Instead, the authority to determine where an athlete can play will remain in the hands of individual Hockey Canada branches.

This is the result of a vote that took place at Hockey Canada's semi-annual general meeting in Toronto on Nov. 21 and 22.

"The vote was 23-21, so it was pretty tight," said Glen McCurdie, Hockey Canada's senior director, insurance and member services.

Issue of control

The issue was on the table since some member branches want players to have more control over where they can play.

But if the proposal had passed, it would have removed a degree of autonomy from member branches to decide a player's fate, and this struck a chord with certain provinces.

Those against the proposed change argued that while it might benefit some areas of the country, it would be detrimental to hockey programs in other regions.

Result is a victory

One such region is in eastern Canada, said Murray Roberts, vice president of hockey operations at Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador. For him, the result is a victory.

"One little inch of movement is devastating to smaller centres," he said, explaining that in Newfoundland and Labrador, if players are allowed to flock to bigger cities, it would leave smaller hockey associations in rural areas without enough players to keep their leagues going.

"I honestly believe that this move at freewill will cause major problems in this country to the very structure of our game," he said.

Pleased with support

Before the vote, Roberts argued against the proposed regulation change, and says he was pleasantly surprised by the support he received at the meeting.

For example, Hockey Quebec moved to amend the proposed change, which stated, "The residency registration regulations must allow for increased movement of players as the age of players increases."

The Quebec organization amended the wording so that branches were required to "favour" greater player movement, instead of forcing them to approve it. The amendment was approved before the final vote.

While the slight change worked more in the favour of Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador, Murray said it didn't go far enough to give the branches full autonomy.

"My guess at the time, though, was that it would pass with Quebec's amendment," Murray said.

Much to his delight, however, the motion was defeated.

"We had a lot more support than we thought," Murray said. "We led the debate on it, since we felt we were most affected by it, but we believe there were branches around the country who believed that we were very sincere in our approach and that this really would have an adverse affect on our hockey program."

McCurdie said regulation changes take place every two years, but that a bylaw exists that could bring the issue to light again, if two-thirds of member branches vote to address the regulation earlier than that.

Also discussed at the meeting was the issue of independent hockey leagues, but McCurdie said no changes were made to the organization's current policy, which sanctions players who participate in games with "outlaw" hockey teams.

If the city passes its current budget, funding for 230 outdoor rinks will be wiped out completely, and arena ice time fees will go up 51 per cent-- making the sport impossible for many families to afford.

"It's just insane," said Reg Mac Donald, president of the Gloucester Centre Minor Hockey Association. "When the budget proposal first came out, the uproar was about the ice fee increase. But this is crazy too. Outdoor rinks, I mean, this is Canada. Canada is all about this.

"For me... I grew up on a rink...They've been around in Ottawa as long as I've been alive. They're a staple of Canadian living."

'It's just crazy'

When the City of Ottawa announced its 2009 budget proposal on Nov. 4, local hockey associations were alarmed by the major increase in ice rental fees. While that's still a serious concern, they've since realized the $695,000 typically put toward outdoor rinks is nowhere to be found in the plan.

"When you're putting ice costs up by 51 per cent, that can cause people not to play hockey anymore. Your next best bet is an outdoor rink, but they're taking that away too. It's just crazy," Mac Donald said, explaining that the government funds for the outdoor rinks are usually spent on hoses, snow blowers and board maintenance.

6,300 signatures

To fight against the city's plan, Dan Cummins, coach of a GCMHA novice team, launched an online petition on ottawafocus.com. So far, more than 6,300 people have signed it.

"[The government's] trying to encourage kids to stay active, but we're making one of the means to do so inaccessible. Hockey is already an expensive sport, to double the price, you're going to see participation cut in half...It's detrimental to the sport," Cummins said.

Tim Tierney, discipline director of the GCMHA and president of Ottawa's Beacon Hill North Community Association, said the city attempted the same kinds of cuts last year too, but backed away from its plan due to public pressure.

"This time, we're more concerned because they seem more serious," Tierney said.

"We're a little panicked. We're a middle class community with a lot of families, and $450 is a lot to swallow for a child to play. If that jumps to $600, it will be really difficult for them," he said, noting that fees for rep players are even higher.

Final decision

The city will vote on its proposed budget between Dec. 1 and 5. Until then, members of the public can attend a series of meetings with city councillors to voice their opinions.

Tierney attended a meeting in the Orleans community on Nov. 20 and said those in attendance didn't feel they had a chance to be heard.

"I think a lot of people were disappointed. It started half an hour late, then there were half an hour of introductions...There wasn't enough time for people to voice their opinions. If that's what they call a public consultation, I don't know," he said, adding he will attend the next meeting on Nov. 24.

Tierney thinks the budget cuts are a result of mismanagement stemming from 2006, when taxes weren't increased.

