Road Hockey in Newmarket

There has been some discussion as of late about whether Road Hockey is allowed in the Town of Newmarket. Technically, there is a bylaw that restricts the playing of sports and activities on our streets. In my mind, it has always been a non-issue, nobody has ever been charged with breaking the bylaw in Newmarket’s history. Heck, I played road hockey on Newmarket streets as a kid myself. It’s a rite of passage for all youth. Its what we do in Canada.

Recently there was a complaint about some youth playing ball Hockey and the Ward 6 Councillor, Maddie DiMuccio brought this matter to Councils attention. One of Councillor DiMuccio’s solutions was to have staff examine implementing a permit system and restricting road hockey to cul-de-sacs or certain streets.

I think sometimes we can complicate issues with red tape. I don’t support limiting it to just certain streets and making people call in for a permit. Let’s find a way to let kids play hockey on all our streets. For the most part kids are pretty responsible…they’re not going to play on a busy street because they don’t want to stop the game every 30 seconds yelling ‘CAR!!’.

Let us let children play ball hockey on our streets and not overly complicate a process. This is Canada – it’s in our blood!