IS IT STILL OUR GAME?
Two writers face off
When I was 11 years old, growing up in this country, my heroes had magical names like Sittler and Salming and Lafleur. Saturday nights were spent religiously in front of the TV watching Hockey Night in Canada.
Now I have a son who is 11. His heroes are named LeBron James and Steph Curry. In fact, I asked my son to name even one member of his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs. He had to Google it.
Hockey is dying in Canada and has been for years. Though the signs have been plain to see, fans and marketers of the sport have reacted typically — as people do when they know a loved one is terminal — by denying the reality of the situation. Denial, after all, is the first of the five stages of grief. The second being anger, which they will most likely approach by the end of this piece.
In 2013, a Forbes magazine headline shouted, “How Basketball Overtook Hockey As The Most Popular Youth Sport In Canada.” That article quoted a study from 2010, which showed that even back then, the growth of basketball in our country exceeded that of hockey or soccer. In fact, the study stated that basketball was “the most popular team participation sport in Canada among youth between the ages of 12 and 17” and that “29 per cent of all households in Canada have a household member who participates in basketball.” Six years later, basketball’s growth is only more profound.
The demise of hockey can be attributed to several reasons.
Clearly the expense of keeping a child in the sport far exceeds that of soccer or basketball. The game that originated as backyard shinny has evolved to become a bastion of the affluent. It has been written that we may never again have another Wayne Gretzky or Gordie Howe, that is, kids who grew up in blue-collar families to become the best in the world in the sport. Blue-collar families can’t afford to keep a kid in hockey.
Conversely, basketball and soccer don’t discriminate. The equipment costs are minimal and there are no exorbitant rink rental fees to contend with. Anyone can play.
Immigration has also contributed to the game’s decline in popularity. Soccer and basketball are world sports, with four billion and close to two billion followers respectively, making them easily the two most popular sports worldwide. Hockey idles in ninth place, well behind the likes of cricket, tennis and rugby.
So when families immigrate to Canada from places like Asia or Africa, they come here already lovers of those sports and hockey has been impotent in its effort to seduce them away.
Ten years from now, 2016 may be known as the year hockey officially died in our country. Ratings for Hockey Night in Canada are down 19 per cent from last year. Concerns about concussions resonate. Not one Canadian team made the NHL playoffs this year. And further, in the country’s largest market, well, it has been three generations since the Leafs even sniffed at Lord Stanley’s cup.
Meanwhile, a Canadian has been the No. 1 pick in two of the last three NBA drafts. The Raptors had their best season ever and are in the playoffs for the third consecutive year.
The team’s mantra “We The North” reverberates across the continent and to paraphrase the Raptors’ global ambassador, Drake, “basketball may have started at the bottom, but now its here.”
Just as culture in the United States has shifted away from baseball, hockey is suffering the same fate here. Baseball fans in America are already on the final stage of grief: acceptance.
Hockey fans in Canada are not quite there.
We may never again have another Wayne Gretzky or Gordie Howe — kids who grew up in blue-collar families to become the best in the world in the sport. Blue-collar families can’t afford to keep a kid in hockey. — Paul Riley