Steady decline in youth hockey participation in Canada raises concerns about the future of sport

[KillerMillerTime]

I generally don't think much of the analysis of the NHL business decisions, but there's one area I think they are less than wise to not invest more resources into and that's youth hockey. It seems like it's the only real way to get a huge growth and makeup ground on the other sports eclipsing it. The cost and time commitment are immense.

Youth hockey is to blame also. Why can't they just mandate cheaper wooden sticks until Bantam? Tell the stick manufacturers

The local fields (soccer and baseball) situated at schools or public parks are almost always empty during the week. Don't know if organizations have moved more towards those 'sports parks' that have been opening up more frequently but it's sad to see it move away from the simple locations. My parent's street use to be littered with cars parked for the field and diamond down the street. Empty park now. Did everyone move or are even the 'cheaper' summer sports dwindling in participation?

I live across the street from a park used for baseball and soccer leagues ages 7-12.
Its very busy Monday-Saturday. Non league hardly anybody.

 

[KrisLetAngry]

I agree. Cost is most definitely an issue but it's more than that.

When I was a kid we played neighborhood pickup hockey, football, and baseball. All the time. And we weren't alone. Drive through any little town like where I grew up and you'd always see groups of kids playing some sport. After school, weekends, school break, summer, etc, etc.

I honestly can't remember the last time I drove by a group of unsupervised kids playing a pickup game of anything.

And I'm not judging -- just observing that there has big a massive change.

Yea so myself I have noticed this as well.

Here's the thing I remember on this one road not a busy road and I'd say as kids we did a good job moving the nets over if a car needed to pass.

We had our sticks and ball and were playing hockey on the road. Well cops came by and told us we couldn't do this.

So it was like o we can't play on our street now.

Maybe we could have played elsewhere but people are not letting kids be kids anymore. It isn't helping.

 

[Bostonzamboni]

Good.

? Good what?

 

[Luigi Habs]

I have 3 kids between 4 and 10 yrs old.

They go to a private school in Montreal area. I can tell you that hockey is rarely a topic kids discuss at school. Few kids play hockey, but MANY play soccer and basketball. It's definitely not only about cost.

I can say there are 3 main concerns:

1. Other sports are simply much cooler. Kids all know the big soccer stars, I discovered through my kids that many of those players have their own song which are apparently very popular amongst kids.
2. What I often hear from parents is that they don't want to wake up at 6am in the weekends to take them to a practice at very young age. So rinks availability is certainly an issue.
3. Winter weather is simply not appropriate anymore for outside rinks. Many days in winter now temperature goes above 0C. Also, in the past, when I was a kid, all kids in neighborhoud would just go to the closest rink and spend the day there. Society has changed, and no parent allow their kid to go outside by themselves.

On the other spectrum, hockey parents are getting more and more crazy. The amount of money they're ready to put so their kid gets to play at the highest level is absolutely crazy, all year long.

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

I would never let my kids play. Not because we couldn't afford it, but because the culture is insanely toxic.

 

[psycat]

Well they are from different backrounds than most NBA and Soccer players , how are you supposed to relate to a guy like sidney Crosby or Connor McDavids when they're dads have backyard rinks built for them when they are 5 .

I'm just saying a guy like Lebron James has a 100% more relatable backround since most people don't come from perfect prototypical american dream like families

I mean maybe but to me the most unrelatable thing with basketball is the height, like sure hockey might be a sport for the, somewhat, rich but basketball is a sport for the abnormally tall. You can't change height but you can, somewhat realistically, achieve wealth.

Most basketball players are so tall they feel like a different species to me.

Not that I find any professional athlete all that relatable and I am not so sure that it's a highly contributing factor either way.

 

[Snotbubbles]

8-11k to just play on a tier 1 team. then add in equipment, the travel pretty much every weekend, the private lessons, and extra summer tourneys well do the math. 20k easy in the phila area.

now if you're not into the high level aspect then it is much much more affordable.

hockey has become a huge profitable racquet. many get sucked right into it.

