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Nalin Bhargava was at his daughter’s hockey game at Carleton University about three years ago when he saw the roster of teams using the private ice surface posted on a bulletin board.

They were all girls’ teams.

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Bhargava, dentist, hockey dad and president of the Ottawa Girls Hockey Association, wondered why there wasn’t a single boys’ team on the list. When he asked around, he found that girls’ teams were buying time on private ice more often than boys’ teams.

Ice time is a coveted commodity in hockey circles. Teams have to pay about $160 for an hour on a city rink and about twice that in a private arena. Hockey leagues use as much city time as possible before turning to more expensive private sources.

For Bhargava, the information that girls teams were paying more often for private ice flew against assurances from the city that time was distributed equitably according to a formula. If the formula worked, why were girls’ teams buying so much ice time? he asked himself.