"Every year after, we've always been in the negative and had to cut services...This year we really do have to find all this extra money to balance the budget," he said, adding that the proposed budget affects many other sports associations and theatre groups in the city.

Rochelle Wallace has seen it often. A young player in the early years of development hits the ice almost every day of the week for practices, games and skills camps.

But instead of landing that coveted pro hockey career, the exact opposite normally happens.

"A lot of those kids finish off their peewee [year], and that's all they play," she said, adding that the kids get burnt out, sick of hockey, and fall out of the game altogether.

There can be too much of a good thing, even in the world of minor hockey, and Wallace, among others, thinks some kids are spending too much time at the rink.

"I think they do, I think some kids don't know if they like it or not, especially at the younger ages," said hockey mom and president of the Vancouver Minor Hockey Association.

Some doctors agree with her. Though they say there's no specific formula, any one activity that severely limits younger kids' participation in other things is not good for their development.

"When you see kids between eight and 11 or 12 playing hockey several times a week, how much breadth of exposure are they getting to other activities?" said Gretchen Kerr, associate dean of the faculty of physical education and health at the University of Toronto, and an expert in sports psychology.

Broad range of activities

"They should experience a broad range of activities," she said. "The general thinking is to wait until adolescence until specializing.

"The best example in hockey is Wayne Gretzky," Kerr added. "He didn't specialize in hockey until he was in his teens. Before that he played baseball, soccer and did a variety of things."

She says parents have to be aware that it's in the best interest of their child to keep them involved in activities along with hockey.

"It's often the parents who come with the goals of creating an NHL player," she said. "They're either not aware that a breadth of exposure to sports is the best thing for their kids, or they think that if they want to develop talent in hockey you've got to get your kid in early and you've got to play a lot of it."

Losing focus

It's something the VMHA president has seen a lot of in her time at the rink.

"We talk to some parents, you sort of walk away going, 'Yikes, I think they've lost focus here,' because they've put all their eggs in one basket," Wallace said. "(And the child) might quit hockey or lose it and go the way you don't want them to because they're feeling too much pressure."

Having a son who is on the ice 10 times a week, Wallace sometimes wonders if it's too much for him, even though he's in bantam.

"I honestly at one point thought, 'Oh my God, his gear never dries out,'" she said. "I thought, 'That is too much hockey,' when his skates are wet, but he's at this stage where he can make the choice to do that.

"I've always said to him, 'When you don't want to do this much hockey, let us know.'"

And she did make the decision to pull him back when he was younger, when she recognized he wasn't having fun.

"I remember when my son said to us about four years ago, when somebody wanted him to come out because they were short players and he was playing lacrosse too, and he said "I can't do it, it's too much,'" Wallace said.  "And it was like, 'OK, pull back right away, you don't have to. If you don't want to, don't do it.'

"I think sometimes kids don't have the voice to say that," she added. "They just have to get up and go."

Kids getting 'run down'

There is also a physical toll that too much hockey can put on young players.

"If you're pushing kids so far that they're missing a lot of days of school, because they're sick, they're stressed out, they're always run down, they're always getting colds, and if they've got all of these increases in sprains and injuries, that's probably a sure sign that they're doing too much," said Cameron Blimkie, a professor in the department of kinesiology at McMaster University, who specializes in exercise and its effects on kids.

"If you're constantly playing, you're not getting the rest that the systems need to recover from minor injuries that occur," he said. "And that might expose you to bigger concerns down the road."

Blimkie also agrees with University of Toronto professor Kerr that a wide breadth of activities is the best way to help kids develop both mentally and physically.

"You develop a better rounded skill set, which may give you a better balance of health benefits," he said.

Other involvements

Balance is important to VMHA president Wallace-- since she sees so many kids focused solely on hockey, she makes sure to get her two kids that play the sport involved in other activities.

"For myself and my husband, it's very important," she said. "I want my kids to grow up to be healthy and well-rounded, and active for sure but it doesn't have to be hockey."

This is why she gets her son who plays bantam rep and daughter who plays peewee getting out and doing other things, like playing other sports in the spring, when the ice starts to melt.

For Joel Banks, head coach of the peewee AAA rep team in the Fredericton Minor Hockey Association in New Brunswick, communication is the key to helping sort out a busy schedule.

"As a team, when I put the information out to the parents and say 'Look, we got an extra game this weekend,' I actually ask them, because if they think it's too much, we won't go," he said. His team currently has two practices, a dryland session, and at least one game per week, along with fundraising commitments.

To keep his team interested, Banks comes up with different ideas, like assigning team-building homework to the players, and keeping hockey away from dryland sessions.

"It is a physical fitness part of it, but it also gives them a break from hockey," he said. "A lot of coaches for dryland would bring more hockey into it, for me this year I got them going to kickboxing, boxing and skipping, so it's actually away from the game of hockey, but it's still teaching them physical fitness."

