The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On The Sheet: Katherine Henderson (President, Hockey Canada)
Episode Date: November 28, 2024Katherine Henderson became the president of Hockey Canada in 2023 after seven years as the CEO of Curling Canada. She joined Jeff in Toronto at Beaches Brewing Co. for a lengthy conversation about the... future of Hockey Canada and the upcoming World Junior Championships in Ottawa.They discuss why she took the job (1:50), hockey fandom (4:30), what it means to make hockey better (5:40), the cost of hockey (7:00), if she envisions a day where hockey could be free (9:40), women's hockey (12:00), the Hockey Canada logo (19:30), pioneers of the game (24:00), the importance of the World Junior Championships to the organization (26:10), sponsors (28:10), and hockey culture (29:45).Daily FaceoffX: https://x.com/DailyFaceoffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailyfaceoff/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoff/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dailyfaceoff?lang=enWebsite: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/The SheetX: https://x.com/thesheethockeyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesheethockey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thesheethockeyDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Welcome to On The Sheet.
Now, this is a series of long-form interviews we're going to do more of throughout the season with a variety of guests from the hockey world.
Quick reminder, The Sheet debuts December 2nd across all daily face-off channels.
As the head of Hockey Canada, Catherine Henderson is easily one of the most important people in our country.
There are 40 million Canadians, and I would suggest the majority of them know exactly what she should be doing with her job and this sport.
Now, the wonderful thing about being a Canadian is everybody thinks they're a hockey general manager.
Catherine Henderson is smart.
She is hardworking.
She is ambitious.
She is experienced.
And as you're about to find out, she has a strong vision for hockey and its place in
our country not just right now but in the future as well also should mention big times on the
horizon for hockey canada as they're hosting the world junior hockey championships in ottawa
over the christmas holidays it is a yearly tradition as we all know before you hear from
katherine i want to make special mention of Beaches Brewing Co. That's where we are right now.
Thank you, Carl Pratt, for allowing us in this wonderful,
wonderful place in the east end of Toronto.
In the meantime, here's Catherine Henderson of Hockey Canada.
Catherine Henderson, you're on the sheet.
Let's not do the show in the green room, okay?
Yes, okay okay here we go
Catherine first of all thanks so much for joining me here today uh it's always a busy time with
hockey Canada and the world juniors on the horizon and Ottawa is always a huge deal I want to get
there but first I want to look backwards I was curious to see who wanted this job because at the time I looked at it as this person is going to be, for all intents and purposes, a firefighter running into a burning building.
Why did you want to run into the burning building?
A way to start off the conversation.
way to start off the conversation. Well, you know, I've worked in the sports sector for a long time and I really understand how important sport is, you know, like what it does for our communities.
I did see that hockey is incredibly important to Canadians. I also saw that Hockey Canada had some
issues that they needed to work through. And at the time, I thought, you know, with my experience and where I thought, what I
thought hockey needed to return to, I really thought that I could come in and do something
positive.
So that's really what my motivation was.
When you were with, let's say, Curling Canada, for example, what were your impressions of
Hockey Canada as an outsider looking in?
Well, first of all, I'm not totally an outsider. So I don't know if you know this, but I co-chair what they call the Winter Caucus.
So I interacted with my hockey colleagues quite a bit, you know, very professionally,
you know, high profile organization, kind of glitzy, you know, with a lot of success behind it.
To be honest, I don't think I felt that they were as integrated into the sports system
the way maybe other sports were kind of operated alongside and certainly contributed to. But I do
find from my past experiences in working in games and other sports is that being really involved in
the Canadian sports system, no matter what, is good and healthy for sport.
Your position is a sort of cats and laser pointers element to it. A lot of different
places you have to go sort of all at the same time. But when you explain your job to people,
what do you say your number one job is?
I think the first thing is we gather people together to solve problems.
And part of what it is, is I need to do a lot of listening. A, I need to understand what the
problems really are in hockey. And often I think when you understand what the problem is, you also
start to understand what the solution is. But also, hockey can exist in kind of a rarefied area
as well, if you're not careful.
