A major issue that dominated a lot of news coverage and was the centre of heated political debates for most of 2023 was the issue of affordability. It can be seen everywhere–on the shelves in grocery stores, at the gas pump, and in uncontrollably rising rent. All serious issues, but another area of everyday life that rising costs have affected people’s ability to enjoy certain aspects of their lives is in sports and recreation.
More specifically; hockey.
Hockey can be considered the bedrock of any definable Canadian identity. Nearly every small town and mid-sized city in Alberta and across the country have at least one ice rink where the local teams play, and often those teams represent the linchpins of their respective communities. When the local team plays, the rink is the centre of the world.
Hockey has always been a rather pricey sport to play, more so than any of the other big four North American sports with professional leagues. A quick browse online shows that a new pair of top-end skates can cost close to $1,400. Sticks, easily the most breakable piece of equipment in the dressing room, cost close to $70 for junior sizes and range up to $430 for senior sticks.
An Airdrie-based non-profit called the Kalix Legacy Foundation (KLF), an organization that helps financially challenged families with the equipment cost and training fees, confirms it has seen an increase in grant applicants this past year.
“We have received double the applications this year and have been able to approve funding for the majority who meet our eligibility criteria,” said Nadia Belanger, the vice president of the Kalix Legacy Foundation.
Through donations, sponsorships, and fundraising, the KLF has been able to cover anywhere from 50 per cent to 100 per cent of fees and equipment costs (depending on program), and in 2023 the Foundation was able to help 39 kids.
Through their partnership with the local sporting goods store East Side Sports, KLF has set up donation stations located in Genesis Place and the Ron Ebbesen Arena for people to drop off equipment that can then be used to outfit one of the foundation's qualified applicants.
To outfit a kid to play hockey, parents can spend a couple thousand dollars before skates even hit the ice. However, equipment costs are something that anyone who aspires to play will have to deal with. Corporations set the prices of equipment and those prices don’t tend to change from location to location.
The work that KLF has done to help community members can offset a large chunk of what it costs to play hockey, but unfortunately the organizational cost to be a part of community associations still remains quite high.
On their website, the Airdrie Minor Hockey Association (AMHA) laid out a cost breakdown for registration fees across the differing age brackets at the start of the 2023-24 season. Kids registered to play recreation hockey in Airdrie have to pay a base fee of $390. More serious competitive hockey is rated at a much higher price.
For the 2023-24 season, players that were selected for AA and AAA teams paid much more money. Parents with kids on the U15 AAA Xtreme team pay an approximate $6,725. U17AAA Avalanche players fork up the same, and players selected for the U18 AAA Bisons spend $7,885 to play.
No team that is associated with AMHA–except U7, U9 and rec teams– have a cost set below $1,000. Typically, AA teams, both male and female, require prospective players to pay around $1,500 to $2,100 to play for them.
It’s noted on the AMHA website that registration costs only cover regular season league games, practises, and playoff game costs, meaning that if teams want to participate in exhibition tournaments outside of regular league play, players and parents have to pay out of pocket.
“You may be required to pay additional team fees throughout the season to cover the costs of going tournaments, exhibition games, bus transportation, dryland, team apparel, provincials, and for AA teams the monthly coach honorarium fees,” reads a statement on the AMHA website.
The money breakdown indicates that families pay an Airdrie Member fee and then a Draw Zone Player fee. Participants in Airdrie area teams have the option of making the fee payments in monthly installments, but once a team is made a large sum of that total money is due before the end of November.
Organizations like KidSport have been working to help the financial strain that registering a kid for hockey can put on a family. According to the group, “cost keeps one in three Canadian kids out of organized sports.”
KidSport Calgary and area provides grants to applicants that seek help to cover the cost of sport registration. The Calgary and area chapter said they administer grants of up to $500 per child per year and since the organization's founding in 1993, it has “given tens of thousands of kids the opportunity to participate in organized sports.”
Even with what it costs to play hockey and even with the rising costs of almost every other service and commodity, Airdrie Minor Hockey still boasted of a high application rate among Airdrie area teams.
“We…anticipate an increase in registrations this season…as soon as we hit the maximum number of teams we can accommodate, we will be shutting down registration and creating waitlists,” said AMHA back in the summer.
High costs may be pricing some kids out of the game of hockey, but there are still many more hoping to play.
