Not necessarily. Generations of kids in Canada played some sort of hockey without ever strapping on skates and getting on the ice. Simple, basic, and inexpensive sticks (compared to what the pros use, anyway) are available in any sporting goods store, and all you need after that is a ball of some sort, and something to delineate a goal. Then, you can play anywhere: the schoolyard, an empty parking lot, or a quiet residential street (hence the name “road hockey”). No ice, skates, helmets or pads necessary.
There are a number of other forms of games where the object is to use a stick to put an object in a goal, none of which use ice or skates, but all of which resemble hockey. I remember playing something called cosom hockey in the gym at elementary school, and floor hockey in the gym at high school. Another variation is ringette–hockey sticks with the blades cut off, where you try to put a ring of some sort (we used an old car air filter) into the goal. And then there’s broomball, as well: brooms, not sticks, and a ball the size of a dodgeball, but broomball is recognizably a hockey-like game. None of the above absolutely require ice or skates, and can be played in a gym, though ringette and broomball can be played on ice also.
Participating in hockey is surprisingly easy and inexpensive if you can get away from the “requires skates and pads and ice” mindset.
I played touch and tackle football a handful of times as a kid, informally, with friends/classmates in elementary school. That’s my only playing experience.
I played soccer for a number of years in a formal setting, up to and including high school.
I played quite a bit of baseball as a kid, informally (neighborhood games) and was usually the pitcher because nobody else could pitch even close to a strike zone.
Ironically for me, I follow sports to the inverse of my participation. I’m mostly a football fan, casually a baseball fan, and very rarely catch a pro soccer match. (I may have watched a half dozen soccer matches ever in my entire lifetime.)
I guess that there are sports I play and sports I watch, and they are mutually exclusive.
I agree with Leaffan that you can still watch and enjoy hockey without following the puck - just by watching the players as plays develop. They are drawn to the puck like magnets. However, this sort of viewing is a skill and I would gather casual viewers not knowing much about the game (2-line pass, icing, offside, etc.), on top of the quick pace of play, are going to lose patience swiftly.
As for not having access to a rink or not actually playing organized hockey, as Spoons says, my father grew up in Brooklyn and played street hockey with the neighborhood kids. Generations of New Yorkers got exposed to hockey this way and became rabid Rangers fans as a result. Having a hometown team is a big boost to hockey awareness.
But, as others are saying, the regional nature of the sport, limited league play at early ages and high school and college, and limited TV exposure seem to keep hockey on a lower tier than other sports. That doesn’t make it less important, in my mind, since the traditions around the Stanley Cup exceed anything the other sports have.
All that said, soccer is easily available to kids of all ages, in any city. However, something seems to happen around high school and college where interest seems to wane, and for some reason it never seems to have caught-on at a professional level the way baseball, basketball, and football have. I know MLS has been making inroads with expansion and TV exposure - but it still seems to be behind the big-3.
The relationship between sport participation and fandom is not really that firm. Soccer is a huge participation sport in the USA and Canada, but is a B-level professional sport.
Maybe they could try putting a light or something on the puck?
Well, like I said, the Steelers will always be at the top, but the Penguins aren’t that far behind.*
And I remember when I was in high school, because THOSE were the days of Mario and Jagr, (I was in 7th and 8th grade when we won our first 2 Cups)
Maybe I just have a lot of hockey fans in my family. (My cousin used to play for the Penguins youth hockey affiliate)
*Either way, they BOTH get more attention than the Pirates – fuck Bob Nutting.
The FoxTrax system was widely criticized by hockey fans, who felt that the graphics were distracting and meant to make the broadcasts cater towards casual viewers; sportswriter Greg Wyshynski stated that FoxTrax was “cheesy enough that it looked like hockey by way of a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers production budget”, and considered it “a sad commentary on what outsiders thought of both hockey and American hockey fans”. Acknowledging that Canadian-born journalist Peter Jennings (who was interviewed as a guest during the 1996 All-Star Game that introduced the technology) stated on-air that Canadians would “probably hate it”, Wyshynski suggested that FoxTrax was an admission that American viewers were “too hockey-stupid to follow the play” or “need to be distracted by shiny new toys in order to watch the sport.”
I remember this because I worked at the company that developed the technology (but in another area).
