There's a pretty healthy sprinkling of minorities at the youth levels as well. I'd say the largest increase is from Middle-Eastern kids and Asian kids. Black kids play as well but I wouldn't say there's much of an increase over from when I was a kid.
Honestly, the racism types of issues seem to be almost non-existent. A lot of kids don't even know racial slurs for minorities (outside of the obvious ones, but I can't say I've ever seen a 14 year old call another a n*****). But it's tough to know what is said to each other on the ice. I had a kid call me a redskin once because my face was red from being outside. I had to explain to him why he can't say that, which is a good thing. It shows that parents aren't teaching their kids that crap, because there's not really anywhere else they can pick it up from.
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