That's because she was walking around outside the arena.

"I would sit by myself in the parking lot, listening to the crowd, trying to decipher if we scored," she said. "There was a lot of pressure."

Such is the life of a minor hockey goalie parent -- the roller-coaster ride of emotion can be very stressful while they're sitting in the stands.

"I've always described it as [a goalie's] either the hero or the goat. There's very little between," said Carmichael, a resident of North Sydney, N.S. These extreme highs and lows cause stress for more than a few parents.

"I can pick the mothers of the goalies out pretty easily," Carmichael said. She's been a goalie mom for two of her three sons. "[The moms are] just on edge. When there's a breakaway, they're at the top of their seat, or they're turning their head away. Usually they're the ones that are more intense than the parents of the players." It's a different experience seeing the game this way, she said.

"It's not at all the same, watching as a parent of a goaltender," said Carmichael. "I found myself filling both roles. With my middle son's games [playing as a forward] I'd go and actually enjoy myself. But goaltenders' parents don't seem to have any fun. And for most of the ones I know, they would say the same thing."

"It's definitely understandable," said Carmichael's son, Graham, 22, a former goalie in North Sydney's minor hockey system. "For me, the spotlight, being a difference-maker all the time is what drove me to want to be in net. But when you're not the one that has those feelings, but still have to support them, it can definitely be more difficult." The pressure that some goalie parents feel while watching a son or daughter play only ramps up as the game goes on.

"Those last minutes are so tense," said Dave Pickford, from Windsor, Ont. "Especially if it's a tie game, or we're up by one goal, and they've pulled the goalie." His 14-year-old son plays goal for a bantam double-A team.

If the puck goes in the net when the game is close, sometimes that's when the stress peaks -- especially if the parents are sitting in the stands. Pickford said when this happens, sometimes other parents don't think before they say something. He recalled an example during the playoffs last season, when his son was in net during a close loss.

"One of the parents didn't know I was standing there when we're playing the next game, then said to one of the other parents, 'Jeez, I hope they go with the other goalie,' " said Pickford. "That's the part that really ticks me off. The goalie makes one mistake and a goal goes in, and he's the bad guy."

But the stress doesn't affect goalie parents equally -- some don't feel the strain the way others do. Like Damon Kustra, a former Western Hockey League and University of Manitoba goaltender, whose 11-year-old son is a goalie in Yorkton, Sask.

"I don't seem to have that much stress when he's in net," he said. "I really enjoy it.

"For me, it's what I expect -- it's my frame of reference for hockey," Kustra said. "I'm so familiar with [the position] that I know what he's going through, so I just say the odd word to help him, and that relieves my stress level."

For Chuck Vint, a goalie dad out of London, Ont., having good chemistry among the team parents is an immense help.

"This particular team [my son plays on], there's a really good group of parents," he said. "When you have a positive atmosphere among the team parents, it's a whole lot different. I've had two very different parent group experiences, and it helps for sure."

And for some goalie parents, it helps to keep away from the stands.

"I'm the manager of the team, so I'm on the bench, usually in the penalty box, taking team pictures for our website," Windsor's Pickford said. "It helps me to be away from the stands, because I don't have to hear what's going on over there when something bad happens."

And remember what Carla Carmichael said: a goalie's either the goat or the hero. Which means that big lows go hand in hand with big highs. And when that last line of defence suddenly becomes a wall, people do notice.

"You get a shutout, you walk out into the lobby of the arena, and when my son comes out all the parents are high-fiving him, saying, 'Great game Austin,' " said Pickford. "For me, as a parent, you love to hear that."

And the stress still won't keep the vast majority of goalie parents away from the rink.

"The hockey years were some of the best years of our lives, because we got to share it with our kids, and I wouldn't have traded it for all the stress," said Carmichael.

"But less grey hair would be nice," she said, laughing.

• ThinkFirst Foundation of Canada offers information on concussions including hand out cards for coaches to give their players and parents to answer questions about concussions, including definitions, symptoms and treatment.
• Baseline testing is available on websites (www.impacttest.ca and  www.sportconcussions.com are two) where players can take the same tests as NHL players to evaluate memory, reaction and concentration. The test is taken at the beginning of the season and if a player does suffer a concussion during the year, the doctor will access the test and use it as a comparison to find out when he/she is ready to return to the ice.
  

"It was the end of the game, there was five seconds left on the clock," he said. "I was standing still, looking behind me, totally unaware, and I just got hit. I fell over, broke my wrist. I could feel it break, I knew I was injured, because I never felt like that before."

Winckers, 17, was out for another month as he waited for the injury to heal.

"It was frustrating," he said. "I mean, I just wanted to get back out there." And when he did get back, playing hockey wasn't the same for him.

