Save Hockey, Stop Climate Change

Tucson Hockey Players Join an International Movement to Take a Stand for Mother Earth.

“Save Hockey, Stop Climate Change�

There may not ever be much chance of playing on an ice covered lake in the Sonoran desert. But if we keep changing our climate, there won’t be frozen lakes to play hockey on anywhere else on earth either.

On Saturday, February 18th, at 7:00pm, a bunch of Tucson hockey players are joining in solidarity with cities in Canada and Europe to hold a game for Mother Earth. Similar hockey games will be played in over 50 cities of different countries around the world. Our Tucson rag tag bunch of hockey players play on cement and with a ball, so they sympathize with their Northern brethren whose memories of playing on a frozen pond are melting fast.

Through their passion for hockey, this group of Tucson women and men want to encourage the United States government to join take climate change seriously. The United States is the one of very few “developed” countries who is too short-sited to sign it. The Kyoto Accord is a series of sensible international commitments that are crucial to ensuring stopping global warming.

Many people are concerned about the effect of climate change on the melting of the arctic icecaps and the increase in intensity and frequency of hurricanes, but not many realize that climate change will also have a profound effect on the winter tourism and sports industry. A UN report states the obvious: “Climate Change is a severe threat to snow-related sports.” In fact, even the Winter Olympics are threatened. The World Resources Institute warns that global warming threatens the success of the entire Winter Olympics this century.

A recent pond hockey tournament being organized by the Northern Climate Exchange in Whitehorse (in the Canadian Arctic) this winter, was cancelled because of abnormally high temperatures. The cancellation of this Arctic hockey event provides an ironic exclamation point for the game this Saturday in Tucson.

This Tucson group of women and men call themselves the Pima Street Hockey League. They play pick-up games twice a week and always welcome new players.

For more information about the Pima Street hockey league, go to www.pimastreethockey.com

For more information about climate change and the Kyoto Accord, go to www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change

For more information about the save hockey movement, go to www.savehockey.ca