After Canadian women win the worlds, the future seems unlimited for some young girls in Ottawa.

A hockey camp where being black doesn't mean you stand out in the crowd.

"Everything I am is because of him," declares Wayne Gretzky of his father, Walter. In this CBC Television clip, the world's most famous hockey player and the world's most famous hockey dad talk about the father-son bond that is rooted in Canada's national game. "I just think I told him to play good," Walter says. Wayne demurs. It was, the great son says, much more than that.

On winter mornings, in homes across Canada, a weekend ritual begins with an alarm clock piercing the darkness. A sleepy child is coaxed into clothes. The car slowly warms while parent and player navigate icy roads to the arena. Sometimes you wonder "why on earth you do this," says Roy MacGregor, hockey dad and author of The Seven A.M. Practice: Stories of Family Life, in this clip from CBC Television's Midday.

Once banished behind the boards, young girls are finally getting a chance to play minor hockey.

It's minor hockey week in Canada – "the world's greatest hockey spectacle." More than 125,000 youngsters will take part in events in towns and cities across the country. As we hear in this CBC Radio clip, the number of boys in organized hockey in the early '60s is growing rapidly. Jack Christie of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association has some advice for parents: "To keep a boy out of hot water, put him on ice."

Players put their faith in lucky numbers, unwashed T-shirts and charmed sticks.

Envy the Laprairies of Regina. Their backyard rink would be the delight of many a town. It's big, it has boards and banners that flutter in the breeze and when night falls, they simply flip on the lights. Maurice Laprairie says he's added new features every year, mostly for his own enjoyment. "The kids would be happy with a sheet of ice and two nets," he says in this CBC Television clip. His work has paid off though.

Why do fewer kids want to play organized hockey?

For the Davies family of Aurora, Ont., a typical Sunday morning is like the start of a military operation. On a table sits a black monthly planner. Inside are three colour-coded schedules — one for each boy — listing games and locations. Today, two of the boys also have referee duties in separate arenas. In this CBC Radio clip, a reporter rides shotgun with Joe and Lindsay Davies through an exhausting day of hockey that spans almost 12 hours and many kilometres.