"I was worried about breaking my wrist again, and having to sit out another month," Winckers said. "I just wanted to play hockey and know I wouldn't risk being sidelined for months on end."

That's why he joined a league without bodychecking after the season ended.

"It's a lot more fun," he said. "You're not worried about being run over."

Winckers plays in what's called the contact hockey division out of the North Vancouver Minor Hockey Association, one of a number of such leagues that have sprouted up across Canada in the past few years. They're called contact leagues, because you can still rub a man off the puck, or battle in the corners and in front of the net, you just can't lay the big hit at centre ice or by the boards.

The best option

Winckers' dad, Marc, says that this type of hockey is the best option for house league kids, one that they should seriously consider before signing up for a checking league.

"I question the value (of bodychecking in house leagues)," he said. "What extra does bodychecking hockey provide kids? Is it a critical element to the game? I'd argue that it probably isn't, considering all the men's leagues don't play bodychecking, and they're thriving."

There's no point to have bodychecking in house league hockey, Marc said, because the vast majority of players are there to have fun, not vie for a spot on rep teams. At the recreation levels, he says that the kids in bodychecking leagues aren't even focused on playing the game.

"I've seen midget (bodychecking) house games," Marc said. "It's not hockey. So much of it is a goon show. You get one or two kids that like to stir it up and then the whole game deteriorates."

Many kids find that they stop having fun when they hit midget, the checking age for house league in the Vancouver system, he said.

"If the little guy that's skilled knows he's going to get flattened, he's going to back off," Marc said. "And perhaps eventually quit the game sooner than he should."

Still, he says, a few kids are hesitant to join because of how contact leagues are sometimes perceived.

"It's kind of that macho stigma," he said. "There's probably a stigma that the quality of hockey is not as good. [But] you watch a midget contact game, and it flows, it's fast. It's a good game."

And it's a game many players realize that they enjoy again after the switch.

Smile on their faces

"The smile on their faces is the No. 1 thing ," said Chris Wadham, who coaches a midget contact team in North Vancouver. "They absolutely find that they love the game again." The proof is in the attendance figures -- contact teams in the area average 14 players for a game, while in checking leagues that number drops to nine, he said.

Contact players are also smiling because there's a much smaller chance of getting hurt -- Wadham says injury prevention is one of the main reasons why kids switch over to contact hockey.

"There's way too many concussions with the young kids in bodychecking," he said. "Between all the kids on my team (18 players), I have a minimum of 15 concussions from playing hockey and getting hits to the head."

And it's also why Wadham thinks contact hockey should be the only choice for house league players to have.

"I think at the house level, the biggest concern for parents is the safety of their child on the ice," he said.

It could have been worse.

If his mother, Katharina, hadn't stumbled upon the policy by accident, the grade 10 student could have lost the entire season.

"It wasn't until I Googled Hockey Canada and unsanctioned leagues that a bunch of stuff came up. It was all by chance. And then our nightmare started," Katharina said.

The story about Spencer, who lives with his family near Orangeville, Ont., is relatively simple. And Katharina says if it happened to her son it could happen to any player.

For the Van Astens, the ordeal began this spring.

Spencer had played AAA in the Greater Toronto Hockey League from 2006-08 for the
Mississauga Rebels and the North York Rangers. Both the league and teams are sanctioned by Hockey Canada.

But when tryouts began for the 2008-09 season, they didn't go as planned, and Spencer didn't make some of the teams he tried out for.

On June 8, 2008, however, he was signed to the Bradford Rattlers, a team that plays in the Greater Metro Hockey League, which is not recognized by Hockey Canada.

On July 18, 2008, Hockey Canada issued a bulletin announcing a new policy penalizing athletes who play with a team that's part of an independent league, such as the GMHL.

It stipulates that any athlete who plays three to five games (exhibition games included) in a non-sanctioned league cannot play again for a Hockey Canada regulated team until three months have passed after their last game with the unaffiliated league.
 
Sanctions are increased as the player participates in more games, up to a year's suspension from Hockey Canada teams.

The bulletin was created, but Katharina says she didn't see it, and she doesn't think many other hockey families saw it either.

"Even if you jump on Hockey Canada's website and under 'search', type in 'outlaw leagues', nothing comes up. When you look under bulletins, they list everything about their junior teams, and Olympic coaches, but you can't search this particular bulletin. So how is the average person supposed to know they made this decision?" she said.

"If Hockey Canada is trying to protect players by making sure they have proper coaches, insurance, and everything else, I believe there should be some duty, whether through member branches, to properly inform members of these decisions that are made, especially given the gravity of what could happen," she said.

But Glen McCurdie, Hockey Canada's senior director, insurance and member services, says the organization tried to make its members aware of the new policy through its various branches.

"We have also done numerous media interviews on our policy. In addition, most of our branches and member partners posted the actual memo on their websites," he said.

