[Tinordi]

"Our sport can trace its roots to frozen freshwater ponds, to cold climates," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says in a letter accompanying the league's Sustainability Report, released Monday night. "Major environmental challenges, such as climate change and freshwater scarcity, affect opportunities for hockey players of all ages to learn and play the game outdoors."

But the NHL isn't dropping its gloves to fight climate change just because it's a worthy cause — it's also in their "vested interest" as a business.

"As a business, we rely on freshwater to make our ice, on energy to fuel our operations and on healthy communities for our athletes, employees and fans to live, work and play," Bettman explains. "To continue to stage world class outdoor hockey events like the NHL Winter Classic, NHL Heritage Classic or NHL Stadium Series, we need winter weather."

The NHL's 2014 Sustainability Report seeks to measure the league's carbon footprint and propose new benchmarks and measures aimed at decreasing its greenhouse gas emissions.

The last word in the report goes to retired Stanley Cup-winning goalie Mike Richter, who points out that the length of the Canadian skating season has decreased by 20–30% in the last 50 years. The biggest drops have occurred in Alberta, eastern British Columbia and the southern Prairies, Richter notes, while Ottawa's Rideau Canal closed a month earlier than usual in 2014.

"There is now a documented impact being felt in backyard rinks around the world," Richter concludes. "It is truly a loss when these opportunities vanish in the shifting terrain of climate change."

http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/...-future-hockey

Here's the NHL's 2014 sustainability report, it's actually a pretty impressive piece of work and by far the best report of its kind from any of the North American pro sports leagues:

http://www.nhl.com/green/report/index.html#aboutReport