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| Eric Duhatschek, Globe and Mail hockey writer ran in Haliburton's Kash Dash. |
Had an opportunity to chat with Globe and Mail hockey writer Eric Duhatschek a couple weeks back at the Kash Dash for Africa 10 K run.
Duhatschek, a Calgary native, was there running and relaxing with some members of his family after spending a full working week at the hockey summit in Toronto
I saw the name, spotted him at dinner and introduced myself.
I noted in passing that I was feeding my Globe Sports habit via my Kindle e-reader these days.
We had a nice chat about on-line resources and where the newspaper industry was headed.
Duhatschek chuckled as he contemplated the future.
“I’ve got ten years left until retirement … I’m hoping the Globe will still be around,” chuckled Duhatschek.
The chance meeting at the Kash Dash awards ceremony was a little serendipitous, because, as I told Eric at the time, I was planning to write a column based on his insightful article penned at the end of that week-long Hockey Summit in late August.
It’s a pretty comprehensive wiggle spanning the ongoing debate about declining enrolment in Canadian youth hockey entitled “Nurturing hockey’s roots.”
“Volunteer coaches and administrators remain the backbone of minor hockey, and they cycle in and out, depending upon the age of their children,” wrote Duhatschek in his Globe piece (Aug 27-8). “So on Tuesday morning (Aug-24), when a series of speakers asserted that hockey for kids was supposed to be fun; it was a useful reminder – even if the sentiment had been heard before. (Remember, that message was delivered to an entirely different set of ears this time around, given how most of those who heard it in 1999 had moved on, after their children completed their minor-hockey experiences.)”
The observation takes us to some fine lines drawn in the sand vis-à-vis the elite versus house-league dichotomy.
Indeed, a recent article in the Toronto Star notes a chilling decline in participation at all levels in the Scarborough Hockey Association, a minor hockey league that at one point in its illustrious 54-year-old tenure flourished as the poster child of the Canadian minor hockey paradigm.
“In the glory days the SHA had 14,000 players and was the breeding ground for NHL players Adam Graves, Gary Leeman, Brad Park, John Anderson and Steve Payne,” writes Lois Kalchman. “The SHA currently has 600 youngsters registered in its house league … which begins on Oct 1.”
The SHA finally gave in and became the 50th club in the greater Toronto Hockey League.
Big decline. Big move.
Enough to make the Hockey Summit panel question the direction and raison d’être of Canadian minor hockey in this new millennium, when the trending shows that the hybrid vigor, once a backbone of Canadian hockey is steering toward less onerous (expensive) participation in soccer, track and basketball.
“People forget sometimes that the vast majority of hockey is played anonymously, at the grassroots level, in arenas, backyards and driveways around the world,” says Duhatschek. “Player development at the elite levels seems well in hand, based on the caliber of play at the professional level, and how quickly the new generation of players that entered the NHL post-lockout made their respective marks.”
“Of greater concern is what to do with everybody else – the ones who aren't looking at making hockey as a career, that see it as a recreational pastime that can be too expensive for some and too dangerous for others.”
Concussions and costs.
Conclusion?
“The answer may lie in expanding the non-contact stream,” writes Duhatschek. “Something both Canadian Hockey League president Dave Branch and Hockey Canada
Some pondering points as we wheel into another season.
Read gav and his Voice articles at his website pardontheeruption.com. Contact gav: gav@pardontheeruption.com.
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