McCurdie admitted, however, that even such steps didn't ensure players and parents were informed. So, Hockey Canada decided to contact various "outlaw" leagues by mailing them the new policy. It was Hockey Canada's hope that these independent leagues would then inform their players.

"We took...this approach last year by mailing each of the [outlaw league] members individually, and were threatened with legal action," McCurdie said.

He added that the onus of ensuring parents and players are informed of the policy is on both Hockey Canada and the athletes and their families.

"We feel it is a mutual responsibility.  Kind of like the law, ignorance is no excuse," he said.

Still, the Van Astens say they didn't see the policy on any websites and weren't advised. So, Spencer practiced with the Bradford team all summer and began the season in September. It was after his third game that Katharina happened upon the Hockey Canada policy.

A blog on a hockey website mentioned something about "outlaw" leagues and Hockey Canada penalties against players that strayed from its domain.

Katharina poked around online a little bit longer, and called Hockey Canada immediately after she learned Spencer-- who's in his draft year-- might be in trouble.

She realized that if he wasn't playing for a Hockey Canada sanctioned team in the 2008-09 season, he wouldn't have a chance to play in the Ontario Hockey League the following year, since, if he played with an independent league, he would be suspended from Hockey Canada games the following season.
 
A second realization-- if Spencer wanted to return to Hockey Canada, he would be suspended for three months. That would mean he would be ineligible to play until Dec. 29, 2008.

Final rosters, however, are finalized by Nov. 15.

Spencer immediately withdrew from his Bradford team. They called Hockey Canada to plead their case, arguing that Spencer joined the Rattlers team before Hockey Canada put forth its policy, and knew nothing about the sanctions until after he'd played those three games.

The Ontario Hockey Federation ruled, however, that Spencer would suffer the three-month suspension.

Scouting opportunity not lost

The family began contacting coaches -- and lucked out. The minor midget AAA Mississauga Rebels placed Spencer on their roster as a healthy scratch.

It means he'll be on the team before the Nov. 15 deadline, and can play with the team when his suspension is up.

"We're very grateful we found out [about the Hockey Canada sanctions] by the end of September, because otherwise, he'd potentially have missed his entire season," Katharina said.

She added they're fortunate he'll still have the opportunity to be scouted, since there will be a month and a half of regular season play left when he's allowed back on the ice.

Despite their luck, the Van Astens don't believe what happened to them was fair, and appealed the OHF decision. They reasoned that Spencer joined the league before Hockey Canada created its policy, and secondly, that Hockey Canada and member branches failed to properly inform its members of the bulletin.

Hockey Canada reviewed Spencer's case, however, and on Nov. 12, ruled to uphold the suspension laid down by the OHF.

Katharina was away on business when she learned the news and emailed her son to tell him.

"I told him from Mexico, he wrote back with an exclamation mark and upside down face. Then he texted me two hours later, asking 'What can we do now?' He was devastated....He has aspirations of taking his game to the next level," she said.

Spencer said if he'd lost his season completely, he would have been "deeply disturbed and mad."

'Nothing I can really do about it'

"I mean, I still am mad, but there's nothing I can really do about it anymore," he said, adding he had hoped Hockey Canada might at least reduce the suspension given that he's already sat out a quarter of the season.

"I'm a little bit scared [about missing so many games], but I've just got to keep in shape the best I can for when I come back. I'll have to come out in good shape and better than anybody on the ice," he said.

His mother says the consequences are tougher for kids Spencer's age.

"[The sanctions are] not as severe to all kids...But at least the ones in an age group like Spencer's, who are 14, 15, 16 years old, and 16, 17 years old - the gravity is very severe. If a 15-year-old is in his draft year, this has a ramification attached to it...If you have a desire to continue with your sport, to sit a year out or up to a year out, that's very significant," she said.

Katharina is also bothered by the irony of the situation.

"Why are we being targeted and penalized when we're trying to get back into Hockey Canada as a result of finding out about the bulletin when I suspect that's exactly why Hockey Canada issued the bulletin-- to keep its members?" she said.

Adding that she supports Hockey Canada, she said, "We just didn't know that they had a thing called "outlaw' leagues and that it would hamper our ability to remain in good standing with Hockey Canada."

Brad Marsh remembers nothing about that Thanksgiving tournament. His only knowledge comes from stories he's been told.

He was 13 and it was the first game of the holiday weekend for the peewee AA Mississauga Terriers. The season was weeks old.

A physical player, Marsh came across the blueline, ready to lay a hit on the puck carrier. At the last second, Marsh's target panicked and put his stick up for protection.

Marsh got the worst of it.

The crashing noise resonated through the rink as the stick struck his helmet. He fell to the ice, unconscious.

