Cost and contact

Times Reporter    

 

With the hockey season underway, Strathmore Minor Hockey’s numbers continue to be consistent with recent years. However, Blair Wilson, league president, has noticed patterns in the older categories.

“Our numbers are pretty much the same, but actually the higher age groups have decreased a little bit, and the lower age groups have increased,” Wilson said. “You tend to lose players in the peewee, bantam, and midget levels just because there’s more things going on with high school sports – football, volleyball, basketball.”

Wilson also suggested that with younger families moving to Strathmore, there are more players for Timbit, novice, and atom groups. Parents of older children are more concerned about the level of contact in hockey, allowed once the players reach bantam.

“Every parent you talk to is sitting on the fence. They think the contact should be there but at the same time, there are so many injuries, they’re glad it’s gone,” Wilson said. “There are very few people that are a definite ‘yes, that’s a great idea’ or ‘no, that’s a terrible idea’. I’m kind of one of those fence-sitters myself. I think it’s part of the sport, it’s just not taught correctly.”

Hockey Canada passed the motion this year to remove hitting all the way up to peewee hockey, and are considering taking contact out of minor hockey all together; it would only take place in AA, AAA, and junior streams. If these players face other teams that have had contact early in their career, they may be considered underdeveloped due to lack of experience – leading to more potential injuries.

Roughly 380 players are involved with Strathmore Minor Hockey, with ice time becoming more and more limited at the Family Centre. More facilities would be a tremendous benefit to the organization. It would also make hockey less expensive – equipment, team fees, tournaments, and lessons can reach thousands per child each season.

“More ice time available means we could put more teams in,” Wilson said. “It depends on the affordability; there’s a limit on how much interest we could get when it is such an expensive sport. But if we could do local house league that didn’t involve all the travel, it would really reduce cost. It’s a lot less expensive to do school sports.”