And 99.99% of hockey gets played at the grassroots level.
So it's very important to me that I really understand what the participants, their parents, their coaches, their trainers, their communities really think about hockey and understand about hockey.
So I do spend a lot of time in that part of hockey as well.
Now, I know that you spend a lot of time listening, listening to people. What's the,
geographically, everyone has a different thing that they want slash need, desire to do with hockey. But is there a through line from coast to coast to coast that you hear from Canadians?
So, you know, hockey in terms of fandom is, think it's over 80% of Canadians would consider themselves fans.
Amateur hockey is in some of the top broadcasts of all time in Canada.
People have a lot of moments in which they've come together
with their community to cheer on hockey,
to be with their families and their friends
when big hockey moments happen.
Gold medals are won.
So I can see that hockey is extremely important to Canadians,
but I can also see, and I went through this myself, I'm a hockey mom,
just on a day-to-day basis.
It's your friends, it's your families, it's your children, it's all those things.
So I think the through line is people love hockey,
they want to see it do really well,
but also because it's so tied into our identity
i think canadians want hockey to be better and they want it to reflect what they value
what does that mean like at the at the grassroots like hockey mom in my case hockey dad
level make hockey better i think we all want to make hockey better but i don't know that we all
have the same definition of what better is yeah well. Well, you know, I think, you know, better is kind of wherever it is that you're sitting.
I think that's the important part. And better is going to mean different things to different
people. I think if you're someone who hasn't experienced hockey, better means I want to feel
really welcome in hockey. I want to feel like my fandom or my participation matters to the people
that care about hockey. I think if you are somebody
that's been a volunteer for 30 years, you want to know my contributions are being recognized and
they are being, there's some gratitude around them. I think if I'm a player, better means I
want the game to be more fun. I think if you are perhaps a young woman or a girl that wants to play
hockey, perhaps better means I have better
ice time I have more equal access to ice so I think it really does depend on where it is you're
coming from but I do think we can have a more inclusive more fun hockey for more people if we
all put our heads together and do this and I say this with a huge underline that doesn't take away
from excellence for one second we still want to be the best in the world at hockey when we play at that national and international level. even most recently saying, oh, hockey's an elitist sport. It's too expensive. Talk to parents and
it's the costs that act as a barrier to hockey. When people say, Catherine, hockey's too expensive,
what do you say? I say hockey's too expensive. Right now it is a barrier. And so there's groups
of people that don't have access to it. Now, I will also say we have a very active foundation
and we have a foundation board and we
have groups of partners and stakeholders across the company that we are trying to combat that.
So I think that is something that we recognize, first of all, as an issue and we have to figure
out why. Part of the issue, it's not all of the issue, but part of the issue I think is facilities.
So I will say when I was growing up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in the 70s, and climate change has happened, you couldn't walk two blocks without there being an
outdoor arena somewhere. So everyone could play at some point. You just hop the boards,
even if you just wanted to play shinny. And nowadays, we don't have those ice pads.
Our facilities are aging. They're not in great shape. And it's like when you take grade 11
economics, the first thing they teach you is supply and demand.
You know, the demand curve is negatively sloped.
When there's lack of ice, it becomes more expensive.
And people that can afford to pay for that ice are the people that get to have the ice.
So that's an issue.
And it's an issue I think we need to tackle as Canadians.
You know, it is interesting, too, because you look around the country and how many centennial arenas there are.
I mean, that was part of a national initiative.
Yeah.
And we haven't seen that going back to the late 60s.
Is that what you're advocating, more of a national initiative to build more rings, perhaps in concert with private business, sponsorship, et cetera?
Yeah.
You know, I think there's a whole bunch of different business models that we could be looking at right now.
Yeah, you know, I think there's a whole bunch of different business models that we could be looking at right now.
But I recently had a discussion with my colleagues, the CEOs of curling, of ringette, of figure skating, of speed skating, you know, all of the ice sports.
And if there's anyone I left out, I'm sorry.
