Is hockey dying in Quebec ?

[Dirtyf1ghter]

I'm in my 30s and when I was playing hockey in a rural area in Quebec, teams were coached by the fathers of the players. So of course, they played their kids the most. Then their friends kids... and no-names like me were stuck on defense. Climate was super toxic as well, bunch of degenerates in the stands every game.

It was boring as shit so I ended up playing tennis and baseball instead. Baseball was the best, such a great sport to make friends and a super welcoming community.

If you're strong, you play.

I don't doubt that there is favoritism when it's tangential but to reach the NHL, when you're a kid, you're light years ahead of the others. It's impossible to put you in the stands.

If you can't establish yourself in your bantam team, you don't have the level to be in the NHL.

Where are the sons of professionals there ?

Team Québec - Roster, News, Stats & more

Team Québec - Brick Invitational - hockey team page with roster, stats, transactions at eliteprospects.com

www.eliteprospects.com

 

[Rafafouille]

40,000?!? Source please.

Never seen a talented U15 player with a promise of a pro career quit hockey because his parents were poor.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/s/CCP7UKTpDI

Plenty of real life examples here of 15k+ sign up costs. Add in fuel, wear on car to go to tournaments, hotel fees, lost wages for days off. 30-40k seems like the norm for high level hockey.

 

[Canadiens Ghost]

Can't be dying if it's already dead. The people at the head of hockey Quebec care more about themselves than they do about the kids. Just ask Jocelyn Thibault.

 

[Dirtyf1ghter]

Regina Pat Canadians U18 AAA 2008-2009 - Roster, Stats & more

Regina Pat Canadians U18 AAA - SMAAAHL - hockey team page with roster, stats, transactions at eliteprospects.com

www.eliteprospects.com

JC was 8th in scoring at 16 in AAA hockey. He was 2nd amongst 1993 borns.

You get scholarships at 17 or 18. Kids are dropping out at 12 or 13. The extra 5 years of cost (and risk) is a lot up keep up.

That's already good for an U16 in an elite U18 league and the following year, he plays for Canada.

Stop lying, you're not credible with your story of the 5 champions who couldn't continue in Midget because they were poor.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/s/CCP7UKTpDI

Plenty of real life examples here of 15k+ sign up costs. Add in fuel, wear on car to go to tournaments, hotel fees, lost wages for days off. 30-40k seems like the norm for high level hockey.

I want names of guys who dominated in Atom/Pee Wee/Bantam and couldn't play in Midget because they were poor.

It would surprise me if elite athletes were not entitled to aid.

Whether a guy with no talent can't continue in Midget is another story. But that’s not what’s at the origin of the “weakening” of Canada. And again when I see Bedard, Celebrini, Fantilli, McKenna, Dupont, Joseph... there have never been so many talented guys.It is the globalization of hockey that means that there are fewer Canadians in % in the NHL.

 

[jigglysquishy]

That's already good for an U16 in an elite U18 league and the following year, he plays for Canada.

Stop lying, you're not credible with your story of the 5 champions who couldn't continue in Midget because they were poor.

And at 12 he wasn't the best kid in his grade.

It would surprise me if elite athletes were not entitled to aid.

From who?

 

[Andrei79]

The sport is just too expensive and takes too much time. It also has a very poor reputation in terms of the culture, founded or not. The coaching is also bad. I've known a number of players who could qualify as elite (Midget AAA étoile, Junior AAA and above) and they have nothing but bad things to say about Hockey Quebec and how players are developed.

 

[Dirtyf1ghter]

And at 12 he wasn't the best kid in his grade.


From who?

At 12 years old, a guy who played in the NHL is way above all the kids at his school, stop talking nonsense. Or maybe he had just taken his beginner's license.

Guys who reach the world elite like Lipon are the top 0.001% of hockey players.

 

[jigglysquishy]

At 12 years old, a guy who played in the NHL is way above all the kids at his school, stop talking nonsense. Or maybe he had just taken his beginner's license.

Guys who reach the world elite like Lipon are the top 0.001% of hockey players.

This just simply isn't the reality of real life hockey.

If you played you'd know.

I remember when he made the WHL and my brothers and I were shocked he made it and the kids who were better at 11 and 12 didn't. Some of the kids I knew who made the WHL looked that good at 10 or 11. Some didn't.

