Selling the Dream

Canadians have always dreamed about hockey. And we all love our kids. But somehow our  desire to give everything we’ve got to two of the things we love the most has left both worse off.

For many families, hockey has become more business than pleasure, where children don’t  even play anymore—now they compete. The dream of playing in the NHL and the  enormous costs that come with it, are killing hockey in Canada. Drawing on decades of  combined experience in hockey at all levels, Ken Campbell and Jim Parcels pull back the  curtain to show just how far our national game has strayed from its roots. What they reveal  is a system driven by unrealistic expectations of a financial windfall, where minor-hockey  fees and new sticks for kids are deemed “investments”—and where there is no shortage of  entrepreneurs more than happy to take money from starry-eyed parents.

Often shocking, always informative, Selling the Dream is not only a guidebook for involved  hockey parents across the country, it is a defence of the game we all love, and of childhood itself.