The Stanley Cup Final shows the value of street hockey in many US markets

Music blared from speakers outside the Vegas Golden Knights practice facility as kids ran around with hockey sticks, hitting the puck into a few nets. Pizza was available nearby.

A similar scene was seen a week later a few steps away from the Florida Panthers arena before the Stanley Cup Final games, as young fans played in an inflatable rink under palm trees.

The final between Vegas and Florida showcased the benefits of ball and roller hockey in many US markets, with or without professional teams that are hard to get ice on. The NHL launched a street hockey program earlier this year with the aim of breaking down barriers to the sport, with the goal of generating interest in the game even on a more mundane level.

“The impact of our teams down south, and you see players being drafted from California, Texas, Florida, and you’re already seeing that impact,” said former player Andrew Ference, who runs the NHL Street program as part of his job. with the league. It’s a great success story that we have NHL players from these areas, but imagine how many kids are left out. … There are so many children and families who don’t have the ability to overcome some of the barriers that come from those cities.

Obstacles range from cost and time commitments to the competitive nature of youth sports and even many families who think they don’t belong in hockey. Sports stakeholders are trying in many ways to reduce these barriers, and street hockey is one of the latest attempts.

Ference, who played more than 1,000 NHL games as a defenseman from 1999-2015 and won a Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins, was fortunate to have access to outdoor ice half a year while growing up in Edmonton. Still, he believes many future pros spent more time playing street hockey in driveways and cul-de-sacs in their early years.

As a kid, I just played ball hockey: I literally came home from school, went out, played with my friends, said retired goaltender Andrew Raycroft, who joined Ference at the NHL Street event in Boston last weekend. It’s the easiest way to get into the game. Certainly the price of skates, rackets, living in the Ice Age city, it’s really tough. But you can still love the game and play the game.

As commissioner Gary Bettman said, the more kids play hockey in any form, the better it is for the growth of the game. Her oldest grandson, Matthew, is a New Jersey high school state champion who has a net in his family’s driveway, and her 5-year-old grandson takes skating lessons.

Getting to the ice to skate is more difficult in some places.

According to the Arena Guide, which tracks indoor and outdoor arenas in North America, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arizona and Oklahoma, there are only 41 combined larger arenas that are not suitable for youth hockey. USA Hockey’s last annual report counted just over 6,000 players in those six states combined, fewer than North Carolina alone, since the Hurricanes have played there since 1997.

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Other NHL markets such as Dallas, Las Vegas and Tampa are building more rinks, which bodes well for the future, according to Bettman, who also noted how popular ball hockey has long been in North America.

Because of that, Ference said he and his colleagues aren’t trying to reinvent what street hockey is, just adding structure to the old tradition of knocking on doors to see if enough neighborhood kids are into pickup. But in a sport built on a team-oriented attitude with attention to detail and discipline instilled from a young age, it’s not about copying it.

We don’t have to try to just take hockey and put it on the street, basically take the skates off and take the exact same culture and put it on the street, said Ference, now director of social impact, grown and fan development. in the NHL. Instead, let the kids doing the program think about how they want it to look and feel: What kind of moves do they want to do on the way out? What kind of music do they want on the playlist?

Basically, make hockey fun.

Ference said the league drew inspiration from AND1 basketball, snowboarding and video games to try to see what elements of youth interest, culture and creativity could be gleaned from them. Basketball and winter sports have evolved as a result, and video games are instances where kids can try something without practice, interact with friends, and make more mistakes than in organized ice hockey.

The idea is to create an enjoyable environment similar to flag football, where the pressure is off, but still open a new gateway to hockey.

Hopefully we get a lot of crossover athletes who look at it and see something cool and want to try something new,” Ference said. They don’t dedicate their lives to it, but you can create a lot of casual fans and people who have a good interaction with hockey this way. They may not all be perfect toughs, but many of them are now being introduced to sports they didn’t have before.

AP Sports writer Jimmy Golen in Boston contributed to this report.

By STEPHEN WHYNO AP Hockey Writer

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