"It left a dent in my helmet," says Marsh, now 22. "I had no idea where I was when I woke up. I kept repeating myself, and my mom was really worried. I was so confused -- I just didn't know what happened.

"That was the only time I ever had memory loss. To this day, I don't remember a thing."

It was Marsh's fifth hockey concussion, and it was his worst.

His parents took him to the hospital and a week later they visited a concussion specialist. Marsh remembers this conversation like it was yesterday. The doctor sat him down and told him five concussions was too many for a 13-year-old. His parents agreed.

Marsh's career in body-contact hockey was over.

"That was really, really tough," he says. "I wanted to play no matter what. I said, 'I don't care what happens, I want to play.'

"It's so hard to accept and it's upsetting at that age, when you've been playing hockey every day of the week, and suddenly you're told you can't play anymore. I felt like it was cutting off three-quarters of my life."

Karen Johnston has been the doctor on the other end of those conversations. One of the leading hockey concussion specialists in North America, Johnston has treated NHL players like Eric Lindros and Mike Richter, who were plagued by concussions during their professional careers.

Richter retired from the New York Rangers in 2003 on Johnston's recommendation.

'Symptom pattern comes back to bite you'

The doctor says the key to preventing those career-ending injuries is ensuring players seek medical advice every time they suspect they may have a concussion.

"A lot of times when you see people that get retired from professional sport early in their life, a lot of times it's people who, in their junior year, kept going back with symptoms, didn't tell anybody, didn't tell the coach, had headaches after lots of games, but kept it hidden," she says. "Somehow that symptom pattern comes back to bite you. If you treat it early, you treat it right every single time, you actually do better in the long run."

But it's getting the players to own up to their symptoms that remains the hardest part. Hockey has the highest rate of concussion of any sport, and that's only counting the ones that are reported. "Under-reporting," Johnston says, "is a major problem."

"If you just ask somebody, 'Did you have a concussion last season?' they'll most likely say no, because you know, even our professional athletes in the CFL, four out of five of them don't know if they've had a concussion," she says. "That study was done a while ago, but the bottom line is, there's way more than we know."

Dr. Michael Czarnota, the neuropsychology consultant for the Canadian Hockey League, says it's a common belief in the medical community that doctors are catching between one-tenth and one-third of the actual concussions on the ice.

"Underreporting is a big issue, especially when it's [in] minor hockey," Czarnota says. "I think it's an awareness and recognition issue. People might even see it, but not appreciate what it is. They'll say, 'Oh yeah, I had that when I played. Shake it off; you'll be fine tomorrow.' They don't report it as a concussion unless the child has splitting headaches through the night or passes out. They'll say, 'Play through that, that doesn't count because he wasn't knocked out.' "

The fact is, people who suffer concussions are knocked out in only 10 per cent of cases, Czarnota says.

Any contact that results in symptoms like a headache or dizziness, or causes broken teeth or a broken nose, "should always draw out questions about the brain," says Johnston, who treats everyone from minor to old-timer hockey players at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.

'Playing through' the injury

"You don't get a concussion every time that happens, but you've got to ask yourself, 'OK, did I get a concussion as well?' Often that facial injury gets all the attention, and the brain injury tends to get put on the back-burner until later."

Because it's an invisible injury only the athlete feels, it's one they're too often "playing through," Czarnota says.

"There's a culture, certainly in hockey and in all sports, that you don't sit down. Players want to play through it so they don't get labelled as soft. Sometimes there's a fear that if a player sits out, they may lose their starting position. Players don't want to let the team down."

But returning to the ice too early can hurt players not only in the short run, but also down the road, the doctor says. That's what he tells parents, players and their coaches when he sits down with them to suggest the athlete take some time off to heal.

Recurring headaches, a lack of focus in school and problems with memory are some of the short-term affects. Medical studies on long-term affects have found retired football players who suffered severe concussions had higher rates of depression and cognitive difficulties earlier in life than the general population.

"What we're hoping is better treatment will not lead to those long-term problems," says Czarnota. "Unfortunately, better treatment just started 10 years ago. So ideally, it's the young athletes now that when they're older hopefully will not be having these problems."

Major progress in treating concussions has been made over the last decade. It used to be if you had a concussion, you'd sit out a prescribed number of days and it would be assumed everything was healed once those calendar days had passed.

"We're moving away from this kind of pigeonholing or cookie-cutter approach," Czarnota says. "We're going to a very individual approach to say every individual should be measured on a case-by-case basis. Some athletes are going to bounce back that much faster and some might bounce back a little bit slower, so we need to tailor our treatment."

Studies have shown girls often take longer to recover, and adults bounce back faster than children do from concussions. Children who suffer concussions may need to be removed from school for the proper healing process to take place.

Second force can 'break the bank'

When it comes to kids, doctors are also studying second-impact syndrome: what happens when a young person who has suffered a brain injury endures a second before the brain has had a chance to heal.