A massive amount of development happens between 11 and 14 and it's a very expensive age to play.

 

[WarriorofTime]

How did this thread go into pages of discussion about a career Minor Leaguer exactly? Dirty Fighter, relax man. People are giving experiences and evidence and you are just like "no, it's not that expensive/pure talent always wins out" etc.

You gotta be really talented, work really hard and have the means to pursue the opportunity to make the NHL. Really all three gotta come together. That's why so many NHL drafted players every year come from "hockey families", even if their dad wasn't in the NHL, there are often a lot of connections to hockey amongst the family already there.

 

[Headshot77]

A future where hockey is third or fourth in Canada seems inevitable.

Basketball has already surpassed hockey for under 20s. Both in participation and viewership.

Soccer is right there too. Participation is ahead and viewership is slowly rising.

Football is rapidly approaching hockey in viewership but is way behind in participation.

It should really be treated as a crisis by the NHL.

Nobody wants to hear this, but the long term play would be to transition over to deck hockey. The expense of manufacturing ice to play on is insane and that expense gets passed on to the skaters taking classes. It gets passed onto parents. It makes the game unaffordable for regular folks across the globe. As inflation gets worse and the middle class slowly evaporates, ice hockey will become more of a niche thing rich people do. Like horse racing. Hockey doesn't need to be expensive, but the cost of ice can't be hidden.

 

[jigglysquishy]

How did this thread go into pages of discussion about a career Minor Leaguer exactly? Dirty Fighter, relax man. People are giving experiences and evidence and you are just like "no, it's not that expensive/pure talent always wins out" etc.

You gotta be really talented, work really hard and have the means to pursue the opportunity to make the NHL. Really all three gotta come together.

This is really it. The most raw talented player I every played with was lazy. Made tier 1 despite not trying. Kid loved Madden and slurpees. But by 12 that gets you to tier 2. And by 13 tier 3. By 14 you're in house league.

I saw really talented kids from the reserve. But some reserves stopped funding teams after age 12.

It is what it is.

 

[Dirtyf1ghter]

This just simply isn't the reality of real life hockey.

If you played you'd know.

I remember when he made the WHL and my brothers and I were shocked he made it and the kids who were better at 11 and 12 didn't. Some of the kids I knew who made the WHL looked that good at 10 or 11. Some didn't.

A massive amount of development happens between 11 and 14 and it's a very expensive age to play.

I don't believe your story. Abandoned.

 

[WarriorofTime]

It would surprise me if elite athletes were not entitled to aid.

Amongst North American players, the last one that I can recall that made it to the NHL and achieved some success was Micheal Ferland ('92 birth).
Not sure if he was an '06 birth (upcoming draft) if he would have been able to make it through. With how competitive the top teams to get on in some regions and the emphasis on skating, they cut you five seconds into the tryout if your skating isn't at the level the coaches expect. While the community might rally in that case behind a 15 year old house league player's AAA fees if they have a lot of natural ability, they probably aren't doing that for their power skating courses when the player is 11.

 

[Dirtyf1ghter]

Amongst North American players, the last one that I can recall that made it to the NHL and achieved some success was Micheal Ferland ('92 birth).
Not sure if he was an '06 birth (upcoming draft) if he would have been able to make it through. With how competitive the top teams to get on in some regions and the emphasis on skating, they cut you five seconds into the tryout if your skating isn't at the level the coaches expect. While the community might rally in that case behind a 15 year old house league player's AAA fees if they have a lot of natural ability, they probably aren't doing that for their power skating courses when the player is 11.

We are talking about the elite and the weakening of the Quebec elite.

If you don't play because you're bad at hockey, it won't change anything if you play: you'll be bad.

Moreover, from an elitist point of view, the more selective the teams are, the higher the level will be.

So there is a huge contradiction between the discourse of hockey for all and the discourse of elitist hockey.

Either you seek total inclusiveness and make it a mass sport, or you seek to produce champions and make it an elite sport.

But you can't blame a sport for not producing champions because it's too selective. It's contradictory.

All the 2006 elite guys from Saskatchewan in 2016 are still playing hockey. These kinds of stories about talented kids who have to stop are an invention. Gifted kids get playing privileges. Those who have to stop have no talent.

