EBOOK
About
Drawing on decades of combined experience in hockey at all levels, Ken Campbell and Jim Parcels pull back the curtain on hockey to show just how far our national game has strayed from its roots.
What they reveal is a system driven by unrealistic expectations of a financial windfall, where minor-hockey fees and new sticks for kids are deemed "investments"- and where there is no shortage of entrepreneurs more than happy to take money from starry-eyed parents.
Always informative, often shocking, Selling the Dream is not only a guidebook for legions of hockey parents across the country, its a defence of the game we all love, and of childhood itself. "Campbell ... walks readers through the madness that parental obsession has brought to hockey." - Winnipeg Free Press Jim Parcels is one of the most connected and experienced minor-hockey people in Ontario. He has been an employee of both minor and junior hockey since 1989, and has also been a volunteer trainer/ manager for small town and big city teams.
INTRODUCTION
On the night of November 27, 2008, more than 6,000 fans jammed into the General Motors Centre in Oshawa, Ontario. Home of GM's headquarters since the company's predecessor, the McLaughlin Carriage Company, set up shop in 1876, Oshawa is a blue-collar town that loves its junior hockey with a passion and its tradition-steeped Generals even more-but not enough to fill the new rink to capacity on a Thursday night early in the Ontario Hockey League season for a game against the Peterborough Petes. In reality, most of those fans were there to witness the fifty-minute pre-game ceremony to honour a player who had left town more than forty years before, but who left an indelible imprint on the franchise.
Bobby Orr had finally agreed to have his No. 2 retired and raised to the rafters to join Eric Lindros's No. 88 and Albert "Red" Tilson's No. 9. Dressed impeccably in a designer suit and looking youthful enough that he could probably still play, the sixty-year-old Orr appeared a little uncomfortable with all the attention, despite being one of the most revered and celebrated players in the history of hockey. Don Cherry made a grand entrance and called Orr the greatest player to ever play the game. Former Generals teammate Ian Young was on hand, as was Wren Blair, the Boston Bruins scout who'd camped out on Orr's doorstep in Parry Sound in 1962 before getting him signed to a C Form with the Boston Bruins and started on the path to NHL stardom with the Generals, a junior team Blair was resurrecting using Orr as its centrepiece. Future NHL star John Tavares, another wunderkind who came to the Generals as a fourteen-year-old, presented Orr with a gold watch from Tiffany & Co. The choir from Bobby Orr Public School sang the national anthem.
As he took to the podium with his glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, Orr began reading from a prepared text. It wasn't long before his eyes began to well up, and his voice cracked slightly when he recalled the contribution his late parents, Doug and Arva, made to his career, telling the young players in attendance to "always appreciate the sacrifices your family members have made so you can chase your dreams."
"I know my, uh, mom and dad are watching tonight," he said. "I know they're very, very happy. Very proud. My mom and dad were perfect minor hockey parents. Their philosophy was, 'Look, go out and play, have fun and let's see what happens.' And I wish there were more parents that thought like that when it came to their kids playing hockey."
Bobby Orr brought the house down with that one. Orr has long been a critic of minor hockey in Canada, and its emphasis on structure and systems and the perceived lack of focus on fundamental skills and fun. He laments that nobody plays the way he and Larry Robinson and Paul Coffey did because nobody allows them to do it anymore. He often hearkens back to his days of playing on
What they reveal is a system driven by unrealistic expectations of a financial windfall, where minor-hockey fees and new sticks for kids are deemed "investments"- and where there is no shortage of entrepreneurs more than happy to take money from starry-eyed parents.
Always informative, often shocking, Selling the Dream is not only a guidebook for legions of hockey parents across the country, its a defence of the game we all love, and of childhood itself. "Campbell ... walks readers through the madness that parental obsession has brought to hockey." - Winnipeg Free Press Jim Parcels is one of the most connected and experienced minor-hockey people in Ontario. He has been an employee of both minor and junior hockey since 1989, and has also been a volunteer trainer/ manager for small town and big city teams.
INTRODUCTION
On the night of November 27, 2008, more than 6,000 fans jammed into the General Motors Centre in Oshawa, Ontario. Home of GM's headquarters since the company's predecessor, the McLaughlin Carriage Company, set up shop in 1876, Oshawa is a blue-collar town that loves its junior hockey with a passion and its tradition-steeped Generals even more-but not enough to fill the new rink to capacity on a Thursday night early in the Ontario Hockey League season for a game against the Peterborough Petes. In reality, most of those fans were there to witness the fifty-minute pre-game ceremony to honour a player who had left town more than forty years before, but who left an indelible imprint on the franchise.
Bobby Orr had finally agreed to have his No. 2 retired and raised to the rafters to join Eric Lindros's No. 88 and Albert "Red" Tilson's No. 9. Dressed impeccably in a designer suit and looking youthful enough that he could probably still play, the sixty-year-old Orr appeared a little uncomfortable with all the attention, despite being one of the most revered and celebrated players in the history of hockey. Don Cherry made a grand entrance and called Orr the greatest player to ever play the game. Former Generals teammate Ian Young was on hand, as was Wren Blair, the Boston Bruins scout who'd camped out on Orr's doorstep in Parry Sound in 1962 before getting him signed to a C Form with the Boston Bruins and started on the path to NHL stardom with the Generals, a junior team Blair was resurrecting using Orr as its centrepiece. Future NHL star John Tavares, another wunderkind who came to the Generals as a fourteen-year-old, presented Orr with a gold watch from Tiffany & Co. The choir from Bobby Orr Public School sang the national anthem.
As he took to the podium with his glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, Orr began reading from a prepared text. It wasn't long before his eyes began to well up, and his voice cracked slightly when he recalled the contribution his late parents, Doug and Arva, made to his career, telling the young players in attendance to "always appreciate the sacrifices your family members have made so you can chase your dreams."
"I know my, uh, mom and dad are watching tonight," he said. "I know they're very, very happy. Very proud. My mom and dad were perfect minor hockey parents. Their philosophy was, 'Look, go out and play, have fun and let's see what happens.' And I wish there were more parents that thought like that when it came to their kids playing hockey."
Bobby Orr brought the house down with that one. Orr has long been a critic of minor hockey in Canada, and its emphasis on structure and systems and the perceived lack of focus on fundamental skills and fun. He laments that nobody plays the way he and Larry Robinson and Paul Coffey did because nobody allows them to do it anymore. He often hearkens back to his days of playing on