Sports writer Sean Fitz-Gerald launches book on the crisis facing Canadian hockey

Sports reporter and RSJ alumni Sean Fitz-Gerald (external link)  released his first book, "Before the Lights Go Out” (external link)  on Oct. 1. The book documents the declining participation of youth in hockey across Canada today, and reveals how barriers around the game are making it more inaccessible than ever before.  

Registration for youth hockey across Canada has declined significantly over the last decade. In Peterborough, Ont. specifically, he discovered that junior league hockey associations had lost about 100 kids every year for three consecutive years.  

“Hockey isn’t as fun as it was anymore. It’s far more structured and it’s expensive,” he said. “It also requires a lot of time investment beyond just going to a couple of practices a week, including tournaments on the weekends.”  

The book touches on the difficulty for junior league hockey associations to market to immigrant communities which have had little to no experience with hockey. Expense has been a barrier for participation as well, where resources like extra professional training, courses, and specialists have led to the game becoming more expensive for families. And as time progresses, the growing concern of the long-term risk of concussions could potentially push parents to encourage their children into other activities, such as online gaming, and other year-round sports.  

Fitz-Gerald said junior league hockey associations haven’t been able to adjust to these changes, and their participation numbers have suffered for it. He said that these organizations have recognized that there was a lot of work that needed to be done in order to increase turnout.  

“Hockey is not doing a good job at seeking out underrepresented communities in the game, or making it more accessible for people who don't have the means, time, or the previous exposure to the game,” he said.   

Fitz-Gerald said that hockey has always been a sport that has brought strangers together, and helped large communities become closer. As a parent himself, part of his appreciation for the game came from witnessing the social bonds that children made and the connections they received through hockey.  

“I think the ability to have something as simple as a game thread us together is potentially powerful,” he said. “Things that bind us together, there's not a lot of them but hockey’s one of them.”  

For three years in preparation for his book, Fitz-Gerald shadowed the junior league hockey team, The Peterborough Petes. His time spent at the rink, on the road with the team, and speaking with the community aided his research on the state of Canadian hockey. He found that issues prevalent within the Peterborough hockey community were often reflected countrywide.  

For example, the small Ontario town had voted for the party that formed government in every Canadian federal election from 1984 - 2015. In the book Fitz-Gerald describes it as a place with a wide variety of urban, suburban, and rural infrastructure, lending itself as a test market for consumer goods and political policy.  

“So much of what happens in Peterborough is reflected across Canada,” said Fitz-Gerald. “It seemed like as good a base as any to explore things that are affecting the game nationally through a local lens,” he said.  

But in the book, he also captures it as a hockey town, where over 200 NHL prospects have come through their junior hockey league hockey team, since the late nineties.   

Fitz-Gerald said he has received a positive response from parents across the nation whose children are enrolled in hockey, who relate to the challenges of becoming a hockey family in today’s society.  

He hopes through the book, readers will take a step back to understand that a sport like hockey, which has been historically meaningful to Canada for centuries, is worth saving.  

“The challenge now is coming up with solutions, and asking how people who run the game at a national level will try to implement them,” said Fitz-Gerald.