"That second force, it can be minor, but it basically breaks the bank," Czarnota says. "It overwhelms the body's ability to handle the injury appropriately and the brain swells catastrophically. Obviously, when you bang your knee or your elbow, it can swell as big as it wants to. Your brain's got nowhere to go. If it starts swelling like that, there's a pretty high mortality rate.

"That's kind of the 6,000-pound gorilla when you're talking to young athletes. We don't want to have that second-impact syndrome."

Sometimes it takes the threat of lifelong repercussions to convince a young athlete to hang up the skates.

Doctors told Brad Marsh if he continued playing after that fifth concussion, he could have headaches every day. They told him it could affect his ability to get a higher education, concentrate in school, and affect his professional life down the road. Still, he didn't care. He was 13 and hockey was his life.

"I was bugging my parents pretty much every day. I was like, 'Come on, let me play, let me play!' They kept saying no," Marsh says. "I was trying everything to get them to change their minds. It caused a lot of problems between us. Now I can see they probably did the right thing, but I still wish that they didn't.

"When you're that age, it's pretty hard to get over."

His father, Dean Marsh, was the team trainer when Marsh suffered that final concussion. Telling his son his competitive hockey career was over was one of the most difficult things he's ever had to do.

"We had to enforce the doctor's recommendation, because you don't want him to end up with brain injuries," he says. "Brad was young, and there's more to life than hockey. He didn't see it that way, because he was a young kid.

"But I mean, you've got the rest of your life."

This is the first of Our Game's three-part series on concussions.

Part 2: How to handle hockey's head cases

Part 3: Concussion rate 'alarmingly high' in women's game

Each year, it's been more and more of a struggle in the town located on the Island of Montreal, Que. Parents, especially those whose kids play in lower levels, aren't stepping forward.

"There's a lack of guys wanting to coach...I think a lot are saying, 'It's just not worth it,'" said Mitch Trapid, president of the DHA.

Trapid coaches Dollard's midget CC team. It's the first time he hasn't coached one of his son's teams, but he took the reigns because no one else would.

"They couldn't find a coach," he said. "My kids are on other teams, I miss coaching them, but this team just couldn't find a qualified coach."

Dollard's midget AA, atom C and peewee B teams suffered the same predicament.

"The midget AA, we almost had to beg our staff to take the team," Trapid said.

Pressure from parents

One of the biggest problems, he says, is the parents of the players.

"You know, [as a coach] you're doing it for free, and unfortunately, you're crapped on by parents. They have these high expectations of what they want from a coach and there's a lot of pressure... [The parents] are just too intense about hockey," he said.

Rick Johnston, governor for Dollard's double letter/elite program, agreed.

"Of the hundreds of thousands of kids playing hockey, there are only so many Wayne Gretzkys," he said.

Johnston said that since minor hockey coaches are volunteering their time, paying for various expenses out of their own pockets, plus dealing with unreasonable parents, it's a lot to ask.

"It costs a lot to be a coach," he said.

Seeing the dream

Trapid has been coaching for 12 years and says parents' demands are more unrealistic than ever before.

"Ten years ago, a good player made $800,000 a year. Now, they're making millions. I think parents see the dream. I can't prove it, but it just so happens that the crazier the parents get, the less coaches we have," he said.

Part of the problem, Trapid said, is that parents' expectations clash with the association's "fair play" mindset.

"The policy means that every kid is played equally, no matter their calibre. It's built like that to build their confidence level.

"We have non-skaters, and some say it slows down the team. People say they're not good enough to play. So you have coaches being crapped on because teams aren't doing well," he said.

Comparing them to pros

Johnston says another problem is that parents often pay for professional players to hold private practices with their kids, and then compare the former pro to their child's minor hockey coach.

"The parents will watch this for an hour, then that night, they'll watch their son's hockey coach at the rink. And he's not a professional, he's just volunteering, and they'll critique his practice, and we'll get a call... You can't compare them, and that just puts more pressure on these volunteers," he said.

Trapid noted that to help make up for having less qualified coaches, the club offers free clinics taught by former pros. This way, kids who are new to the sport can learn from those who know the game, and those playing on teams with less experienced coaches can benefit from proper instruction. Clinics are offered four times a week.

"It compensates a bit if a coach isn't the best," Trapid said, noting that the association also tries to provide quality assistant coaches to those who are new behind the bench.

Despite their efforts, each year, the shortage continues. And when there's no coach, Trapid and other executive members begin to network.

"We send mass emails, put ads in the paper, use word of mouth," Trapid said. "We tell people, 'We can't draft teams until we can find a coach."

If they still don't have anyone, they look inwards.

"The worst case scenario is that someone on the executive steps up, or some poor 'schmoe' says, 'You know, I'm not very good, but we have to give them teams,'" he said.

