Is it difficult in your countries to get Immigrants to choose hockey?

[Bratwursten1]

In Sweden aswell as in many other countries we are haveing alot of immigrants arriving to our Country, alot of them were born in the middle east and Africa, but there is also arriving people from other areas of the world.

Alot of these kids starts playing football and other sports which is natural, but I feel we have alot of potential here, to get alot of good athletes to choose hockey instead of other sports. I have no good solution to this problem but, if you compare to Canada for example are there things going on to get this people to choose hockey over other sports, that might be closer to their home land culture?.
I guess it's also a factor that hockey is relatively expensive to play compared to alot of other sports

I think there is huge potential to get the sport to be bigger in the future aswell if these immigrants would start to play hockey and hopefully spread it all over the world to family and friends in their home countrys, both in active players but also in intrests all over the world.

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[Urbanskog]

Even if they wanted to, immigrants can rarely afford playing the sport.

 

[Siamese Dream]

Yes

Even here in a non-traditional hockey country, the sport is 99% white British and Eastern European (we get a fair number of immigrants from Latvia and Hungary who play)

There is an ice rink with a senior team and youth programme in Slough, one of the most ethnically diverse places in the country were South Asians make up something like 25% of the population, and nearly all of the hockey players from there are white.

 

[Jonimaus]

I would be interested in knowing how it is in Canada with that. I am guessing that in Canada the sports media is not filled with football(soccer) news from premier league, la liga etc, talking about how many goals Messi scored in champions league, but actually about hockey and NHL.

 

[Namejs]

Eastern European (we get a fair number of immigrants from Latvia and Hungary who play)

Neither of those 2 countries are Eastern European.

As for Latvia, most of the immigrants are actually Eastern European (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, etc.), so, no, it's not difficult at all.

 

[Forsberg21Sakic19]

Technically, Latvia and Hungary are on the Eastern side of Europe. Not in the geo-political sense that we refer to them normally, but Eastern nonetheless. Not trying to be a prat, just pointing that out

 

[ReneM86]

In Austria it's very unusal, for example. In our team, there are some guys from czech republic. The main reason is that czech republic bordering austria.
In our whole league, there are only eastern european guys (ukrain and russia) and north-east european like german, czech, slovak. Thats all. No immigrants.

 

[Siamese Dream]

Neither of those 2 countries are Eastern European.

As for Latvia, most of the immigrants are actually Eastern European (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, etc.), so, no, it's not difficult at all.

We consider any country that was behind the Iron Curtain as "Eastern Europe"

 

[wings5]

I would be interested in knowing how it is in Canada with that. I am guessing that in Canada the sports media is not filled with football(soccer) news from premier league, la liga etc, talking about how many goals Messi scored in champions league, but actually about hockey and NHL.

Well in Canada it is not as difficult of course the majority of players grew up with the game as non immigrants but there are immigrants playing. Not immigrant speaking necessarily but on out junior team we have three black Canadian players Nurse, Bowey and Duclair. We also could have had three more in J.Subban, Baptiste and Ho-Sang. The kids will follow what is popular so with outdoor rinks everywhere its not as uncommon in Canada. Among the Asian community there is Ang on Peterborough of the OHL and Pu on Oshawa. It's hard to say how many are first generation immigrants though but in general hockey among immigrants isn't that rare.

 

[Siamese Dream]

Well in Canada it is not as difficult of course the majority of players grew up with the game as non immigrants but there are immigrants playing. Not immigrant speaking necessarily but on out junior team we have three black Canadian players Nurse, Bowey and Duclair. We also could have had three more in J.Subban, Baptiste and Ho-Sang. The kids will follow what is popular so with outdoor rinks everywhere its not as uncommon in Canada. Among the Asian community there is Ang on Peterborough of the OHL and Pu on Oshawa. It's hard to say how many are first generation immigrants though but in general hockey among immigrants isn't that rare.

But what you have to consider are the statistics. What's the proportion of the total population that is black/Asian compared to the proportion of hockey players who are black/Asian?

 

[wings5]

But what you have to consider are the statistics. What's the proportion of the total population that is black/Asian compared to the proportion of hockey players who are black/Asian?

Hard to get a statistic on the proportion of hockey players who are Black/Asian. I would assume it's not many relative to the total population. Also most likely only to be seen on big city teams due to their high numbers in those cities. All this is to be expected though I guess.

 

[Btown]

But what you have to consider are the statistics. What's the proportion of the total population that is black/Asian compared to the proportion of hockey players who are black/Asian?

Small sample size but in my city and smaller cities around me have a low population of noticable immigrants. Most immigrants seem to be found in large cities ie; Toronto, Vancouver and other major cities. With that said I feel race and creed is over looked in Hockey Canada and it's program all kids have equal opportunity and with assistance from Hockey Canada if a kid really wants to play he can.
It all comes down to parents and there love for the game. If a person of a different ethnicity came to this country from a country with little to no Hockey arenas or stars chances are his parents will enroll him/her in what ever sport they are interested in. I have noticed girls are getting on the ice more though which is always good for the game. Time to get womens change rooms in the arenas now.

 

[BladesofSTEELwFIRE]

I would guess many of the non white immigrants would rather play soccer in Euro nations and basketball or soccer in the USA. Canada has done the BEST job here because many non white do play hockey there. It's because in Canada hockey is the CLEAR #1 sport. What other nation can you say that? Finland and that's about it!

 

[Lepardi]

Alot of these kids starts playing football and other sports which is natural, but I feel we have alot of potential here, to get alot of good athletes to choose hockey instead of other sports.

I read the Zlatan Ibrahimovic autobiography about a year ago. In the book he told how he had major anger management problems as a kid and always got into trouble because of his bad temper on the soccer field. One time he decided that he'd quit soccer and start to play ice hockey instead, cause in ice hockey you can be more aggressive. Sadly though, his ice hockey career was over before it had even started when he found out about the price of hockey equipment. It was back to soccer, and the rest is history.

 

[Exarz]

I think it will be a different "immigrant situation" with the next one or two generations, as they will be more integrated to the societies