How To Make Hockey A Poor Man's Sport 

Written by Troy Ewers

One thing I’ve noticed while writing for sports is the popularity of a sport has a lot to do with its access. Access a lot of time has to do with the accessibility to play the sport. Almost every sport that has major popularity, the people playing it have access to it, because no matter what financial status, people can play the sport. When I ask people why they think hockey isn’t popular with certain audiences, they say every time that the game is expensive to play. 

Soccer for example only requires a ball and something everyone can identify as a goal for the game and just like that, a game of soccer can be played. Basketball is just ball and hoop and I see a hoop in damn near every city I’m in. Football is just a ball and whatever the players identify as an endzone. Even baseball at its core is just stickball..  Think Sandlot. In a lot of places the thought of hockey is difficult to play for 2 reasons. 1. Most people immediately think of snow when they hear hockey, so the idea of playing the game is already out. They might watch a game, but playing hockey isn’t in the top 3 sports you think of participating in when you grow up in a place with no snow. 2. The idea of playing hockey, no matter what city you’re in, is expensive and that’s just if we’re thinking of skates and sticks. A kid playing in a hockey league cost more than any other youth sport. Well except cheerleading which apparently is basically thousands of dollars to do competitively. This stigma of being an expensive sport is actually such a known thing that when I was talking to an Uber driver on my way to the airport, the driver when I said I write hockey articles, he said instinctually, “expensive sport to play, huh?”. I grew up right next to a sportsplex where they would have competitive roller hockey and indoor soccer and during the summer of 2008, that sportsplex was a place I frequented. I walked in and thought this is my chance to play hockey… until I walked my 13 year old self into the pro shop and asked how much a stick was. One hockey stick. It was $89 and that was one of the cheap ones. Most families in America in 2022 can’t afford to put their kid in a sport like hockey with how much everything in America costs. Maybe there’s a way to expose the idea of playing hockey as just a fun pickup game like every other sport has and if someone wants to seriously pursue the sport of hockey, they can pay the equipment fees to play league hockey. 

The way to make hockey a “poor man’s sport” like every other major sport in America.. You make street hockey a more regular thing for American kids in places that don’t have snow. I watched on the Spittin Chiclets instagram, a street hockey game where it was a 3 vs 3, just sticks, a ball, and a small goal. No skates, ice, or all the pads, but not dangerous, because obvious parameters have to be set. Street hockey makes it something that on a Saturday, a group of friends can go out and play together like basketball is for people everyday at 24 Hour Fitness. Street hockey isn’t new, I first saw it in D2: The Mighty Ducks, the same movie that exposed me to hockey in general, but even in the movie they had the skates and all the pads and everything. It just needs to be stick, ball, goal. I remember when I was in high school, the San Jose Sharks opened a street hockey court at Sakamoto Elementary School. At the time it didn’t get a bunch of visibility, but since then, now in 2022 they have 4 courts in the Bay Area, 2 of them in San Jose. What Spittin Chiclets and the San Jose Sharks are ahead of the curve on

is the idea that if people see that hockey is a game that literally anyone can pick up, then it’s easy to become a sport you want to watch on television or go see at the arena. Making hockey a “poor man’s sport” isn’t some major idea, but it’s something that should be thought about when you want growth in the sport. In 2023 let’s try to get more street hockey games this year, who’s down?