Hockey is big in Canada (naturally) as well as in the United States and northern Europe. The IIHF and the NHL are making concerted efforts to grow the game in East Asia, particularly China, and also in Australia. Hitherto, Latin America has been largely neglected in all of this, and yet, Latin America is a promising prospect when it comes to exponentially growing the game in the coming years and decades. Already, there have been NHLers of Latin descent such as Bill Guerin and Scott Gomez plus a superstar of Mexican American descent in Auston Mathews. But we have not yet seen a Latin born and raised NHLer. We might be closer to seeing it than you might think though.
The first major hurdle is exposure. Many Latin Americans have never seen a game of hockey and probably couldn’t tell you how the game is played. The good news is that this is slowly beginning to change for a number of reasons. For starters, both Canada and the United States especially are home to large Latino diasporas that are inevitably exposed to the game through the major sports networks like ESPN or Sportsnet. Second and third generation kids whose parents have the means may even be signed up to play in youth leagues and a few will naturally be good enough to aspire to an NHL career. As noted earlier, this has already happened in a few cases. It is also good news that Kraft Hockeyville made its way to El Paso, smackdab on the US-Mexico border, a few years back.
As far as making inroads south of the border itself, there are encouraging developments on multiple fronts. The NHL has gotten ESPN to dish out an assist for the goal of showing games in Latin America to Spanish speaking audiences. You can’t follow what you can’t see so it’s good that people in Latin America can actually experience hockey for themselves. Glancing at social media, it is nice to see Spanish speaking Twitter accounts greet hockey with enthusiasm and genuine curiosity about the game (Note the reaction to this goal by Paul Cotter). Note, the fact that dropping the gloves only gets you a five minute timeout in the sin bin seems to be popular, especially in a place like Mexico where boxing is huge. (Worth pointing out also that this fight is not even from an NHL game and it was a doozy)
Another promising development is the LatAm Cup, which was constituted in 2018 but has yet to receive formal recognition from the IIHF. It is now the premiere tournament for Latin American national teams to compete against each other and as the game grows down there, this will become a more competitive and prestigious tournament. Today, the level of play is not at the level we want and players do not have the facility of devoting themselves fully to training. Procuring equipment and developing young talent at the grassroots level is another challenge that some NHL teams like the Kings and Coyotes have made an effort to address by setting up off-season clinics in Mexico for example. I would like to see the league expand this and have other teams participate, especially the other California based teams and the two Florida teams. The Stars would be a great team also for this purpose.
On the air waves, we have another large-scale opportunity for growth. Again, the LA Kings are at the forefront, with about a third of their games available in Spanish on the radio, with hopefully more to come at some point in the near future. Given the obvious similarities between hockey and soccer, combined with the faster pace of play in the former, this makes for very exciting broadcasts. Other teams have been hesitant to commit resources, unsure of whether or not ratings would bear fruit. The reigning Stanley Cup champs have been good about this though, with the Golden Knights making even playoff games available in Spanish and keeping a Spanish language Twitter account, as do the Coyotes. In front offices, Cuban-American former goalie Al Montoya has settled into a role with the Dallas Stars and is active in outreach to hispanic communities in the area.
Building the game in a region and with a demographic that had been largely ignored for decades will take some time. However, in the age of social media and in the age of an ever more connected world, this is nothing that a concerted effort cannot fix. Continued visibility and improved representation will lead the way forward into what can become a large and lucrative new fanbase for the NHL. The game is fun and exciting, capable of selling itself. It just needs the right level of salesmanship from its leaders to truly establish it in the rest of the new world.
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