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If not a stampede, it appears there is at least a slow shuffle of Canadian youngsters out of contact hockey as a result of widespread publicity about the parade of National Hockey League (NHL) superstars onto injured reserve lists.
Meanwhile, one critic says Hockey Canada's failure to implement even more stringent anticoncussion measures constitutes nothing short of "child abuse."
Drawing a parallel to equipment changes made in the 1970s to prevent eye injuries, Emile Therien, former president of the Canada Safety Council, says the sport faces similar consequences if changes aren't made. "If we hadn't made changes to the equipment back then, there's no doubt in my mind the game wouldn't exist today. Parents just wouldn't enrol their kids. It would be child abuse. And that's what it is today; it's child abuse."
Total registration for all branches within Hockey Canada declined to 572 411 during the 2010-11 hockey season, the second year in a row that numbers have dropped.
Although the current campaign is nearly over, Hockey Canada says it cannot provide numbers for this season.
But many observers expect the tally to again decline, in part because of publicity over the fate of hockey wunderkind Sidney Crosby - whose playing status seems a barometer of national angst levels and whose every skate-around for the past 15 months has been monitored by a media horde - and editorial calls for an end to on-ice brutality (www.cmaj .ca /lookup/doi /10.1503/cmaj.112081).
But Hockey Canada says some of the decline over the past two years may be the product of a change in reporting procedures as figures for years prior to 2010-11 included duplicate registrations. Had those been included in the 2010-11 numbers,...