But we've sat down and said, you know, we're a winter country. We love our winter sports.
And we should be getting kids, regardless of what it is that they eventually want to do on the ice, we should be getting them onto the ice.
regardless of what it is that they eventually want to do on the ice,
we should be getting them onto the ice.
And if there's not enough ice, then it's incumbent upon us to build the business case to say we need more ice for kids.
So we've done that.
I'd say, you know, right now it's probably a cry of action,
but I think we need to roll up our sleeves and actually put together a plan.
You know, again, it's government, it's P3 partnerships,
it's potentially partnerships with our provinces, territories, municipalities, whoever it is that wants to join in.
I think we need more ice in Canada. We need to get more kids playing any kind of ice sport.
This may sound out there, but other countries do this. Could you see a day where hockey is free?
I would love a day where hockey is free. And I have actually taken it upon myself to study some of the countries where sport is free and in particular hockey.
So in some of the Scandinavian countries, other people have heard me say this, and I would actually really like to pilot test this.
So if anyone's listening and wants to put up their hand and say, I'd love to be the municipality that helps you with this.
You know, I look at Norway.
I use them often as an example, and I've had the opportunity to
meet with people in government there and in the hockey community. Norway allows children to play
for free or for very, very nominal amounts of money. And what you see in Norway is about 93%
of kids are playing sport. And right now, I don't even think we're two thirds. At the same time,
there is an investment from the taxpayer to get kids to play sport. But
where their numbers, I think, really work is they see lower petty crime rates. They see higher
results in school. You know, the kids are active. And so, you know, kids learn better when they're
active and fit. But I think the important thing is over time, they've started to see their health
care costs come down because they have a very healthy active population. And I think if we started thinking about sport as an investment in the future health, mental health, physical health,
and really kind of community health, if we could reframe the playing of sport that way,
I think Canadians overall would be better off. What's ever reaction to get when you mentioned
that? Sort of from the sublime to the ridiculous. I think there's some people who say that's very
utopian way to think. It's probably very socialist way to think. ridiculous. I think there's some people who say that's a very utopian way to think.
It's probably a very socialist way to think.
But I do think there's a lot of people that can really see the logic behind it.
The question is, how do you do that?
I mean, we live in a federated model,
and there's just so many layers of people that you'd have to get organized around this,
which is why I would like to take a community
and make the investment alongside the community
and start to work to see does this actually work and build out a case for it.
That is fascinating.
And I think as a hockey parent, this is music, and I think for a lot of hockey parents hearing this as well,
and I think for a lot of mental health advocates as well,
and people that are concerned about the high price of staying healthy in general as we age.
Bracket that for one second because I want to make sure that we park a lot of time
and talk about the future of girls' hockey and women's hockey as well.
The future of women's hockey paper, for lack of a better term,
I've just been calling it the Jillian Haps paper, although I know,
and I mean no disrespect to anybody else who was involved,
and you were a key part of it as well,
and some very heavyweight brains went into putting this together.
So as I read read it a couple of
things one i bobbleheaded you know pretty much all of it like yes yes yes i think a lot of canadians
did as well a couple of things we've heard things like this before and two the other thing is where
does the money come from for all of it how do you address those two issues yeah so let's put the
money thing aside because i i want just, and then I promise because money
does talk eventually. And so we've got to make sure that we do that. But the point of this paper
is you're quite right. I walked into this role and sat down with Maren Hickox, who's our VP of
Women and Girls. And we actually went through a number of these things and there's just some really smart people who are
extremely knowledgeable about the hockey system that helped put many of these ideas together
and Maren's done a really great job of you know we have women and girls leads from across Canada
that are actually actively working with us but one of the things that we asked ourselves was
is it enough for us internally to be talking about this? Or do we need to engage with Canadians and have them get behind
us? And that was really the reason for a couple of things. One is launch the paper. And as soon
as you launch the paper, you'd start discussion. Then reach out with the people that put their hand
up and say, I've got more to say about this. I have some ideas. I've got some innovations. I've
got some issues. I've got some problems, whatever, bring them into the tent. We really want every voice at the table. And so part of one of the
reasons you publish these things is to activate that. And that's what we're doing. We're also
doing some pretty active research right now through IMI with Canadians to say, well, what do you want
for women and girls out of this whole system? And what do you think is the best pathway forward?