In addition, hockey is the sport where it is easiest to make a place for yourself. You have 15 kids playing for roughly the same amount of time. If you're not in the 15 of an atom team, you don't have the level to hope to play in the adult NHL.

 

[WarriorofTime]

We are talking about the elite and the weakening of the Quebec elite.

If you don't play because you're bad at hockey, it won't change anything if you play: you'll be bad.

Moreover, from an elitist point of view, the more selective the teams are, the higher the level will be.

So there is a huge contradiction between the discourse of hockey for all and the discourse of elitist hockey.

Either you seek total inclusiveness and make it a mass sport, or you seek to produce champions and make it an elite sport.

But you can't blame a sport for not producing champions because it's too selective. It's contradictory.

In Quebec, both the elite and mass track are drying up. In certain other parts, the elite track is going strong while the mass track struggles. Western Canada a great example, the rich kids from BC who can afford the academies are seeing a bunch of NHL prospects every year, while the rank and file Saskatchewan/Manitoba players aren't coming through as much. The more and more emphasis placed on the elite track, the fewer that can come out of a mass track and come to the NHL track later (house league to not playing AAA until 15 to WHL to NHL).

Look at Patrice Bergeron for a Quebec example. Didn't play much AAA hockey, probably not very wealthy growing up, late pick in the QMJHL draft, but was able to make it through and had a Hall of Fame career. Might have been filtered out too early these days due to the costs and then he's just a never was.

 

[Dirtyf1ghter]

In Quebec, both the elite and mass track are drying up. In certain other parts, the elite track is going strong while the mass track struggles. Western Canada a great example, the rich kids from BC who can afford the academies are seeing a bunch of NHL prospects every year, while the rank and file Saskatchewan/Manitoba players aren't coming through as much. The more and more emphasis placed on the elite track, the fewer that can come out of a mass track and come to the NHL track later (house league to not playing AAA until 15 to WHL to NHL).

Look at Patrice Bergeron for a Quebec example. Didn't play much AAA hockey, probably not very wealthy growing up, late pick in the QMJHL draft, but was able to make it through and had a Hall of Fame career. Might have been filtered out too early these days due to the costs and then he's just a never was.

However, the 2007 and 2009 generation are very strong. The 2013 generation flew past the last Brick.
Patrice Bergeron played in the biggest pee wee tournament in the world. He reached QMAAA a year late. Which report ? Because he was poor? Or because he didn't have the level yet?

The QMAAA league is the strongest midget league but there is a very strong U17 league in Quebec which serves as an antechamber. Your example, on the contrary, demonstrates that the Q system was able to allow him to hang up the train.

The generational weak was especially the 1990 generation. The 2000s are better.
The real reason in relation to the Lemieux generation, no one has mentioned it. It's the demographics. Quebec was young and women had many children. Today, the birth rate has collapsed, young people are rare in Quebec.

 

[Garl]

Canada as a whole has done a terrible job of encouraging immigrant groups to play hockey.

Elementary schools here are maybe 25% South Asian and 40-50% non white. But youth hockey is still 90%+ white.

There's been lots of growth of hockey in Indigenous communities in the last 20 years though.

Which country did a good job in this regard?

 

[Foppberg]

Soccer has passed hockey in Quebec and soon will in all of Canada. The country is changing.

Yeah right lol

 

[thegazelle]

Canada as a whole has done a terrible job of encouraging immigrant groups to play hockey.

Elementary schools here are maybe 25% South Asian and 40-50% non white. But youth hockey is still 90%+ white.

There's been lots of growth of hockey in Indigenous communities in the last 20 years though.

You make a good point and I agree to an extent, but I think it can easily devolve into an anti-immigration argument for an easy shifting of blame. I think the causes are much more multi-faceted and are more related to cultural shifts (which may have immigration as a catalyst, but not the sole one).

For background, I am an immigrant. My parents were not from Europe or any other hockey-exposed country. My parents were from Asia. We came here in the 1970s.

