Game Is Shifting Away From North of Border

The numbers are in, and they aren’t good for Canadian hockey boosters. Only 56% of the NHL’s players on opening night 1999-2000 were Canadian-born, an all-time low that seems destined to drop even further in the seasons to come.

Take the Ducks, for example.

Their lineup Wednesday against the New Jersey Devils included players from Canada, the United States, the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and the Ukraine. Only six of their 20 players in uniform were Canadian-born. There also were six U.S.-born players in the lineup.

“A good player is a good player is a good player,” said Pierre Gauthier, team president and general manager. “The concern is, ‘How come we’re not developing skilled players anymore?’ Culturally, things have changed in Canada. Hockey is still the national pastime, but now all the kids aren’t playing hockey.”

Gauthier believes that’s why many of the most-skilled NHL players hail from Europe. But there’s more to it than that, he said.

“We’ve professionalized kids’ sports,” he said. “We have lost the grass roots, where kidsjust play outside all day on Saturdays and Sundays. . . . Now it’s all structured hockey. It’s elite hockey at 8 to 10 years old.”

Gauthier believes the changes will continue.

“There might be a whole generation of American kids in nontraditional areas of the U.S. who have picked up the game on in-line skates,” he said. “We might see them in another 10 to 12 years. There might be Texas kids or Las Vegas kids.”

Some Canadians might cringe, Gauthier is optimistic. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said of the European and U.S. influence in the NHL. “Hockey is unique because it has an international flavor.”