The Onset and Impact of Early Sport Specialization Among Hockey Players from Winnipeg

Early career sport specialization has become increasingly popular among today’s youth athletes. Despite its increasing prominence, this athletic trend has not been historicized in the Canadian context. This paper determines when and why youth athletes began to pursue a certain sport, forgoing other athletic opportunities, as a means to achieve elite-level success. It focuses specifically on hockey players from Winnipeg, Manitoba, who played in the National Hockey League. This qualitative research study uses semi-structured interviews and secondary material to explore the factors that resulted in young male hockey players in Winnipeg being encouraged to exclusively participate in hockey year-round. This study historicizes the shift in youth sport in the post-Second World War period in Canada to better understand the reasons for early sport specialization and the forces that shape contemporary youth sport.