Montreal island: 62 arenas in all

   There are 62 arenas on the island of Montreal (plus Bizard Island) according to this map.
   The list includes community hockey rinks but also lists private places the L.C.C. arena and commercial rinks such as the Bell Centre and the 1000 de la Gauchetiere rink).
     Many of the newer ones are double-barreled affairs, with two rinks in the same facility, including the ones in Verdun, St. Henri, Rosemount, Rod Gilbert arena in the east end, as well as the upcoming underground Westmount arena.
   A few of the biggest rinks even have seats on both sides, which is probably overkill for most leagues but impressive nonetheless. Some have excellent snack kiosks such as at Bill Durnan Arena on Vezina and the Oullette Arena in St. Michel. Some other arenas contain little pro shops with skate sharpening and other services, but most do not.
    I have visited almost half of all of these rinks within the last couple of years, and I'd say that the most outdated are the Doug Harvey Arena and the St. Charles arena, which has a swimming pool under the same roof. The Francis Boullion on Prefontaine rink is also pretty dingy.
   The Mantha rinks at Gadbois in the Hank and the rinks in St. Michel are probably the nicest I've seen and the shiny Cote St. Luc rink is pretty impeccable too.
    Some neighbourhoods have to share a rink, for example Hampstead and Montreal West both play in the Montreal West arena, which I have not visited since I lived there for a year as a kid, as the NDG teams my son plays for never plays against that time in spite of its proximity.
   Some rinks, such as the Centre Sud are very discreet, as the local encatchment area doesn't appear to have enough critical mass to form a team in many of the divisions, so I've never set my foot in that arena.
   NDG and Cote des Neiges both play under the NDG banner, as relatively few kids from Cote des Neiges play organized hockey, it would seem.
   Cote des Neiges, NDG and St. Henri all unite to form a single double-letters team, which I would say is too much as it's well over 165,000 people in one team area.
   The rinks don't only host hockey, they also offer free skating, figure skating, ringuette and speed skating (at least the Mantha arena in St. Hank does the speed skating which seems very cool). But from my sense of things the young boys playing hockey accounts for the great majority of what happens at these rinks.
   Parents come in all forms. Many just drop their kids off and go home. Games with the young kids are better-attended more enthusiastically cheered by those on hand, same with those at higher levels.
    I've heard a lot of complaints about parents getting obsessed with putting their kids into double-letter hockey teams, which play more competitively than those with single letters.
   One parent tells me that parents will even put their kid in a variety of leagues and keep him in the league which promotes him the highest.
   A tutor once told me that a large percentage of the kids she teaches are from families whose parents push their kids in hockey at the expense of their studies, something she found stupefyingly dumb, considering that almost none of these kids will ever play professionally and even if they do, chances are that it won't be for big money in the NHL.
   One parent with I know pulled his kid from double letter hockey because he said the other parents were like a mafia clique (with everything that implies on an ethnographic level).
   That all being said, however, minor hockey gets a very unfair rap in my view, the so-called problem of parents abusing referees or kids getting concussions is highly overblown and there's a lot of love and friendship involved in these kids and parents getting together.
   Doesn't hurt when your kid's team wins. My son, who is in his second year playing for the Atom A Cougars, has racked up a season of 18-1-1 with one tournament victory on top of that, (added to the 23-7-3 season last year made Atom A a lot of fun).
   Most of these rinks are funded by the local taxpayer, I'm told that the hockey league to the tune of about 80 percent. They're a real bargain for parents but having a kid playing hockey involves some driving around, which eliminates a lot of poorer kids from the sport.
   I also believe that girls' sports are less-well funded by than boys sports and aim to provide some statistical argument for that when I can get my numbers together, any help in creating that argument would be appreciated.