Here are some facts related to the sport of hockey.
For the 2024-25 season Hockey Canada had over 603,000 registered players and a record was set at more than 115,000 of those players were registered to play women / girls hockey (these numbers do not count any of the kids playing in any league outside of the Hockey Canada umbrella).
https://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/ne...rows-2025-corp
Alberta had 11,471 registered to play women / girls hockey - representing 19% of our more than 60,000 players (second for female hockey registrations only to Ontario).
https://www.hockeyalberta.ca/news/03...%20U15%20level
Prior to resigning from the Board of Hockey Alberta due to the nature of the legal obligations imposed on me by the Alberta government's ban (which I described in a previous post in another thread):
https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...53#post9489153
I specifically asked for and was advised there was no available example of a single incident / problem / complaint in relation to a transgender athlete who was born male playing in female hockey in Alberta. Not one.
The Hockey Canada official policy is that if a kid shows up to register in any development or recreational level and says they want to play female hockey they are allowed to (up until when competition reaches the point where IIHF rules apply).
For high-performance international competition, IIHF rules govern but in general Hockey Canada supports inclusion unless there is a justified medical or safety issue to be addressed.
https://cdn.hockeycanada.ca/hockey-c...y-policy-e.pdf
Prior to the ban Alberta was employing the Hockey Canada policy without incident.
At least in relation to hockey, this was a non-existent problem that was invented and 'fixed' with the impunity of a no-debate ramming through of a substantively useless law with a pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause to delete protected human rights of Albertans (which are not just in the Fed's Charter but in Alberta's own Bill of Rights and Human Rights Act).
Connecting back to the Skate Canada announcement I note my comments from my earlier post:
Quote:
The final straw for me came when the government announced it would exempt out-of-province athletes from the application of the Fairness and Safety in Sport Regulation. It seems this was likely necessary (at least in hockey where the national and international governing bodies have inclusive evidence based policies that are incompatible with Alberta's ban) for the government to be sure they could still make truckloads of money from, and have the prestige of hosting, national championships and international events...of which several are already in the queue.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11286379/...ince-athletes/
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/loc...nto-2027-schow
So, in other words, biologically born male kids will still be allowed to play female-only hockey in Alberta (and hurt everyone on the ice and steal all the gold medals with impunity) so long as they don't live here.
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In my opinion, the level of dishonesty and brazen partisan ideology at play in relation to this issue is off the charts. And it is disappointing that it would appear the profit motive of Hockey Canada has dictated their response because instead of refusing to hold national and international competitions in Alberta it is my understanding they have exempted Alberta from complying with their governing policy.
I am fully prepared to accept that in some sports and at higher levels of competition in particular, this is an issue that may need to be addressed because there may be genuine evidence-based reasonable safety or fairness of competition issues. But the Alberta ban bears no resemblance to anything genuine evidence based or reasonable.
