Pay-to-play hockey doesn't look like inequality until you run the numbers. Your kid gets cut from a rep team and drops a tier. The team above plays 54 games this season. Your kid plays 14. That's not bad luck. That's the system doing exactly what it was built to do.

Lesley sits on her local hockey board specifically to keep barriers low and still describes rep seasons climbing into the tens of thousands between spring hockey, hotel rooms, and $400 sticks. Jimmy was at the Four Nations game in Montreal when three fights broke out in the first nine seconds and calls it the most electric sporting event he's ever attended. That same window, Canada's Olympic roster carried no Quebec players, and he ties both facts to the same root: not enough investment in development infrastructure.

The next time you watch Canada on Olympic ice, the selection process started long before puck drop. It started when some families found the $10,000 and some didn't.

Topics: pay-to-play hockey, youth hockey development, Canada Olympics hockey, athlete investment, hockey inequality

GUEST: Jimmy Zoubris and Lesley Kelly | highheelsandcanolafields.com (Lesley Kelly)

Originally aired on 2026-02-23