It's not just hockey. My daughter played "open" level tournament softball (the highest level). It was $5000 registration for the team. I was paying $110/hr for pitching lessons once a week. $60/hr for hitting lessons once a week. Team practices were twice a week. Tournaments were every weekend from March-July and September-November. We'd travel to Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Ohio...

I was spending $20K a year on it.

 

[Mackiaveli]

It's the increasing knowledge of brain injuries

If this were true, football would also be seeing a stark decline - same with combat sports.

The reality is it really is just the cost, in an increasingly tight time economically for many families. If you as a parent are tight financially, and accept that 99% of the time your kid is going to do this for a few years for fun and then stop (i.e. no scholarship, no professional level play) hockey is the WORST sport to enroll a child into - it is exorbitantly expensive, practices are early mornings on the weekends etc etc etc.

Compare this to sports like Soccer or Baseball where practices are almost exclusively late morning/early afternoon, games are in the afternoon/early evenings, costs are literally 1/10th of the price of hockey.

The 'buy-in' to hockey is just much harder too; how many kids have no idea how to skate vs how many kids can run, throw, kick and swing a bat.

 

[dabeechman]

It's cost. Nothing more, nothing less. Hockey is the single most expensive sport for youth athletics. Many parents can barely afford mortgages and groceries, and hockey is just not a reality.

Soccer, baseball, basketball, etc. are several magnitudes cheaper and in many cases...free. Where I live, you can't even get on a sheet of ice for less than $20/hr.

 

[Bradely]

It is not just cost.........that is to easy imo.
When I was a kid, we had Hockey and baseball for the exception of some school sport like Volley-Ball and basket-ball on regional bases. Then came in Soccer, + the Raptors (increasing basket ball) and Football. Here in Québec Expos and Nords moved out (not helping). Add to that alot of other sports, art, activities offer, + demographic decrease and increase in immigration (soccer for example) and you now have the current context.

 

[JianYang]

If this were true, football would also be seeing a stark decline - same with combat sports.

The reality is it really is just the cost, in an increasingly tight time economically for many families. If you as a parent are tight financially, and accept that 99% of the time your kid is going to do this for a few years for fun and then stop (i.e. no scholarship, no professional level play) hockey is the WORST sport to enroll a child into - it is exorbitantly expensive, practices are early mornings on the weekends etc etc etc.

Compare this to sports like Soccer or Baseball where practices are almost exclusively late morning/early afternoon, games are in the afternoon/early evenings, costs are literally 1/10th of the price of hockey.

The 'buy-in' to hockey is just much harder too; how many kids have no idea how to skate vs how many kids can run, throw, kick and swing a bat.

I think it's more of an ancillary issue which might gain more traction as we move forward. There's no doubt in my mind that cost and time are are big factors.

As for football participation, it has declined more than any other of the 10 most popular sports since 2006.

 

[Puckstop40]

It’s becoming a sport where only the elite and wealthy will be able to afford playing at a decently high level. I stopped playing here after college because getting ice time is becoming more difficult and I recently got addicted to mountain biking. There are a lot of other sports that don’t require the equipment or special playing surface which allows for more training and skills improvement. I love hockey but something has to change if they want more people playing.

 

[dabeechman]

It is not just cost.........that is to easy imo.
When I was a kid, we had Hockey and baseball for the exception of some school sport like Volley-Ball and basket-ball on regional bases. Then came in Soccer, + the Raptors (increasing basket ball) and Football. Here in Québec Expos and Nords moved out (not helping). Add to that alot of other sports, art, activities offer, + demographic decrease and increase in immigration (soccer for example) and you now have the current context.

Disagree. As a child, you can not play a sport that your parents are unable to afford. A quick Google search will list cost as the primary reason why ice hockey is not as popular as other sports.

 

[Faceboner]

Just wait until the declining birth rates amongst millennials starts to rear its ugly head. It was just a barrier of time and money before, now hockey will have an even shallower pool to draw from going forward.

This is not just a hockey issue as much as I like to be bliss the future looks incredibly bleak

 

[EpochLink]

I remember when I started hockey when I as a youth, majority of my equipment I bought used. That shit was roughly 1,000 dollars, back in 1993 I thought that was pricy.

