I can definitely attest to this...

I played tee ball and baseball as a kid, up until high school and lost interest but in elementary school, whenever they start hockey... I wanted in. I had a group of 6 "best friends" and 4 of them got to play. Now, I went to a school in a kind of... Well off city, while we weren't really super well off like the others. My dad owned a construction company but they were newish and he was just starting to make money way back then... They said no. Iirc it was $400+ to play. For all the equipment and to get in. This is in Minnesota. I wish I remembered their last names... Because I'm sure one of them is playing somewhere now. It's MN for God's sake and I remember how good he was so young. I bet his parents paid for outside training and all that.

I wasn't happy at all. There were rinks EVERYWHERE around us and all 6 of us lived by each other, so my dad took me to "Play it again sports" (probably went out of biz) who sold new and used gear and we got some new but about medium price not high end shit like they gave the fucking ELEMENTARY team lol and we're able to leave with skates, a stick, a helmet, and I ended up getting gloves later. I might not have had a jersey, but I had enough to put a "uniform" together and play with them which meant a lot to me back then.

I actually got pretty good too... I wanted to be a goalie in school which was even more money, but I became a pretty damn good skater, puck handler, and scorer and honestly would have done well if let play at school. Fuck how expensive it was. And that was all school cost. Like they had ready made "kits" of gear and it was all high end great stuff we had some of the best jerseys... Shit like that. That's why it was so fucking much.