Hockey Saskatchewan reacts to Hockey Canada’s leadership overhaul

This morning, Hockey Canada announced all of its board members and CEO are stepping down.

Hockey Saskatchewan’s general manager Kelly McClintock said he feels Hockey Canada felt the pressure and doesn’t believe this move will come as a surprise to many people.

“You know, It’s sad but … I think with the amount of pressure that they felt, they had to do something,” said McClintock.

McClintock told Global News the move doesn’t affect Hockey Saskatchewan, but he said the public scrutiny Hockey Canada is currently facing could have an impact.

“In some ways it affects because people have concerns about how money is spent and where money goes. I don’t think it has an impact on whether they’re kids are in hockey or the impacts their kids experience right now in hockey,” he added.

Some hockey parents believe Hockey Canada’s move is a good thing.

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“That’s a good move; it was something they needed to do. There needs to be either restructuring or a new body created to perform that function,” said Gordon Dieter, former hockey parent in Saskatoon.

Dieter put two kids through hockey and said he would’ve done some things differently if he had known what he knows now.

“Well, I’m quite upset that some of those fees that I paid into Hockey Canada were used for these settlements and I would never have authorized that sort of expenditure,” he said.

Dieter isn’t the only parent who is concerned with Hockey Canada.

“Hockey Canada lost its roots where it’s all of a sudden whoever has the most money, whoever has the most resources, that’s who gets ahead in the game too and I think we got to get back to basics,” said Curtis Standing.

McClintock said he doesn’t believe there will be a decline in kids registering for hockey next year, but Standing believes it’s important to be careful.

“I grew up with hockey in my life but I think you got to be really careful with your kids, you got to watch them and it’s like anything in life, you can’t trust, you can’t really trust the coaches, you can’t really trust anybody in authority there too so like hockey kind of lost a lot of that,” said Standing.

Hockey Canada will elect a new slate of directors at a virtual election scheduled for Dec. 17.