Minor Hockey as Big Business

M on pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est le hockey would be an apt way to describe our identity. Whether the World Juniors, the Stanley Cup, international championships or the Olympics, our collective mood rides on the efforts of athletes who give their heart and soul to do this country proud. Christine Sinclair and the Olympic women’s soccer team followed a majestic path of true grit last summer, inspiring a generation. Yet hockey has been, and will be, our first love. It has united us across lines of language, politics, culture and class.

And who are these players upon whom there is so much expectation to perform? According to Ken Campbell and Jim Parcels in Selling the Dream: How Hockey Parents and Their Kids Are Paying the Price for Our National Obsession, they are elite players who have ascended the ranks of minor hockey through hard work and indispensable support from their parents’ sacrifices of time and money. Minor hockey has become big...