Boys Growing Up in Canada

¶ … boys growing up in Canada dream of the day that they can grow up and become a professional hockey player. Barely before they can walk, Canadian boys learn to skate and begin a childhood of early morning hockey practices, carrying heavy, smelly hockey bags, and long road trips between ice rinks. Such is the life of a young Canadian. In America, the scenario is much different and, as a result, there are relatively few Americans playing in the National Hockey League (Henderson).

To be fair, hockey has been the national sport of Canada for nearly as long as Canada has been a nation. The percentage of Canadian boys playing hockey is much higher than the percentage of Americans playing the game but the explanation goes much deeper than pure numbers. For the Canadian athlete playing hockey is a passion. A passion that forms a part of a dream while for the American athlete hockey is just another option among many others and because the passion is lacking the dream of playing in the NHL is never developed.

There is no denying that the game of hockey can be highly exciting. Many claim that it is the fastest game in the world and that that fact alone should make it more desirable for the American sports fan but, like the game of soccer, which has also not caught on with the American sports fan, scoring, or rather, the lack of scoring has caused hockey to lag behind other sports in America. The fact is that too many hockey games end in scores of 1-0, 2-1, or worse, 1-1 ties. This is the same problem that afflicts soccer in the United States and it is one that hockey must overcome in order to create more interest.

The sport also suffers from playing with an object, a puck, which is extremely difficult for many observers to see and watch during the course of the action. This is an area where the speed of the game is actually a detriment to its overall appeal. The size of the puck combined with the speed of the action cause many but the most devoted of fan to struggle keeping track of the action.

Finally, the size of the scoring area, the open net, is proportionally too small to allow for higher scoring games. The size of the net area has remained virtually unchanged for a number of years while the physical size of the goalies and their pads have increased. Hockey was never a high scoring game but today's players and today's available equipment have made scoring even more difficult.