I think, you know, the hard part then is we will get a bunch of answers and then we're going to publish what
those answers are. And they're going to say, we need more visibility, or we need a different
governance structure, or we need a different development path, or there's a number of things
that are going to happen. And I don't want to predict, but those are some of my suspicions
that are going to be, we need more equitable ice time.
All of those things are going to happen.
And being transparent and accountable is also saying, well, this is what we heard and this is what we have to do now.
And you start to put together a plan.
That's where the money part comes in.
I think you have to take a look at what each one of these initiatives are and say, who could possibly fund it?
Are we looking at this the right way?
Are we going back to the well where there's no more money left? And do we need to think about things differently? Do we need to restructure things? So,
you know, I've worked on a number of initiatives where I would say initially, if you say,
do you have the resources within this particular organization to do all the things that you want to do? The answer is probably no. But that's when you roll up your sleeves and say, well,
then who does? And who wants to be part of this? And who wants to grow women and girls hockey? And can we work with you? The one thing, and here,
we'll sort of get on my plank here for a couple of seconds, Catherine. The one thing that I've
been saying, especially to male counterparts and male friends, is that if you're interested in
growing hockey, then you have to be interested in the growth of girls and women's hockey.
Yes. That is the major growth area, as we all know, internationally, not just in Canada.
And the point that I keep banging home, and we talked about supply and demand and the
need for more sheets of ice for kids to skate on, I keep saying to myself, listen, the more
you encourage girls to pick up sticks and try hockey, the more you encourage a 30-year-old
woman who's always been curious but has never done it to pick up a hockey stick and put
on skates and go play, the more you you do that you will create an environment where there will be a
new demand for more rinks and manufacturers will do better there'll be more equipment and trainers
like the whole i look at it honestly maybe i'm just looking at it too naively but the whole hockey
ecosystem specifically in canada for me, the future
of it is predicated on getting girls to pick up hockey sticks and play because that is the area
of growth. And what I keep saying to my male friends is even if you don't want any part of it,
just get out of the way because you will benefit from this because there will be more ranks. There
will be more trainers. There will be more jobs. There be more trainers there will be more jobs there will be you know etc etc etc do you look at it the same way that that is the future
growth in this country yeah you know what i do i mean we have a growth strategy right now and i
will start off by saying it's a myth that hockey's declining i mean i think there's been a very long
term like decades old and that has probably more to do with ice.
But last year is we've returned and exceeded our pre-pandemic numbers.
Girls were up, and I may be misquoting this, about 16 percent, but boys and boys and men were up about 5 percent.
And people new to hockey were up pretty significantly as well.
So, you know, I think we're doing a lot of things, bringing in people who have traditionally,
maybe not just naturally thought about going into the hockey system. But I do agree with you,
if we want to see the level and the rate and the velocity of growth that we think that we can achieve with women and girls is, you know, we do need to remove a lot of barriers and obstacles.
And as you said, get out of the way, but it benefits everybody. Even if you have no interest,
maybe, you know, you live in a place or the way you live your life everybody. Even if you have no interest, maybe you live in a place
or the way you live your life, you may not be playing hockey, but having multi-sport facilities
and having kids playing hockey and developing community and developing coaching skills and
developing volunteering skills helps all of us. So I'm in total agreement with what you're saying
right now. So what's next then? I know you're taking feedback right now and hearing from Canadians,
but as far as girls' programs, women's programs, what's next?
As I said, our goal is to have 170,000 women and girls playing by 2030. That's about a 70%
growth over the next seven years. I think there's things that we are going to need to do over the next little while,
but I do want to hear back from Canadians and from these women and girls experts
before I make any declarations and stake in the sand.
