either sat around the house being bored - or your parents signed you up for sports like hockey to get you out of the house.
Because this phenomenon extends well beyond hockey to all kinds or organized activities. Service clubs like the Masons or the Rotary have had huge declines. Fraternities / sororities have had huge declines. I used to be an avid curler and still enjoy the sport - curling registration is way down.
So there's a real problem here - but one that doesn't have easy answers.
The only reason hockey used to be that was the limited spread of the sport.
Hockey didn't "abandon" those roots, those blue collar families just got passed up by wealthier families who could give their kids advantages over the blue collar families. This has just worsened as the sport has spread out more and more. There's really nothing hockey as a sport can do about it. They can get poorer kids to start playing the sport, but their families can't spend with the wealthier families who can send their kids to the best trainers/camps/tryouts/ect.
Maybe. But not according to the Globe & Mail. I’ll post a link (might be behind a paywall) but quote the salient part:Not doing well on viewership
Game 1 and 2 of finals - 200-300k
Basketball had one good year, Raptors winning.
NHL is at 2-3 million every year in Canada, not just this year.
Basketball has a very long way to go.
The joke with Canada soccer is that it is team Brampton.
I think southern ontario makes a large part of the basketball roster too, which I think was propelled by the Vince Carter era. I truly think Carter had more of an impact on basketball in this country in terms of getting kids into it than Steve Nash himself.
It doesn't matter. Do you think someone like Lemieux's family, who lived in an appartment in Ville Emard (small suburb of Montreal) would be able to pay for AAA hockey in today's world? Not a chance in hell.
My point is elite talent should resurface regardless what the family income is.
Absolutely it's a factor, when I was a kid back in the 70's we had two tv channels where we live, we had not computers, no video games, no internet, no social media, what an amazing era it was, so the only thing left to do during those long cold winter days was play hockey.I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but could the popularity of video games be a factor? While they've been around for decades, now it seems like a high percentage of kids are spending their spare time on steam, their PS5 etc. instead of physical activities.
Ya like I said the basketball viewership numbers are very poor, and only did great during the one year only. You can follow along in the business of sports section to see game by game numbers.Maybe. But not according to the Globe & Mail. I’ll post a link (might be behind a paywall) but quote the salient part:
“The few ratings numbers that have been released haven’t been great. They’re up in Canada, but not up in a way that suggests the Oilers have captivated any non-sports obsessives. According to the NHL, seven million people across North America watched Game 1.
When the Toronto Raptors were rolling to the 2019 NBA championship, the nightly number crested eight million. And that was just in Canada.”
Lack of interest in Stanley Cup final suggests hockey isn’t what it used to be for Canadians
Hockey in Canada is never going away. But warning signals are flashing if you can’t get people to watch a series featuring the greatest player in the world, who is Canadian, and plays in Canadawww.theglobeandmail.com
Now, I’m not actually pursuing a basketball vs hockey argument. My point was simply that basketball doesn’t draw its youth participants solely from one demographic (upper middle class and above white people) the way hockey in Canada does. A kid can find a lots of basketball heroes who are “like him,” while a much smaller percentage of kids can find hockey players about whom they can say the same.
If you want to spend money on a lifetime sport for kids then spend it on golf.
I'm not sure if cost is factor #1 or not. Granted, I have no doubt that costs for youth hockey have outpaced inflation and I would not argue it doesn't have an impact. But it's been a relatively expensive sport for a long time.
Here in the States, football is actually a relatively cheap sport to play (cost varies wildly, but stay with me) because it's still largely high school based and the schools generally provide equipment. There is still big money that can be spent on all sorts of camps and travel competition, but unlike some other sports that isn't really required to, say, be noticed by colleges and recruited. And yet, participation is declining and safety is consistently cited as a main reason for that by parents.
Personally, while I don't have kids or plan to, it's hard for me to imagine allowing them to play a sport like football or hockey. I love to watch both sports (yes, I know that's hypocritical), but there's just so many sports out there with lessened (not zero) risk where kids can still learn character lessons, teamwork, make friends, etc. and even compete for scholarships if they had real talent and drive.
To bring it back to hockey, I think the sport has a real chance to turn this around, or at least survive it better than a sport like American football. It's hard to imagine what football would look like with real effective safety rules that are strictly enforced. Hockey would certainly look different, but at its core it would still be hockey without players blowing each other up or fighting.
I'm not sure if cost is factor #1 or not. Granted, I have no doubt that costs for youth hockey have outpaced inflation and I would not argue it doesn't have an impact. But it's been a relatively expensive sport for a long time.
Here in the States, football is actually a relatively cheap sport to play (cost varies wildly, but stay with me) because it's still largely high school based and the schools generally provide equipment. There is still big money that can be spent on all sorts of camps and travel competition, but unlike some other sports that isn't really required to, say, be noticed by colleges and recruited. And yet, participation is declining and safety is consistently cited as a main reason for that by parents.
Personally, while I don't have kids or plan to, it's hard for me to imagine allowing them to play a sport like football or hockey. I love to watch both sports (yes, I know that's hypocritical), but there's just so many sports out there with lessened (not zero) risk where kids can still learn character lessons, teamwork, make friends, etc. and even compete for scholarships if they had real talent and drive.
