VANCOUVER — Participation in hockey in British Columbia was struggling in 2021 — the pandemic had dealt a heavy blow to player registrations, and numbers had already been flagging before COVID-19 arrived.
“I think there were a lot of families that were impacted at that time,” said Pacific Coast Amateur Hockey Association president Melanie Earland, whose group governs minor hockey in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, including Metro Vancouver.
“The world changed," she said.
Player participation had peaked in 2016-2017 with more than 62,000 registrations, Hockey Canada statistics for B.C. show, falling under 58,000 just before the pandemic began in 2020, then plummeting to 39,056 that season.
Rising costs and growing competition from other sports had also been chipping away at youth hockey participation.
But that is now changing, with registration for this season in B.C. surging past the 63,000 mark, a rebound that follows a concerted effort to make the game more accessible, especially to groups not traditionally linked to the sport such as new Canadians and Indigenous communities.
Tom Oberti, president of the West Vancouver Minor Hockey Association, said his organization had seen record registrations this year, more than 8 per cent higher than last season.
"We're bursting at the seams," Oberti said, noting the association has had to look outside West Vancouver to find ice time to fit all the players.
"The reason why we've grown is because we've put a lot of effort into reaching out to new, non-traditional hockey demographics," he said. "For example, we run ball hockey programs in elementary schools to introduce the sport, and we've done a lot to reach out to the Mandarin-speaking community, because it's a growing segment of our community on the North Shore."
Oberti said the association has leveraged Mandarin- and Persian-speaking families already with kids in youth hockey, establishing links to new players through parent groups on social media platforms targeting specific communities such as WeChat and WhatsApp as well as word of mouth from schoolchildren who already play the game.
Families new to Canada want to do things they consider Canadian, Oberti said, and they are embracing hockey.
"Hockey has an advantage there," he said. "There are a lot of families that do want to participate in the sport — or who are interested in the sport — because of the way it's intertwined in the fabric of social life in Canada."
At the Richmond Jets Minor Hockey Association, vice-president Trent Gustafson said while his group has seen about a 15-to-20 per cent drop-off in participation from a peak in 2018-2019, registration is growing again, and players from non-traditional communities make up a big part of that rebound.
"We're up to around 915 to 920 kids playing hockey at Jets this year," Gustafson said. "We don't collect (data) in terms of the ethnicity of our members specifically, but I can safely say more than half are non-Caucasian members."
Just as important as getting children in these communities playing hockey, Gustafson said, is the fact that parents new to the game are also eager to volunteer.
He said that is a vital contribution to the minor hockey system largely run by volunteers and parents in their spare time.
"Those parents are, frankly, just as crazy hockey parents as you're getting in some of the other cities and towns in not only British Columbia but across the country," he said.
"It's interesting, the people it seems these days that are almost more willing to volunteer are some of the newer people to hockey. They've just fallen in love with the game."
Earland said other efforts to attract players include a try-hockey-for-free program in Cloverdale, B.C., for Indigenous youth, and they are trying to make the game more affordable through equipment programs and other initiatives.
"Nobody in minor hockey wants to hear a family say, 'We want to play but our kids can't afford it or we can't afford it,'" she said.
She said she wants every child to have an opportunity to play hockey.
"It's a fabulous sport. It offers friendships and teamwork and camaraderie for all of our youth."
Chilliwack Minor Hockey Association president Lee McCaw said his group does not target any specific community for new players, but the province's rapid population growth and its diversity means more kids being registered from every background.
"I think our inclusion for everybody to be able to participate is huge," McCaw said. "We have a huge First Nations population in our city, and there's a lot of learn-to-skate programs that are specifically designed for every ethnicity group and everybody inclusively, together and within Chilliwack."
Nathan Bosa, the president of the Kamloops Minor Hockey Association, said even if there are no specific programs aimed at the diverse newcomer groups, sport could be an opportunity to support them.
"We're talking about this as a board a while ago, about having a program for new people coming into Canada and into Kamloops (to) give them a little bit of an instruction on how things work," Bosa said. "It's something that we're going to be looking at in the new year. I think we've started to see that the influx is very noticeable, and it's good.
Getting children into sport, whether it's hockey or something else, allows children and their parents to make friends and it brings them into the community, Bosa said.
Bosa and McCaw also noted the impact of hockey exposure in the South Asian community as another factor in attracting new players, including Hockey Night in Canada's Punjabi broadcast, and homegrown talent such as Arshdeep Bains from Surrey playing for the Vancouver Canucks in February.
The Winnipeg Jets, meanwhile, signed forward Kevin He to a three-year entry-level deal this month, making him the first player born in China to ink an N. H. L deal.
Scott Furman, Hockey Canada's vice-president of growth and retention, said progress has also been made on other fronts, with the visibility of women's hockey skyrocketing as the Professional Women's Hockey League drives female player registration to a new high beyond 100,000 countrywide this season.
Furman said the upheaval and change in management at Hockey Canada in recent years meant a new approach, bringing inclusion and more programs to help with costs of the game.
He said the rebound in B.C. is symbolic of this change.
"Last season, for the first time, we hit 50,000 players that identified as black, Indigenous or people of colour, and that was an 8-per-cent increase on the previous season," Furman said.
"In B.C., I think about 19 per cent of players identify as black, Indigenous or people of colour, which is well above the national average. And the South Asian community represents 4.5 per cent of all players — a 46 per cent increase since the 2021 season.
"It certainly is a positive trend, but nothing's taken for granted. And we've got to continue to do the work to make sure that it continues in that fashion."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 28, 2024.
Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press
