Hockey Canada targeting immigrants' kids to counter declining enrolment

Isn't it sad when a country gets all excited about doing a mail out in 12 different languages? Hockey Canada is starting to realise that the face of new immigrants isn't the face of old - the face that would easily assimilate and embrace all things Canadian. No, the new face is Arab and Chinese and now they're getting a tad concerned that pretty soon, there won't be many youngsters interested in playing their sport. When I think Canada, I automatically think hockey, so it's pretty sad that this once great country is now begging their "new faces" of immigration to come on down and play ball. Hey, Canada - let me give you a heads up - Arabs and Chinese don't like playing sport! Come have a look at Australian sports teams and count how many are playing first-class sport anything....

OTTAWA — Alarmed by sliding enrolment in minor hockey programs across the country, Hockey Canada is launching a charm offensive in a dozen languages, targeting the households of recent immigrants and First Nations families to boost the number of Canadian kids strapping on skates.

Minor hockey registration continues to be on a downward spiral and there are concerns that in the next 10 years, there could be 200,000 fewer kids playing the sport in this country.

"Through the trending we've gone through here, we feel that by 2020-21 if we continue to do what we are doing, we're going to have 360,000 members as opposed to 560,000 members," said Hockey Canada's vice-president of member services Glen McCurdie from his Ottawa office. "That's a fairly significant decrease in numbers over the next 10 years. From our perspective, it's time to change the way that we are doing stuff."

For the first time, Hockey Canada's annual planner, which is mailed to registered minor hockey players under the age of 10, is available in 12 languages.

In addition to the traditional English and French versions, the planners — which are also available for download at hockeycanada.ca — come in Arabic, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Cree, German, Inuktitut, Italian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Spanish and Tagalog.

Hockey Canada used Canadian census figures to determine their focus.

The mail-outs, which were sent last month to more than 235,000 players from coast to coast, feature a personalized Hockey Canada season planner with hockey-related activities and comic strips.

"This is pretty exciting for us to have done translation in that many different languages," said McCurdie. "Hopefully the benefits (have) some spinoff when we have new Canadians at least thinking about hockey. That's a start for potentially down the road."

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