To bring it back to hockey, I think the sport has a real chance to turn this around, or at least survive it better than a sport like American football. It's hard to imagine what football would look like with real effective safety rules that are strictly enforced. Hockey would certainly look different, but at its core it would still be hockey without players blowing each other up or fighting.
The worsening economics and shrinking middle class are significant factors, but it's not the only core issues.Hockey has always been dangerous. As a youth amateur player playing only once or twice a week in a non-hitting league, the chances of breaking an arm or getting your teeth knocked out are a lot higher than your chances of CTE. That didn’t stop parents from signing their kids up, fully aware of the doctors’ bills to come. The working-class culture of the game was that the kid should lean into the danger — you have to pay the price if you want to win fame and fortune.
So here’s the thing — if danger were the reason people stopped playing, we would expect to see mostly working-class people still putting their kids in hockey. As in football, which is being abandoned along socio-economic lines, educated people of means will make a business decision to remove their kids from the risk of brain damage, while less-educated people on the edge of poverty will push their kids into football as an avenue for escape.
Walk into a hockey rink and it’s immediately obvious that the opposite is the case. Wealthy people are increasingly taking over hockey, not abandoning it. People with means are seeing an opportunity to put their kid ahead of the pack for a multimillion dollar living, and they’re doubling down on their advantages. It’s the working class people who are dropping out, realizing that there’s not a realistic path forward regardless of their kid’s talent.
All of that is a big blazing neon sign pointing to economics rather than safety as the core issue.
The worsening economics and shrinking middle class are significant factors, but it's not the only core issues.
The low cultural attachment of hockey to new immigrants is also a significant issue that the NHL and Hockey Canada aren't seriously addressing.
30-50 years ago, it was relatively easy for visible minority immigrants from non-hockey playing countries to access hockey if they wanted to because of the larger portion of demographics that were playing it (i.e. not just rich families) and because community/house/minor hockey was still within the realm of affordability for the average family. I lived this. My brother and I, as well as numerous cousins played hockey growing up because minor hockey was relatively affordable and it was "the sport" that everyone was into. All of this made it much easier for my family to take a chance on a sport that was foreign to them.
Nowadays, people don't have to "like" hockey to fit in with Canadian society and visible minority immigrant families entering the country have significantly less societal pressure to try it out, watch a game, etc. Why would newcomers even attempt to figure out hockey if they have access to their cultural sports (e.g. all major cities in Canada have dedicated cricket fields now) and its much easier to access basketball and soccer?
If Hockey Canada and the NHL can and were interested in making the game more affordable for the average family, I still don't see them breaking any ground with Canada's changing demographics until they find a way to make it more culturally relevant to new immigrants. HC and the NHL's increasing dependency on rich, caucasian families is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy to irrelevance of the sport.
Also said U18 numbers are steady/flat not increasing or decreasing.
The over 18 number was where they saw some decrease, from before Covid. (But increasing since Covid).
Unfortunately this is very on point.Canadians can't play hockey when they're standing in line for food banks
Now post all the regular season NHL games vs NBA games. All the non-Leafs/Canadiens ones that happen on the weekdays. I'm in the BOH section too. We all saw the poor ratings for the Jets, Flames, Senators vs the NBA and even the CFL at points. But...this is about youth hockey, which is in decline. Wether you want to admit it or not.Not doing well on viewership
Game 1 and 2 of finals - 200-300k
Basketball had one good year, Raptors winning.
NHL is at 2-3 million every year in Canada, not just this year.
Basketball has a very long way to go.
Another thing is the internet streaming and in the past cable television has made it way easier to follow foreign sports/ leagues. Just look at soccer on the states where nbc has the epl and Liga Mx get just as high of ratings as nhl regular season games. There’s no need to assilmate into mainstream sports culture.Looking back a few generations, this principle even extends beyond visible minorities. Immigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe were a huge part of hockey’s expansion beyond a few social clubs into becoming a national sport. At that time, those groups were largely marginalized in other aspects of life, but they could make their mark as hockey players. Even Germans, like Boston’s Kraut Line, had to overcome some pretty intense cultural bias and became representatives for their community at a sensitive time. Hockey definitely still wasn’t a sport for visible minorities, but there was some vague sense that the game could provide opportunities and eventually inclusion for outsiders.
Somewhere along the line, hockey lost that role as a social ladder for immigrants to climb. It has reached the point of being a feedback loop where hockey is increasingly exclusive, so outside groups increasingly ignore hockey, so hockey becomes even more exclusive. It was not always that way.
There’s was always jokes about hockey being mostly white since back in the 70s and hockey has never really taken that image seriouslyLooking back a few generations, this principle even extends beyond visible minorities. Immigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe were a huge part of hockey’s expansion beyond a few social clubs into becoming a national sport. At that time, those groups were largely marginalized in other aspects of life, but they could make their mark as hockey players. Even Germans, like Boston’s Kraut Line, had to overcome some pretty intense cultural bias and became representatives for their community at a sensitive time. Hockey definitely still wasn’t a sport for visible minorities, but there was some vague sense that the game could provide opportunities and eventually inclusion for outsiders.
Somewhere along the line, hockey lost that role as a social ladder for immigrants to climb. It has reached the point of being a feedback loop where hockey is increasingly exclusive, so outside groups increasingly ignore hockey, so hockey becomes even more exclusive. It was not always that way.