I think financially it will become more difficult to a certain point. If you use the model of having that professional, whether it be at the young ages, at the grassroots level, being a mentor and helping along parents who are volunteers.... The big issue is just that: we aren't teaching our kids how to be just generally active.
You'll hear parents at a hockey rink or on the soccer pitch say, “My kid's going to make it. My kid's going to make the professional levels.” As a parent, you hear it from just about everyone. I sit back and say, “Do you really know what the numbers are? Do you know that two in 100,000 kids who play hockey are going to make the NHL?” The numbers are staggering, but they all think their kid's going to make it.
I think if we go the education route, where we're teaching our kids to be physically literate, those kids who are going to make it are going to make it. I've been a professional coach for 20 years. Parents are more apt to listen to someone who has an educated background than to someone who doesn't. So if you can, educate the parents. Your kid may make it, and if they're going to make it, they're going to make it. But what we want is someone who at the age of 40 can strap on a pair of skates and go skating and have fun playing beer league hockey. For someone like me, because I was in swimming and could never go skating, I didn't learn to skate until I was 30 years old. I can't play beer league hockey—I just can't—because I don't know how to skate well enough.
Those are the sorts of things we need to teach our kids, especially in Canada: how to skate, how to swim, how to throw a ball, and how to kick a ball. That's what we need, and then the cream will rise to the top.