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NHL ALL-STAR GAMEJanuary 28, 2017Bill DalyConnor McDavidDavid MoreheadLuc RobitailleMathieu SchneiderLos Angeles, California THE MODERATOR: Welcome, everybody, here to the JW Marriott at LA Live. Thank you so much for coming out today. My name is Jamison Coyle. I'm the host for NHL Network, and it's a pleasure and an honor to be here today with all of you and these great names up here on the stage and announce some very exciting news.Joining me today, Deputy Commissioner of the National Hockey League, Mr. Bill Daly; NHLPA Special Assistant to the Executive Director, Mathieu Schneider; LA Kings President of Business Operations, Luc Robitaille; Pittsburgh Penguins President and CEO David Morehouse; and Edmonton Oilers forward and Pacific division captain Connor McDavid. We are all here today to announce the NHL and the NHLPA's Learn to Play initiative. It's a new league-wide growth strategy enabling first-time participants to play our great sport of hockey. The Learn to Play initiative was developed jointly by the National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association to offer more families a chance to experience everything that makes youth hockey so rewarding. Learn to Play changes the way youth hockey is offered by providing first-time participants between the ages of four and eight free head-to-toe equipment, age appropriate instruction, and certified coaching led by NHL alumni in a fun and safe atmosphere. We encourage all of you to visit the website, LearntoPlay.NHL.com for more information. Time now to hear from some of these guys, and first up, Deputy Commissioner of the National Hockey League, Mr. Bill Daly. BILL DALY: Thank you, Jamison. On behalf of the National Hockey League I'd like to thank everyone for being here today, media members, obviously Jamison, Mathieu, Luc, David Morehouse, and obviously Connor McDavid. Appreciate you guys all making time to be here. Today is an exciting day for all of us up here who have been working on this project for quite some time now. We want to present and talk about a new league-wide growth strategy, as Jamison alluded to. The NHL and the NHLPA in partnership with our NHL clubs and obviously USA Hockey, and USA Hockey is represented here today, and Hockey Canada, I'm not sure if I saw our friends from Hockey Canada here, but obviously they've been integral to putting this together, a grow-the-game initiative to introduce the game of hockey to new players, to new families, and hopefully to new fans. As Jamison alluded to, we call it the Learn to Play program. Last year, working together with the Players Association, we had a soft launch of that program. We operated the Learn to Play program in ten markets. Eight of our clubs, including the Kings and Penguins, who are here today, had initiated their own Learn to Play programs previously from which we learned a lot and took a lot and kind of modeled the league-wide program after. This year I'm pleased and proud to say we'll have a Learn to Play program in all of our 30 markets. The Learn to Play program from our perspective is all about reducing cost barriers and casting a wider net for first-time hockey participants, introducing the sport to people who may not have had an opportunity absent this program. I'd like to introduce the program with a video and then I'll have a couple of further remarks before I pass it along. (Video shown.) Some of the key elements and takeaways from that video, some of which Jamison has already alluded to, keys about the program, we're providing head-to-toe hockey equipment for first-time participants. We're focused on age group four to eight. As I said, all NHL clubs are going to offer a program. We are going to have an extensive network of alumni of NHL players who are going to be involved in the program, and I think that's very exciting, both in terms of drawing participation but also kids learning the game in a fun way. We're talking about six to eight weeks of instruction, depending on the marketplace, with 60-minute sessions of instruction. An important part of this also is providing age-appropriate instruction, and I know both USA Hockey and Hockey Canada have spent a lot of time developing age-appropriate plans, which obviously will be part of this program. Jamison also alluded to how kids can get involved in this program. Parents can access the program by logging onto LearntoPlay.NHL.com to find out when and where and how you can get involved. The goal really is to enhance the way hockey is offered to inspire new families to join the hockey community and provide children with a positive experience in a healthy and safe environment. As I alluded to before, both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Los Angeles Kings have launched very successful programs, and David and Luc are here to tell you about their experiences. Before that, I'll just give you some kind of rough objectives and goals that we have for the program. Nationally to date, we've already connected with 11,000 new participants in the game through the roll-out of this program in our various markets. We're expecting to make contact and have 20,000 Learn to Play participants by the end of the year, and we have an aggressive growth objective by growing that by at least 50 percent beginning next year to reach 30,000 new participants in the game, and we think it'll lay a groundwork and a foundation for the growth of the game going forward. MATHIEU SCHNEIDER: Thank you very much. I think Bill covered an awful lot of the logistics of the program, and I think -- we're extremely excited, number one, that it's a joint program, working together with all the clubs, working together with the league, but I think long-term, this is just the beginning. This is our foot in the door. I think a big part of what we'd like to accomplish, I think there's probably a lot of people in this room that would agree that there's a negative culture in youth sports today, and from the first time a kid puts on a pair of skates, gets on a baseball field, picks up a basketball, everything is about winning and losing. And what this program aims to do and what we hope to do expanding in the future is to change that culture, make it a fun, positive environment, give the kids a place where they can get great coaching, develop some of the life skills that sports teach you. It's not about becoming a great hockey player, it's about becoming a great person, and hockey is a vehicle to help you achieve your goals. And as a parent of four kids, that's all I ever look for in a program, whether it's dropping your kid off at school, music lessons, baseball, piano, swimming, whatever the case may be. To have your child have a great experience -- and right now we have a great opportunity. We're going to have kids for a minimum of eight weeks, families for a minimum of eight weeks, and our hope is that we can get them to fall in love with the game and advance to the next level. We're very excited about this. Can't do it without these guys and these guys. Both of these guys have been leaders for years in this field. We talk about a kid like Matthews, how does he come out