Chapter FIVE

Youth sports are where everything starts. Before the stadiums and the lights and the logos, it begins with a patch of ice, a stretch of grass, and a few people who care enough to make it happen. It is parents tying skates, kids chasing a puck, and a coach teaching what effort really means. It is where every great story in sports quietly begins.

That part of the game has always stayed with me, the part that happens before anyone is watching. Lately I have been assisting with my daughter’s team, the Ravens, and getting back into coaching has been a reminder of what sport truly means. There is one little boy on the team learning how to move in all that new equipment. His shin pads and his skates and his gloves. Everything still feels heavy and still feels new. For the first three weeks, every time he fell, he tried to get back up again and again until he was nearly exhausted. He kept trying. Each time he rose, the ice taught him something new about balance and patience and trust. He was building belief one fall at a time.

That is what makes youth sports special. They teach effort before reward and belief before results. They remind players and coaches and parents that growth begins with trying.

One afternoon, I was walking through a Tim Hortons and saw a man standing in line with his phone. He was not scrolling through social media or checking messages. He was watching a sport I had never seen before. The screen showed a game that looked like a mix of wrestling and football and rugby. Thousands of fans filled the stands. I had no idea what it was called, yet he was completely focused. That moment carried weight. Somewhere people were cheering for a game I had never heard of. Different rules. Different uniforms. The same emotion and the same pride and the same connection.

A friend out west once told me about another sport that lives in that same spirit. Bunnock, also known as the Game of Bones. In Macklin, Saskatchewan, the entire community has celebrated it for twenty six years. Every August long weekend, thousands gather as more than three hundred teams of four compete in the World Bunnock Championship. It began with settlers and became part of their community identity. It is a game that brings people together. You can feel the laughter and the energy and the pride.

That is the essence of sports. They are not defined by leagues or coverage or fame. They are defined by belonging. They are stories of people who keep showing up and creating meaning through motion.

Through experience, that understanding grows deeper. Working in professional sports felt like a gift. The offices buzzed with ambition and every hallway carried the weight of legacy and the hope of what could be. You could feel the pulse of a city in those walls. Through that experience came gratitude, a full awareness of what it meant to be part of something larger than yourself. Every fan reflected the same feeling that lives in youth arenas and small town fields. Every fan carried that same heartbeat.

That energy taught us something timeless. It taught us the power of proximity and the privilege of access and the responsibility to use both for something good. That awareness is where the vision began. It shaped the belief that connection is the soul of sports, that being close to the game in spirit and in energy and in community is what keeps it alive.

You never forget where you come from. You never forget what it feels like to walk into a stadium for the first time or to see your heroes skate by. That memory becomes momentum. It starts quietly and grows louder until it becomes the reason you build things that give that same feeling back to others.

That is the heartbeat behind this vision. It is about honoring that spark, the one that lives in small town tournaments and early morning practices and Bunnock fields and city arenas. It is about creating a world where every one of those moments can be seen and shared and celebrated.

Every parent in the stands and every coach on the bench and every kid finding balance on their first pair of skates together form the real network effect. They are the community that fuels every dream that follows. When you look at it through that lens, the distance between youth sports and community leagues and professional arenas fades away. It all connects into one living and breathing system of passion and purpose.

That is what keeps the vision alive. That is why we keep believing. The future of sport is not far away. It lives right here in every town that keeps playing and every family that keeps believing. The world is full of games that many of us have never seen and communities we have yet to meet. The feeling they create is the same everywhere. It is joy. It is pride. It is belonging.

That is what we are part of. That is what we are working toward. A world where every game has a home, every player has a story, and every community can see itself on the scoreboard.

That is where the game begins again.

Play local. Cheer loud. Celebrate team spirit.