In the GTHL, corporate sponsors such as Gatorade, Scotiabank, PlayStation, and Canadian Tire tie their brands to the performance of kids as young as nine. Beneficiaries include the equipment manufacturing industry pedaling $250 sticks and $1,000 skates (all figures in this story are in Canadian dollars) coaches, who can earn six-figure salaries sport schools that charge upwards of $40,000 per season for tuition and lessons and scouting agencies that charge fans on the lookout for the next hockey prodigy upwards of $200 a year for reports and rankings. While children chase their NHL dreams, their on-ice performance also produces money and prestige for parents, coaches, teams, media and equipment manufacturers.Īnd there’s no doubt the GTHL, which has more than 30,000 players, generates money. If the kids are enjoying themselves – and staying active – what is the problem? But scholarly consensus has long existed that high performance youth sport, including elite minor hockey, can be understood as a form of child labor, and thus a constraint on the fundamental right of children to be free of the adult obligation to work. Money flows in and out of the GTHL, as adults fund – and profit from – what is, in effect, unpaid labor. But in the GTHL, the thirst for profit is particularly egregious.Ī wide-ranging TSN investigation this month characterized the league as “a major industry that league officials struggle to police properly”. Making money from youth sports is neither new nor illegal, of course. The GTHL, whose players range in age from nine to 18, is the definition of high-performance youth hockey, but it is also an example of how kids’ joy can be exploited for profit.

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