This is an excerpt from TSN investigative reporter and former Toronto Star journalist Rick Westhead’s new book “We Breed Lions: Confronting Canada’s Troubled Hockey Culture,” focusing on how minor hockey‘s volunteerism model transformed into a professionalized approach:
The story of minor hockey’s evolution into a business extends back more than two decades, to a time when most minor hockey organizations were operated and coached by volunteer parents. Moms and dads wanted their children to be able to play but often lacked experience playing high-level hockey themselves and had no idea how to organize team practices and games.
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