Two-time Canadian Olympic gold medallist Natalie Spooner partnered with True Hockey to launch a national advocacy campaign about protecting children playing street hockey.
Toronto Sceptres center Natalie Spooner wants Canadian children to get back on the streets and play hockey.
Spooner and True Hockey launched a national advocacy campaign this week seeking to reclaim Canadian streets for ball hockey and outdoor play. Low levels of outdoor play among youth and rat-running drivers sparked a desire for change and the idea for a prototype hockey ball.
"I grew up playing ball hockey on the street; it's where I fell in love with the game and helped fuel my game on the ice as well," Spooner, a True Hockey athlete, said in a news release. "As parents, we shouldn't have to choose between modern navigation and our kids' safety."
"Rat-running" happens when drivers take shortcuts through residential streets to avoid busy main routes and traffic lights. It can happen when navigation apps look for the fastest route by using real-time traffic data.
That makes it more difficult for ball hockey games to take place, since players would have to constantly move the nets back and forth.
Only 15 percent of children aged 5 to 11 and 4.9 percent of adolescents aged 12 to 17 spend two or more hours outdoors daily in physical activity, according to Participaction's 2024 Physical Activity Report for Children and Youth.
So True Hockey, which also partnered with Dentsu Canada for the campaign, presented the Game On Ball.
The prototype road hockey ball is designed to trick navigation apps into showing a traffic jam on the residential street when people are actually playing a game.
"The goal for us is to shine a light on an issue that is quietly erasing a Canadian tradition," said True Hockey chief marketing officer Derek Kent. "We are a company that is focused on innovation and supporting our youth to play hockey both on and off the ice."
The Game On Ball prototype has a vibration trigger that would alert navigation apps about traffic on the road. (Image courtesy of True Hockey)The ball, which is not intended for commercial sale, would be connected to a base platform that charges it when not in use. When the Game On Ball is used during a game, a vibration trigger would alert the base, which would then send location data to a server and simulate a traffic jam.
Another possibility, however, is having navigation apps include a setting that avoids neighborhood streets and rat-running, keeping cars on main arteries.
The campaign encourages Canadians to visit TrueGameOn.com to take a poll on whether they want that setting in navigational apps, alongside the options to avoid toll roads, highways and ferries.
Spooner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist with Team Canada, said in the campaign video that she learned a lot while playing ball hockey that translated to the ice.
"When you're out just playing free, you can be creative and really work on skills that maybe you wouldn't on the ice because you don't have that time," Spooner said in the edited video.
"So maybe take that road that's one minute longer just so we can save the game for the next generation, too."
Disclaimer: True Hockey is owned by W. Graeme Roustan, the owner and publisher of The Hockey News.