I'm actually going to flip the script a little and argue that the INTENTION isn't to drive out community sport.

The outdoor rink example (over-scheduling) was driven by:

• Over worry about injury
• Over worry about children interacting with older people (teens/adults)
• Complaints by a vocal minority of players (for example, there are dedicated women/girls times because some people complained about feeling uncomfortable in a male-dominated space)
• Complaints by a vocal minority of parents (a handful of parent complaints about their sense that their young kid was subjected to a small amount of discomfort from being on the rink with older teens or whatever).

None of this is driven by "my kid should be a star player", but more the opposite. The "hard core" families were probably pushing for less scheduling so they can show up at the rink whenever.

But on another topic...

Hockey is also similar in its cost. The cost of ice time for youth hockey has doubled in 12 years. That drives the sport into a place that it's not accessible for many families.

But the reason for that isn't hyper-competitiveness. It's actually reasonable sounding demands.

The handful of parents who are in the "my son will play pro hockey" aren't driving the cost. They're PAYING the cost, but they're not driving it.

Here's a thing I post sometimes about how hockey rinks used to be:

The local rink (back when it was cheap and therefore accessible to everyone in the 70s) was:

• run by some local guy, who was paid shit, not given any sick time and did it mostly as a passion
• limited staffing- The rink guy would take a break and leave it unsupervised ; local coaches were given full run of the place, had keys to the building, could run the ice refinisher if nobody was around to help, etc.
• were mostly unsupervised facilities - no safety monitor, no facilities monitor, limited janitorial, etc
• were operated on a shoestring budget without a ton of concern for environmental issues (often ammonia leaks, frequently with cheap diesel generators)
• were not terribly safe. Old slippery stairs, old dank locker rooms, little supervision for participants (except coaches and team officials). I'm thinking of specific rinks in Toronto here built in the 1950s and 1960s... but I've seen hallways outside of the locker rooms had beams every 10 feet at about 6' off the ground to hit your head on, the exit to the ice going straight into a staircase (always covered in ice), player benches with a drop off directly behind them, narrow locker rooms, shower stalls just in the corner of the locker room with no barriers or otherwise, urinals directly in locker rooms with no door or separate space, etc.
• were not accessible at all. Stairways everywhere, obstructed hallways, no ramps, no elevators, no expanded shower stalls, no handrails, etc

Here's a list of things that I think drove the cost of indoor rinks to double in 15 years:

• Hiring more people to make rinks highly supervised for safety and property protection
• Paying rink staff professional wages with sick time, overtime, etc, while offering breaks without disrupting supervision (requires 3-5x the staff at 6-8x the budget).
• Significantly reducing the amount of access coaches have to facilities, players, etc (goes along with increased supervision/staffing) done mostly for safety and compliance and having multiple layers of supervision to prevent coach abuse.
• Making rinks more environmentally friendly - efficient chillers, careful inspection for leaks, regular review of energy usage, efficient air conditioning and heating in facilities, etc.
• Making rinks more safe in general (no more leaky roofs, slippery staircases, temporary patches, etc)
• Making rinks more accessible (all 75 indoor Toronto rinks had a $1m+ renovation to make them accessible - ramps, big showers, viewing platforms for wheelchairs, elevators, etc)
• Making new facilities significantly nicer. Heated viewing areas, large locker rooms, ample atriums, nice fixtures, clean hallways, etc.
• Decreased reliance on volunteers, coaches, etc. No more giving the figure skating coach the key to open up at 5am and the bantam hockey coach instructions to "run the zam and lock up after you leave". Instead, you have full-time professional staff that show up at 4:30am and leave after midnight (needing multiple shifts, etc).

Notice that none of the things that drove the complaints I have about hockey are even related to the "alpha parents" who try to push their kids into pro hockey.

Each of these sounds reasonable on its face. All of them are desirable.

But the sum total is doubling the cost of the sport and making it less accessible.

People are VERY loathe to discuss this. They want it all AND they want it cheap. When a local arena upped their ice cost by $100/hr everyone was upset.

When I pointed out that the only reason they did that is to pay for the $1m renovation whos primary goal was wheelchair accessibility (for a building that hosts ZERO sledge or other disabled hockey events) and if they didn't want that cost hike, they could consider maybe only upgrading specific arenas where sledge hockey is prioritized, rather than every single one, people were pretty upset with me for being "heartless" and "ableist". But there are legitimate tradeoffs here that people seem to have trouble discussing.

I feel like this is all driven by a "zero tolerance" of bad things, without weighing all the good things you accidentally get rid of when trying to chase away every single negative outcome.