This is exactly what we need to do.
But I do think what you will see from Hockey Canada is a very concerted effort
towards growing that part of our population, and who's very, very important to Hockey Canada is a very concerted effort towards growing that part of our population and
who's very, very important to Hockey Canada. The other thing I might mention as well is we've just
hired some really good resources. Trevor Murphy, who's developing what I call a Canadian,
looking at our Canadian development model, which is really the pathway that goes from pond to
podium. So everyone that steps on the ice has a future in hockey.
You're either going to be on top of the podium or you're going to play for life.
You're going to coach, you're going to volunteer, you'll be a fan.
At some way, you know, we want this to happen.
I think in the past, the pathways have been built on boys and men's hockey.
The girls have been kind of adapted.
And I think maybe that the third place that's been left out a little bit is para-hockey, so adaptive hockey.
So what we've asked Trevor to do is to take a look at our system and say, you know, where are we strong?
Where are we good?
What are the pathways we need to do?
But can you please, please take a look at all the people that want to play hockey and make sure that they have a pathway of integrity where their hopes and dreams can be realized?
And let's build that out for any Canadian that wants to join.
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One of the things that I've wondered about,
and this might just be an optic thing,
but I do think that they carry some gravity.
The logo.
Yeah.
No girls, no para.
Could you see a logo change for Hockey Canada on the horizon?
Potentially.
Right now, I think what we need to do is to figure out what Canadians,
you know, your logo tends to reflect what you believe,
you know, you promised to Canadians.
And I think we need to go through that process.
We're doing a lot of work there is to really understand
what I would call it our brand promises, which isn't a logo.
Your logo takes on the meaning of what you deliver in terms of a brand promise.
But I could see at some point, I haven't heard a huge outcry to change the logo right now,
but I think it would also not be a good thing to change it at this point because it would
just look like we were trying to logo away maybe some of the issues that we haven't fully
tackled.
That being said, you know,
I think there's always a time, and I've worked in lots of marketing companies where you say you are
always evolving the logo to reflect what it is you're trying to deliver.
That's what I kind of think. This is a new, Catherine, this is a new Hockey Canada.
Yeah.
I know there's a brand new board, but the 13 members still remain. And to swing it back again
to girls and women.
When you look at, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, there's only one director of women's
hockey in any of the 13 memberships across Canada.
Am I mistaken on that?
You know what?
I would say, no, there's more than that.
I'm not sure.
Maybe there's a title, but there's 27 leads in than that i'm not sure maybe there's a title but there's 27
leads in canada of women and girls hockey that work for the various you know provincial and
territory associations and some of the leagues um that we have they're certainly there i don't
think they're nearly as visible perhaps as you know as some of the men are and you know and
women and girls hockey i mean thank god for theWHL. It has really demonstrated that there's a demand for really good women's hockey.
But we don't have the sort of version of the development league, the CJHL, the CHL,
those type of the men's version of those.
So those women aren't as visible because they're often existing within the administrative body,
which would be the different provincial and territory federations
rather than leagues.
A couple of things there.
One, to the point about the new Hockey Canada.
And again, I know there's a lot of dudes out there with the Hockey Canada logo tattooed
on them that are saying like, oh, you're going to wreck my tattoo if you change the logo.
But I do wonder if sort of on the horizon there is that image change with Hockey Canada. One of the other things,
there's a few things that I wonder about here is, you mentioned the PWHL. And one of, I'm of a
couple of minds, because initially, when I looked at it, I said, that's really funny. And I think
that's what it was intended for. But then the subtext to it was, oh, that's kind of a real shot.
There was a sign at one of the PWHL games last year.
Maybe you saw it.
It was a group of women, I believe, to be in their mid to mid,
perhaps late 20s, and they had a sign at one of the games,
and it said, if we knew there was going to be a league,
we would have tried harder.
And my initial reaction was, oh, that's very clever.
Other part of me was like, yeah, this has been a,
it's a sort of commentary on the sort of failure
to help build women's hockey.