I don't know how much it is now but god damn.

 

[Bradely]

Disagree. As a child, you can not play a sport that your parents are unable to afford. A quick Google search will list cost as the primary reason why ice hockey is not as popular as other sports.

To each its own. Placing the fact the decrease in hockey here on money as the only aspect is not relevant to what I see, hear and my analysis. It can be part of the equation but what I wrote is much more a cause effect than money.

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[Eyeseeing]

I would never let my kids play. Not because we couldn't afford it, but because the culture is insanely toxic.

Holy over generalization Batman

 

[Djp]

In the big picture, it's not just the cost. It's the increasing knowledge of brain injuries and which sports are more susceptible to them.

Basketball and soccer get Brsin injuries too. There hasn't bern research with soccer players banging heads and using head to hit the ball.

I am confident we will ser CTE in many bbn soccer players.

Yhr issue is costs and travel

 

[JianYang]

Basketball and soccer get Brsin injuries too. There hasn't bern research with soccer players banging heads and using head to hit the ball.

I am confident we will ser CTE in many bbn soccer players.

Yhr issue is costs and travel

I do remember seeing a report a few years ago regarding heading in soccer, and it noted particular susceptibility with respect to girls.

In contact sports, there will always be a risk. In certain sports though, the collisions are more violent and consistent. It becomes a topic of risk reduction rather than zero risk

 

[majormajor]

simply too expensive for a lot of families. the risk of head injuries and sexual abuse aren't helping either.

It's really just the money.

Beyond that if parents are frightened about head injuries or sexual abuse for their little peewee or atom aged player, then that's just part of the helicopter parenting that is keeping kids locked up in their homes. The risks are so much lower these days, it can't really explain why there are fewer kids playing, unless the paranoia about the risks has really grown exponentially.

 

[tabness]

aside from the usual factors mentioned the NHL and its stars just aren't cool like they used to be, hockey has lost an insane amount of cultural clout from when I was growing up in the nineties it seems

I remember when I started hockey when I as a youth, majority of my equipment I bought used. That shit was roughly 1,000 dollars, back in 1993 I thought that was pricy.

I don't know how much it is now but god damn.

skates at $275 back then seemed so expensive lol now it is straight up insane

 

[Djp]

I do remember seeing a report a few years ago regarding heading in soccer, and it noted particular susceptibility with respect to girls.

In contact sports, there will always be a risk. In certain sports though, the collisions are more violent and consistent. It becomes a topic of risk reduction rather than zero risk

I agree

I'm just saying that the perception of them bring safer when they atent.

In basketball you get hit in the head often too.

In both sports you can fall on your head. Basketball court I'd much harder.

Baseball is generally safer. Yes you can get hit in head by baseball and full contact slides.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

The biggest reason is cost. Hockey has always been an expensive sport, but the costs now at the competitive level are insane.

And it's also modern expectations. Private lessons, going to those specialized hockey schools, traveling for multiple tournaments every year, having to be on the ice all summer, having to get into the "right" programs and feeder systems at a young age to be seen and progress. It wasn't like this 30 years ago, where kids could play at home or near home until they were 16 and head off to junior.

And on top of all that, the nepotism in the sport has gone completely off the rails. Yes, we always held hockey close in Canada and parts of the USA as part of the culture, but it's become almost vital these days to have connections if you want to make it. Just looking at all the former NHLer and pro hockey sons entering the league over the last 15 years. Same with all the sons of executives and other professions that are in the $100k a year club...not just the income, but the connections those parents have. How does a kid from the farm even begin to compete...and more importantly, why should he bother to try when he has a better chance of using his athleticism to get a basketball or soccer scholarship instead?

 

[KevinRedkey]

Anyone think some people not having cable anymore, plays a small role?

 

[dabeechman]

Anyone think some people not having cable anymore, plays a small role?

It's not just about cable, it's about the NHL product as a whole being inaccessible. You need to have multiple paid streaming platforms to watch games, and even then you have to combat with multiple nation blackouts. It's absolutely ridiculous that I need a VPN to watch games in this day and age.