Is Toronto being labelled a "Hockey City" fabricated by the media (View from a Foreign School teacher)?

Toronto has a lot of immigrants and many from warm countries. It seems from what you've written those are your students and they are only a very small part of the population of Toronto. Of course they would be more interested in sports they know. Give them time to learn to enjoy winter sports. Yes hockey is a small town sport as well as a big city sport. There are very few towns that don't have at least 1 hockey rink. Where do you think all those pro hockey players come from. You see in Canada our sport of hockey is a nation wide sport and not just reserved for big cities like Toronto. Don't ever let a francophone hear you calling is an anglo saxon sport or you will get an earful if not decked. You look at the names of any of the players on any hockey team and you will see how many people who were or their parents were immigrants. You are looking at things from one little pocket of a big city. Yes Toronto is a hockey town and so is every city, town, village or suburb in Canada

I'm not sure why you would think that hockey is not an integral part of the Toronto area. Most of the kids I know of in Ontario and Quebec grow up with a net in the driveway and play street hockey with friends using the orange hockey ball or an old tennis ball. Many in my neighbourhood had baseball or softball gloves, and we actually used that more often as a hockey goalie mitt! Playing street hockey is pretty much impossible in all but a few dead-end streets of Toronto. But they would still likely play it in their driveways or in the school yards. Now Toronto Maple Leafs have been pretty much a lousy team for quite a few years now, many times not making the playoffs. So it is possible that people are hesitant to say they are Leafs fans. But the Leafs must have hockey fans SOMEWHERE in that city, otherwise how do you explain an average home game attendance of 19,354 people last season, with all 82 games televised on Leafs TV (their own channel!) and also available on TSN or TSN2? How many sports bars are all around Toronto and are packed on game night? Why would they choose Toronto as the location for the Hockey Hall of Fame, if it was not a hockey town? Now you did not mention what grade you are teaching, and whether it was for a public school or private school. In my area, we became interested in playing hockey in our early teens, and watching hockey on TV in our twenties. Maybe you are teaching kids that are too young, or have to wear a uniform to school, or such. I know that in the schools today, they are tight on budgets, and most do not have an arena to use, not to mention having skates and equipment for all the kids. If kids are into hockey (playing it), that is usually an after school sport. And also true, for many years, hockey was a "white man's sport". Not so anymore. We have hockey players at all levels now from many cultures and races. You have blacks (Iginla, Grier, Belle, Subban), Asians (Kariya, Malhotra, Park, Yip). Even the women are playing it (Rheaume, St-Pierre, Campbell, Wickenheiser) and developing an interest that was not really present prior to the 1980s. So I cannot see why you may not notice at least some interest from the parents or kids you've come in contact with. Maybe that would be an interesting school assignment, depending on what you teach. Determining the impact that hockey has on a typical Toronto family. What good does it bring, what are the bad things, etc. Getting the kids talking about it may show an interest in the local community and get different viewpoints. Perhaps ask them to compare hockey with sports that they may know or have tried. Not just how to play, but how they think it affects people around them. Certainly a discussion of the recent hockey riots (both Vancouver and Montreal have had more than one) would be an interesting angle.

First off, Leafs suck. Perhaps, from your little bubble it may seem that way, and I can't specifically comment on Toronto as I have never (thankfully) lived their. However, I have lived in both Vancouver and Montreal, and let me tell you, THOSE are hockey towns. In Montreal it's all about the Canadiens. Montrealers live and breathe for Canadiens, anglos and francos alike, born and raised and immigrants alike, Montreal loves hockey. Yes, there is this kind off side show that happens during the off-season with the Allouettes and Impact, but hockey is where it's at. Vancouver, obviously, has had recent hockey fever, going all the way to game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But, they have sold out EVERY SINGLE game for something ridiculous like 4 or 5 years and counting. There is Punjabi Hockey Night in Canada (which is AWSOME to listen to, even though I don't understand a word of it), and amongst Vancouvers significant Indo-Canadian population there is huge support for the Canucks. Again, I can't really comment personally on Toronto, but I suspect if you were to broaden your view, you would find Toronto is, as well, a hockey town. It is the home of the Hockey Hall of Fame and has a club that (albeit hasn't done jack lately) has won the cup many times and has a long long history in that city. They are one of the top money making teams in the NHL, despite losing constantly. Where does that money come from, I ask?

TO is big into hockey (they still fill the rink for Leaf games, even though they haven't won the Cup since 1967), but, TO is BIG city, with loads of people from everywhere - many of whom are not interested in hockey. Immigrants, and the 2nd generation often isn't. TO is mainly those people.

Toronto isn't the only "Hockey City" in Canada, you would have to add all the cities that have Cdn hockey teams as well. I will say that Toronto *is* associated with the Maple Leafs as they have a fierce rivalry with Mtl that goes back generations. I do think the cost of the tickets play a factor but I know plenty of people who still love hockey despite the fact they watch other sports as well. Hockey is part of the culture and the majority of us grew up involved in it in some way. I watched my brother play, my grandfather used to watch the Leafs faithfully on Sat night, my dad was a coach and I played broomball in University so despite the fact I can't skate, I still love the game. For me hockey is just part of my background and quite a few Cdns I know feel the same way. I would never say a whole new generation of Cdns aren't into hockey either, we're just selective of when we watch. Do I need to remind you of the reaction throughout the country when we won both men's and women's hockey in the olympics? You can't tell me Toronto didn't react.

I think you're right that it is more of a small-town sport than a "big city" sport. I've heard several reports in recent years that enrollment in minor league hockey is dropping while enrollment in minor league soccer is soaring. The actual causes of this are anyone's guess, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that the cost is a major part of it. Equipping a kid for hockey costs way more than soccer, not to mention having to re-purchase all that gear as the kid grows out of it. Add to that a lot of the negative press that hockey has had in recent years in regards to fighting, concussions and other injuries, and it's not difficult to see how a shift away from hockey may be taking place. Aside from all that, I find that Toronto's hockey attitude is kind of unique among Canadian NHL cities. The prices for tickets and food and drinks at the ACC are so high, it really has become the type of evening out that only the very financially-comfortable can afford. Going to a Leafs game has become more of a status thing than a cheer-for-your-team thing, and Leafs "fans" seem to take a strange pleasure from griping about the team and its misfortunes while wearing their $150 jersey. As you've probably noticed, Toronto as a whole can be a little uptight, and if you were living in Montreal or Calgary, or even small cities that don't have an NHL team such as Halifax, I daresay you'd find a far different attitude toward hockey in general among Canadians, and no doubt in the immigrants living in those areas as well.