Johnston agreed.

"We always find someone. We'll have a meeting with the parents and embarrass someone into doing it. There's always some guy in the back of the room who says, 'How hard can it be?' And the next thing you know his life becomes hell because he's scrutinized by all the other families in the room. It's not always that easy," he said.

With the wrong person in charge, the kids may not develop as much. The parents get upset. And many get frustrated.

"The parents look at it and say, 'This coach isn't good', but you know, sometimes it's all we have...Some of the coaches might be on the bottom of the totem pole, but otherwise, we'd be sending kids home," Trapid said.

"Our focus has been to eliminate travel as much as possible over the last few years.... In Detroit, we've really been sacked by the economy. Some of these families have no chance at playing anything," said Glenn Murray, governor of the Detroit Little Caesars AAA Hockey Club.

Where some Detroit teams might have played in four Canadian tournaments in the past, that number had been cut in half, Murray said.

"We like to go to Canada for tournaments. They're the biggest things out there.... But it's been difficult. The real focus has been to keep the numbers [of players] up, so there's a lot less travel.

"You still want to play the elite teams, so you only go to the tournaments where the best teams are," Murray said, adding, "We're eliminating the extra tournaments, some of the fun ones."

Toronto tournament cancelled

One such tournament that's been neglected this year by U.S. squads, at least at the younger levels, is the Don Mills Flyers tournament in Toronto. The long-standing tourney for minor atom, atom and minor peewee teams was cancelled this month because of low registration. The troubled economy is one reason for the low number of entries, spokesperson Peter MacInnis said.

Teams that have registered in the past but didn't this year include the Philadelphia Jr. Flyers, Detroit Compuware, the Pittsburgh Hornets, the Buffalo Regals, Chicago Mission and the Chicago Young Americans.

MacInnis noted, however, that while the economy was having an impact, some teams might have been drawn to Ottawa tournaments instead, since Ottawa will be hosting the world junior championships this year.

Randall Paquette, program director of Detroit Compuware AAA Hockey, said that's not the reason Compuware teams didn't register.

"You're not going to bypass a drive to Toronto to go up to Ottawa, that's for sure," he said.

Playing fewer, more elite tournaments

Instead, Paquette said Compuware teams are also restricting travel to save money, and like the Detroit Little Caesars, they are entering a select few elite tournaments instead of an increased number of "run of the mill" events.

"Our teams used to go to Canada two times a month, but now we pick tournaments like the one in Quebec, if we're fortunate enough to be invited," he said.

Noting that Compuware teams once travelled to tournaments as far as Kamloops, B.C., Paquette said teams have been reducing travel for the past three years because the cost is simply too much.

"For those tournaments, it's almost imperative to fly.... So you've got the cost of airfare, then you still need ground transportation when you get there, then the hotel costs," he said.

Despite tournament expenses, Murray said, for age specific, big-name events like the Quebec International Peewee Hockey Tournament or the Brick Invitational Super Novice Tournament in Edmonton, Detroit teams are still managing to participate, but only thanks to special fundraisers.

"We're still doing those, but it's very tough. Those are expensive tournaments," Murray said, mentioning that his son's team, the Little Caesars midget minor squad, was unable to register in the Toronto Marlies tournament this year since they had to choose between it and a Toronto Red Wings tourney.

Travel costs have been reduced on U.S. turf as well.

'Showcase weekends'

The AAA Little Caesars play in the Tier 1 Elite Hockey League (formerly the Midwest Elite Hockey League). The association includes five teams from Detroit, four in Chicago and one in Cleveland.

The league schedule has been restructured to limit the amount of travel required for each team.

"You might have one weekend where all the teams from Chicago are in Detroit and play literally every team in our league, so you get all the travelling done in one weekend," Murray said.

"You get creative in scheduling.... Otherwise, you'd have four trips for individual teams or games," he added.

Compuware teams compete in the same league as the Little Caesars. Another measure to reduce travel has been to hold "showcase weekends," Paquette said.

One city is chosen as host, and teams from all three cities play each other over one weekend.

"Everybody plays everybody. You might take two weekends and knock out an entire away schedule," Paquette said.

High school hockey growing

Murray said AA teams and house leagues were also showing signs of hard times, and that a recent trend in Detroit has been an upswing in high school hockey, since it's subsidized by the school system.

"People don't have extra money. Our numbers are going down. We have to work real hard to make sure kids keep playing hockey," he said.

Paquette said he was most alarmed by the dropping numbers of young boys taking up the sport.

"There's no question it's the cost of the sport and the economy. I mean, when you talk to parents and say, 'You're going to potentially have annual hockey fees that are in the neighbourhood of $2,000 or $3,000, plus equipment, for a kid that maybe wants to try and play the sport,' it's like, 'Holy smokes,' " he said.