Back then, immigrants as a whole were much more immersive culturally into their new Canadian environment. We adopted the language and the cultural nuances of life in Canadian society. Many immigrants watched hockey on TV as the parents' would have been in the workplace with other adults who watched hockey and whose kids played hockey. As such, many of us played hockey at a rec level, house league level, and perhaps even higher. We collected hockey cards, had opportunities to go to games (much more affordable back then), and it helped that we had decent teams in the recent memory (at the time) and emerging great teams coming up. Immigrants by and large embraced the Canadian life, which included hockey as an integral part of it.

Look at the cultural shift nowadays. Society is much more individually focused, rather than collectively (this is bad, in my opinion). Similarly, people who immigrate here are told they can pretty much bring their identity with them, along with all their previous practices and interests, and there is little to no cultural mandate to integrate into a new Canadian identity. As such, we in Canada are now comprised of much more splintered communities than previously. As a visible minority immigrant, I can say with confidence that this shift has not been conducive to promoting a singular Canadian culture and more importantly, embracing our rich history. Rather, it's you do what you want, I do what I want,

So unlike when I was a kid where hockey was part of the cultural landscape, it isn't necessarily so anymore due to the pluralistic nature of our society from a social and political perspective. That does have demographic playing a part, but it is not the only part. People are having less kids and having them older. My brother just had a baby at 47 (well, his wife did, not him). This was rare when I was a kid. The implications of this is, my brother will be too old and tired to drive my nephew (who is now 4) to any hockey practices. Add to that all the cost and time investment requirements and it is a recipe for a challenging landscape for hockey to flourish.

What Quebec may be experiencing is symptomatic of the trends in other parts of the country.

 

[Voight]

This argument makes me laugh. Canada is a rich country. Average families have houses, cars, computers, game consoles, phones, app subscriptions but no money for a boy to play hockey.

Canada is suffering from record high inflation and poor management of the economy, as well as insanely high taxes.

There's 2 million Canadians currently going to food banks, so I dont think many have the money for hockey.

 

[Dirtyf1ghter]

Canada is suffering from record high inflation and poor management of the economy, as well as insanely high taxes.

There's 2 million Canadians currently going to food banks, so I dont think many have the money for hockey.

Consequence of a record immigration rate in the world. But if the Liberal government did not want a Canada with more than 50 million inhabitants, Canada would have remained at 25 million and there would not be more hockey players.

 

[InglewoodJack]

Yeah right lol

Guarantee you if Alphonso Davies and Connor McDavid were walking down the street together in any given Canadian city. more times than not, it’s CMD holding the camera so passerbys can take pictures with phonzie, fewer instances of the inverse.

If you listed Quebec’s top athletes right now, I’m not sure if a hockey player breaks the top 5. It will probably be that way in other provinces before too long.

 

[ScaredStreit]

You see fewer NHL players in the NHL from Canada for a few reasons. The biggest one being the US has roughly 10 times the population. While hockey isn't as big in the US the sheer numbers game catches up, especially with more players coming from non-traditional markets. This is the biggest reason why.

When I lived in the GTA (which has a very large immigrant population-I was one of them), it was noticeable that they didn't follow hockey as closely as those born in Canada do. There's nothing wrong with that but it was an observation I made.

 

[abo9]

Minor hockey in Quebec was terminally ill when I was a kid 15 years ago. Seems like it never healed and is effectively dead now.

And you can see it through the drafts. What talent has Quebec produced in the past 15 years? These would be the crop I grew up with. Nothing worth mentioning. What comes out of the Q junior league are imports and atlantic province kids.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Minor hockey in Quebec was terminally ill when I was a kid 15 years ago. Seems like it never healed and is effectively dead now.

And you can see it through the drafts. What talent has Quebec produced in the past 15 years? These would be the crop I grew up with. Nothing worth mentioning. What comes out of the Q junior league are imports and atlantic province kids.

Yanni Gourde, Phillip Danault, Jonathan Huberdeau, Mike Matheson, Anthony Mantha, Jonathan Drouin, Anthony Duclair, Samuel Montembeault, Thomas Chabot, Nicolas Roy, Mathieu Joseph, Jeremy Lauzon, Anthony Beauvillier, Samuel Girard, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Simon Benoit, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Joe Veleno, Alexis Lafreniere, Devon Levi, Hendrix Lapierre, and others that I've probably missed and that are working their way through the system currently.

It may not be the greatest list compared to prior generations, but it wouldn't be far to say that nobody is coming through from Quebec these days.