Canadian Heritage committee  I basically agree. We're trying to give our volunteer coaches the skills to teach the fundamentals so that a young person starting in our sport has lots of fun and develops skills. We believe we can teach coaches to do that. You may need highly trained and professional coaches at

Canadian Heritage committee  We recognize that's not going to work for every community. It is being done in some communities successfully. But what we've done is adopt this coach mentorship program as another road to the same goal. What we're doing is we're going out and modelling how you would teach a pract

Canadian Heritage committee  I did, yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  Hockey Canada is a leader worldwide in terms of coach training and coach development. Part of the reason I ended up being the national team coach for Turkey was that the president of Turkey's ice hockey federation was at International Ice Hockey Federation meetings with the Canad

Canadian Heritage committee  We're currently involved in that daily. Almost all of our coaches in minor hockey are parents. They typically have some experience in the game, maybe not always but mostly, and some even at an elite NHL level. They go back to their Canadian town or city, let's say, and start a fa

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. Each Canadian hockey coach takes a Speak Out course. That is about learning how to protect themselves and the children around the whole area of abuse and sexual abuse. It's a standard requirement to make sure that everybody's operating a safe and healthy program.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not currently aware of any problems. It seems to me we have good people with good intentions doing the vast majority of our coaching, and we've put up enough barriers to stop anybody with potentially the wrong kind of attitude or behaviour. I guess what I was saying was that

Canadian Heritage committee  She asked you, not me.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's what we're trying to do through hockey. The entire hockey program runs on volunteer coaches, and parents are paramount to the success of any program. So when a child starts hockey at the age of four, five or six years, we give the parents a talk. We try to get them to see

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the reason we're so superior—and I don't think this is a surprise to you or anybody on the committee—is partly cultural. Canadian athletes view hockey as the ultimate goal and many of them pursue it. I was out on the ice yesterday with a grandfather and his four-year-old

Canadian Heritage committee  Thanks, Ray, it's good to hear from you. The national coaching certification program is really pushing for long-term athlete and player development across all sports. We at hockey are a big part of supporting that initiative. We think the kids should be doing everything as much

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm one of seven provincial regional coach mentors at the Saskatchewan Hockey Association. These positions were created just in the last two years. We're volunteers who get honorarium expenses to be a liaison between the Saskatchewan Hockey Association, our provincial governing b