“These kids, who are 12 to 15, they’re playing 70 games a year…All they do is play hockey. They don’t get their feet out of skates, they play too many games and they develop an overuse injury.

That ‘outlaw league’ was a private operation that offered these kids full-ice hockey once a week in a loop that featured only two teams. It was essentially an opportunity for these kids to get ...

But even then, Atwell couldn’t help but wonder why the other kids from his Keele and Eglinton community weren’t out there with him. “We would play street hockey right around the corner ...