In Canada, the Cost of Youth Hockey Benches the Next Generation (Published 2020) (2024)

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Samuel Girard was a teenager when his parents sat him and his older brother Jérémy down in their Roberval, Quebec, home for an uncomfortable conversation that would dramatically alter their lives.

The Girard family could afford to enroll only one of its sons in elite hockey for that year. Samuel’s father, Tony, drives forklifts at a nearby forest products factory; his mother, Guylaine, is a family day care educator.

At the time, Samuel and Jérémy were at a level for players aged 15 to 17 eligible for major junior leagues. Facing registration fees, equipment, travel and payments to billet families — a necessity since the Girards lived about an hour and a half drive away from the closest team — forced the family to make a choice: they could only afford for one son to keep playing. Jérémy, aware of his younger brother’s potential, hung up his skates while Samuel continued to pursue the sport in Canada’s junior hockey system.

Samuel went on to get drafted by the Nashville Predators in 2016, at age 18. He was traded to the Avalanche in 2017 and, this past summer, signed a contract extension that will pay him $35 million over seven seasons.