Canadian Amateur Hockey by the Year 2000: Projected Problems and Priority Goals

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop a long-range projection of future prob lems and objectives in Canadian amateur hockey. Such a study, it was thought, could facilitate planning processes for Canadian political organizations concerned with the development and administration of amateur hockey. A modified version of the Delphi technique, a technique developed at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California and designed to elicit expert opinion, was utilized. A total of 21 leading authorities in Canadian amateur hockey answered the three consecutive questionnaires. Questionnaire 1, an open-ended questionnaire, was designed to elicit identification of issues likely to be important for Canadian amateur hockey over the next 25 years. Questionnaires 2 and 3 were designed to elicit participating expert's assessment of these issue statements in terms of probability, desirability and impact estimates. In general, the respondents felt that the major problems of Canadian amateur hockey would be the overemphasis on competition, the resultant neglect of hockey's recrea tional values, and possibly the tendency of the present administrative superstructures to impede efforts to remedy these conditions. The priority goals implicitly indicated by the expert's respondents through their desirability ratings indicated a general commitment to the development of amateur hockey as a widely accessible recreational resource rather than as a highly competitive professional sport confined to the gifted few. The emphasis on teaching qualities as opposed to administrative efficiency and on the player's personal development rather than on competition, rules, structures, etc., reflects such a position.