of a market like Phoenix, and it's thinking outside the box from guys like Luc that have really helped bring a hockey culture to non-hockey markets. Again, we're extremely excited, and the players are very excited to be a part of it. Obviously having alumni on the ice with the kids brings another level, I think, to the program that is very unique, and we're hoping that this is the beginning of much bigger and greater things. LUC ROBITAILLE: Well, thank you, Mathieu and Bill. For us, we kind of copied what Pittsburgh was doing, and we were kind of studying and how much they were growing the game, and then once we understood the impact it had on kids, because like Mathieu was saying, to play the game of hockey, it is the greatest game to play because there is so much value. You can never have success without being a great teammate. You can't just throw a ball in the basket or hit the ball and have your own stats. It is the ultimate team game, so it teaches great values to kids. I think we're up to about 1,000 kids a year now, and that number of 30,000, when you think about it, if you can get 30,000 new players every year, it could be a great opportunity for the growth of the game. That's in Canada and in the U.S. We're very happy to be a part of this, and also the fact that the league and the union got together and is giving jobs to alumni, we think it's an incredible opportunity for a lot of guys to get jobs and to help us grow the game. Those guys that played the game, they understand what it takes, they understand what it took to get there and the passion it takes, and when they can teach that to those little kids, it's been a lot of fun to see that. We're seeing it with Derek Armstrong who's working with us, Sean O'Donnell, Rob Blake are part of it, and it's really making a big difference. DAVID MOREHEAD: Thank you, and thanks, Luc, for giving us credit. Luc has been doing a lot of things for a lot longer than me, but I want to first thank Bill Daly for pushing this forward. In my estimation, this is one of the best programs the NHL and the NHLPA offer. About 10 years ago, Sidney Crosby came to us and asked how can we make it more affordable for kids to play hockey; I'd like to try to help. So what we did was we went to a couple of our corporate sponsors, at the time, Dick's Sporting Goods and Reebok, now CCM, and together with Sidney we funded a program to provide free hockey equipment for kids in western Pennsylvania. We're in our 10th year, and every year it's over 1,000 kids. Those kids are learning basic values besides learning how to play hockey. The unique thing about this program is the NHL, the NHLPA, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada, the four of us all getting together, we can truly change and grow the game. As Luc said, it's the greatest game in the world, so it's a great game to teach kids valuable life lessons that they no longer get because they're surrounded by parents all the time. It's been very successful for us. I think it's led to -- it's doubled our fan base in the last 10 years in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is and always will be a football town, but now we can honestly say it's a hockey town, and I think it's largely through this program that we've been able to achieve that. And it actually stretches all the way to Erie, Pennsylvania, where Connor was playing junior hockey. We have some programs in Erie, in Youngstown, but I remember when Connor came down to Pittsburgh and visited us when he was still in Erie. But anyway, it's a great program. We're really lucky to have it, and we're appreciative of all the entities that are helping put it forward. CONNOR McDAVID: Yeah, 100 percent. These guys have kind of said everything that needs to be said. Ultimately it is about growing the game and getting those new kids into the game that they wouldn't have the opportunity to. In my life, I can't imagine not having the opportunity to play because I couldn't afford to play or couldn't afford skates or that kind of thing. I don't really know where I'd be in my life if that was the case. It definitely is about growing the game and teaching these kids a lot more than just hockey, the leadership and responsibility and respect and that cohesion you get with your teammates as young guys is a great lesson that you can use in the business world and whatever world you get into as an adult. It is definitely life skills that you can use, and it's a very exciting initiative that they're putting together, and I'm very happy to be up here and be a part of the announcement. Thanks for having me. THE MODERATOR: Bill, it is about growing the game. What about growing the program? Where do you see the Learn to Play initiative 10 years from now and maybe the possibility of taking it international? BILL DALY: Well, as I indicated, we have high expectations for how we grow the program initially, very aggressive projections in terms of how we grow it. But in terms of growing it outside the markets in which it is, I think it can grow in two ways. I think it can grow beyond the 4 to 8. We often talk euphemistically about a Learn to Play and then a Continue to Play, and spending resources on making sure there is age-appropriate development for hockey at all levels. So growing it age-wise, also growing it geographically. I think we want to make sure that we build the grass-roots across all markets, not just the 30 NHL markets, and moving it internationally. We did have discussions as recently as last week or two weeks ago in China about helping them grow grass-roots infrastructure, making youth hockey available to Chinese youth. So I think this program serves as a foundation for a lot of growth opportunity, and I look forward to playing it out. Q. Mr. Daly and Mr. Schneider, with the changes being implemented to the goalie pants, I just wanted to ask if there was any proposal or timeline regarding additional changes to goaltending equipment. BILL DALY: We're going to implement it for the Learn to Play program. We've got to start them young. (Laughter.) Q. What is the funding source for this program? Where is it mostly coming from? BILL DALY: As part of our last collective bargaining negotiation with the NHL Players Association, we jointly established what we call an industry growth fund, which is a fund that kind of is assessed equally among our 30 clubs, and the whole goal is to come up with growth initiatives for the sport of ice hockey, to grow the sport, to grow revenues in the sport over the long term, and I think it's governed by what we call a revenue sharing oversight committee, and that committee determined early on that one of our best growth strategies was to focus on building the base, making it as broad and as available as possible to as many people as possible, so that's where this program comes from. THE MODERATOR: We want to thank all of you guys for being up here today. I want to thank everybody for showing up here at the JW Marriott. I know we're all busy. Again, the website, LearntoPlay.NHL.com, and enjoy the rest of the weekend, everybody. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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