How do you look at a sign that says, if we knew there was going to be a league, we would have tried harder?
Yeah, well, I'm going to answer this question.
I want to go back to the logo part, and then let me move into this.
As I said, I wouldn't unilaterally just change a logo right now.
I think we need permission from Canadians to change it.
I think Canadians need to tell us, you've made enough change in your organization and the things that you do that
you deserve now. I want to be able to put on a logo that reflects some of those things. So,
you know, we will eventually get there. But, you know, I do think that the Canadian hockey system
has probably not been as fair and has perhaps failed a lot of women and girls. And I think a
sign like that would reflect it.
It would reflect maybe sort of when you sit and you watch, I mean, some of the unbelievable
hockey, and I don't think anyone that's gone to a PWHL game that would say, this is not
world-class hockey that I'm watching.
It's not a woman's version.
It's not a second version.
It's not a below version.
It is world-class hockey.
And that's what people are seeing, is that there's maybe a little bit of an of an aha or a sinking
realization is we could have had this all along and we didn't do it and i think that's when people
are putting up signs there's that sense of you mean this is what i could have had all along and
i don't have it right you know i didn't have it when I was growing up like people call bs on stuff like that yeah uh with the launch of the league one of the names that I hearken back to from my minor hockey
days a million years ago was Justine Blaney as one of the great pioneers and she fought and took it
to the supreme court in Ontario in a long drawn out process like she was the person for me where
as a I think I was 11 when Justine fought to play in the MTHL that was my
how I never considered that moment do you think that Hockey Canada does enough to honor the
Justine Blaney's of the world that was profound again this is just anecdotal and selfish but
that was a huge moment for me as a young kid it completely changed the way I thought
no I'm not sure I mean I think are, you know, looking back gives us perspective
of the things that should have been done. And, you know, I'll give you my own story. I mean,
I wasn't allowed to play as a young girl in Thunder Bay. But back then, I didn't,
I guess I just sort of accepted it. You know, it was someone like a Justine that had to make me realize,
well, why couldn't I play?
What is the reason?
You know, you need people like that.
You know, I think I internalized that a little bit.
You know, we're not here to talk about me and those sort of things,
but you need people like that to sort of, as you said,
to spark something in your head.
And it's not until 10 years later after it's happened that you realize
how critically important that moment was.
You know, I do think that when we honor people in the hockey system and when we look back on alumni,
I would say the people that I meet right now are thoughtful and considered to say,
so who were those people that changed hockey?
And I think that's really what you're looking at.
And you're starting to see it.
I was just at the Hockey Hall of fame induction um two mondays ago and i think what you really see is a much
broader swath than people who just played the game really well at the nhl at the national hockey league
level you're seeing builders and you're seeing people who have contributed you're seeing women
hockey players you're seeing people who played for their country and maybe not professionally
being honored in in those ways.
But time and perspective give you that ability to look back and say, hey, you know what?
It may not have looked important in the moment, but it was ultimately critically important to where we are today.
Absolutely.
Have a couple of moments left with you.
One, ask about the World Juniors.
On the horizon in Ottawa, this is such a tentpole event for Hockey Canada and always has
been. Where is Hockey Canada at right now with this event and the finances that come out of it
that help fuel other programs? Yes. Is Hockey Canada still, I want to say completely reliant on this, but how important is
this event to the finances of Hockey Canada? So it's really important. I mean, less than 20% of
our funding comes from government. We would be different from other national sport organizations
in that way. So we do derive a lot of our income.
And we're not-for-profit, right?
So our job is to invest back into the sports system.
It comes from things like the World Juniors.
And so it's a really important event for us in many, many ways.
But financially, that is one of them.
Again, because we're a not-for-profit
and we're a registered amateur athletic association,
what tends to happen when we go into World Juniors communities is, first of all, the local hockey
community does benefit because we have partnerships with the local hockey community. We also do quite
a bit of, like, if we make a surplus from one of these, we do share it with our members to make
sure that their minor hockey associations and their local hockey associations, their safety programs and the things that they do
are also being invested in. And then of course, we sit at the national level and we take the funding
that we derive from these things and we invest it in the programs and services like the Canadian
player pathways and the Canadian development model, our safety programs and all those other
things. We try and supplement those things because the very minuscule fees that we charge
participants as Hockey Canada don't cover much of what we do for hockey participants.
