Hockey is widely considered the fastest of all team sports. It was also the fastest to adopt comprehensive reform at the youth level, led by USA Hockey, with the support of the National Hockey League. A decade ago, the American Development Model became a nationwide blueprint designed specifically to help kids reach their full potential – delivering more efficient skill development, improving player safety and improving the overall hockey experience to increase player retention.
Hockey is among the few team sports to see participation gains since then. Digging in further, governing bodies across the game introduced hockey’s Declaration of Principles in 2017, a vision statement that affirmed a joint belief that hockey is a powerful platform to build character, community and positive values. That year, the NHL also hired an executive from outside the sports industry to drive further progress – Kim Davis, a JP Morgan Chase veteran with deep experience in management and philanthropy.
Davis, the NHL’s Executive Vice President of Social Impact, Growth Initiatives & Legislative Affairs, shared her thoughts on the future of the sport with Tom Farrey, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program. She also discussed the need for sport organizations to solve shared challenges through Project Play 2020, of which the NHL is a member.
Farrey: How would you assess the state of youth hockey?
Davis: I think the state of youth hockey is almost a tale of two cities. On one hand, we agree with all the work coming out of the Aspen Institute and Project Play. We know that kids are engaging less in physical activity, they’re feeling undue pressure, and it’s not fun for all kids. We need to think of new ways to engage kids who are playing our sport, as well as those who have not had the opportunity to consume it and may have preconceived notions about it.
Hockey is perceived as a white male sport. A lot of audiences, women and others, aren’t sure they want to try it because they’re not sure they will be welcomed. So, we’ve done lot of work to break down the stereotypes, through content, storytelling, programming and more. Our Learn to Play program with the NHL Players Association has reached more than 50,000 kids. We’re becoming far more intentional about reaching multicultural communities, going to where they are, providing access and opportunity and showing they belong.
We’re also encouraged by the growth on the girls’ side – it’s been exponential. A year ago, six of our NHL clubs had all-girls youth programs; now it’s 24. It’s taking off because we have had a very intentional strategy of engaging girls. We have set a tone from the top of the organization, with the NHL being the north star, that this is a very important part of our growth strategy and leads to fan development.
We have specific tactics in place to support it. We convened an advisory board of former Olympians and those in the front office on strategy on how to increase participation among girls. And we started hiring more women, for girls to look up to.
Farrey: What’s amazing about hockey’s participation gains over the past decade is the infrastructure challenge. Is there any sport with more constraints? You need ice to play hockey and there’s not enough of it.
Davis: That is another myth about the sport of hockey, and one we’ve contributed to. If you talk to the pros, many will tell you they first became engaged in the sport through ball or street hockey. In all of Nevada, there are only five sheets of ice. Yet they have engaged more than 100,000 families there via ball and street. So, we’ve partnered with USA Hockey to reposition ball and street to be just as important as ice hockey. We’ve worked with suppliers like Franklin Sports to get sticks and balls in kids’ hands, so they can taste the sport in some form. We also are co-creating a new piece of community infrastructure that will provide ball hockey to more children, which we will pilot this season.
Farrey: You see this challenge in the city where we just held the Project Play Summit, Detroit. It’s called Hockeytown, right? But fewer than 200 kids in the city itself play in registered programs, as there’s little ice. Most facilities are in the ‘burbs.
Davis: Detroit is a perfect example of where demographic shifts have occurred. Most kids in the city are black or brown. So, a year ago, we undertook a hyperlocal experiment to build relationships with park and recs and other nonprofits, to create ball and street hockey programs aligned with the city’s goal to revitalize its neighborhoods. We are providing the support and programming in those neighborhoods. It launches soon and we’ll put stakes in ground.
Farrey: But eventually, you do want to transition as many kids as you can to ice, right? And we know from our recent survey of parents that ice hockey is the most expensive sport, with the average family paying $2,582 a year. So how do we bring the cost down if you need ice, which can be expensive?
Davis: A major problem we have in North America is a lot of rinks are aging and inefficient. There are a lot of regulations in refrigeration and that makes it hard for rink owners to get financing that brings down the ultimate cost to families. So, we’re working with our partners to secure financing at rates that allow them to make the changes and pass on those efficiencies to customers. It’s about financial and environmental sustainability.
The second dimension is, four years ago, our players’ association and the NHL created the Industry Growth Fund with $80 million to grow the sport. One way we tried to reduce the cost of playing was subsidizing programs, and we’ve learned a lot on how to do that. As we move to next phase, there will be additional subsidies, especially in areas that struggle with ice.
Farrey: The model I like is in Minnesota, which I’ve written and talked about. The state has the highest participation rate in the country and produces the most NHL talent. Most communities there have local public rinks, built with the help of state funds. Kids have nearby, in-house options. They don’t have to travel. What role do you see public policy playing in driving systems change?
Davis: We have to have public policy support. We’ve been spending lot of time in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa, Canada’s capitol, building relationships and sharing the challenges of growing our sport. We’re making a lot of headway in getting these issues in front of the right policymakers. In Canada, we’ve learned that money exists at the provincial level to subsidize new rink builds and infrastructure rebuilds. The subsidies cover up to 75% of project but the money has to go through a foundation – which all of our clubs have! So, Montreal’s already done it. We would love to see policy in the U.S that would put dollars against this.
Farrey: What do you see as the role of Project Play 2020 in creating the conditions for cooperation among sports and other leading organizations?
Davis: Hockey can’t do it alone and doesn’t want to do it alone. It’s a waste of time to recreate the wheel. Organizations need to work together to solve problems – like promoting multisport play, which we are firm believers in. The power of the network can bring about the change we need. The power of Aspen is as the convener to bring us together to address the common challenges, the universal problems that we should be collectively solving.
Learn more about Project Play and Project Play 2020.