Have the sponsors come back?
They have. They have. We're very grateful.
How have the conversations been?
Yeah.
I know it's, I don't want to sound like frivolous, like no one's forgetting about 2018.
No.
And I know that you're not, you're not going to forget about 2018, but how were those conversations to get those sponsors back?
Yeah. No, I mean, first of all, the people, when we call them sponsors, I, you know, I call them partners.
who are partnering with our organization,
and what they want to know and what they want to be assured of is that the financial contributions that they are making
are there to make hockey better, safer, more inclusive, more fun,
growing women and girls.
And I think as we've had those conversations,
I wouldn't just say reassurances.
We have to be able to demonstrate that we can do that
so that as their partnership money flows in,
we can show a direct through line to where it's going to make hockey more inclusive,
more fun, more people, more women and girls, more new Canadians, all of those things.
And so I think that's really where the conversation needed to happen.
And I think, to me, it's productive.
There are also people, you know, generally when you have marketing partners, they also
have brands that they need to protect and own own and it's of huge value to them.
So not only are they continuing to invest in hockey and in the hopes and dreams of little boys and girls all across the nation, but they're good advisors to me as well.
I mean, I come from some of that background too and there's some pretty smart people that really understand the value of an authentic
brand promise versus slapping a logo and stuff. Let me close with this question. And everyone
will have a different answer. But sometimes this is, and right now used as a sort of pejorative,
but when you hear the term hockey culture, what goes through your mind?
Well, you know what? It's a really good question,
and I think you're right. The hockey culture that you probably know best is the hockey culture that
you experienced. So when I hear about hockey culture, I think about the things in the culture.
I'm saying this as the CEO. I think about the things that I've heard about in the culture that
we think need quite a bit of change and remedy. When people sort of throw that term at me, I think about the things that I've heard about in the culture that we think need quite a bit of change and remedy.
When people sort of throw that term at me, I think I know what you're talking about.
And those are the issues that we need to address.
So without getting into all kinds of details, I would say, you know, this past year has been quite eye-opening for me in terms of the data that we collect, the research that we do.
I think the collaboration that we're getting from our local minor hockey associations and leagues to say, let's figure this out together. And, you know, and frankly,
we can see where the, I think where the cultural issues are tend to be located in elite young men's
hockey. We can see that with our data. That's where a lot of the maltreatment data and a lot
of the behaviors that are really, frankly, intolerable are coming from.
So we need to figure out.
Now, I think there's two things.
One is, how do you eliminate them?
But then I think the second question, the more profound question is, and what are we doing in our hockey system that is contributing to any of this?
You have to stand up and be counted as well to say, if I'm contributing to it, I need
to understand what that is and how do you change it.
That being said, I've had a lot of time to spend in our women and girls programs,
and there's a very supportive, very building up, very positive culture that exists, I think, there.
So lots of times I want to make sure that I spend some time there.
My own experiences as a hockey mom, my son played for the Scarborough Ice Raiders,
my own experiences as a hockey mom my son played for the scarborough ice raiders played out at don montgomery arena and i spent three four five nights a week with the families the parents the
coaches and these teams and he grew up with that he stayed in that system until he was ready to go
off to university and i made wonderful friends there as did he he had a great time his coaches
were amazing i thought he took a lot of really
good character out of that program. And if he hadn't been in the GTHL, he might have been a
different person. So I've had very positive things, and I want to make sure that we also remember
that part of it. There's a lot of family and community that comes from having boys and girls
that are in hockey that parents and fans get a lot of benefit of as well.
Good luck in Ottawa.
I know this is a major one.
All the best.
This has been a lot of fun.
Catherine, thank you so much.
Thank you, Jeff.
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