Not necessarily. I grew up in the northern-most school district of MI in a U.P. town (Calumet) with roughly 3,000 and it was encouraged to play hockey. If you go to school and you're not a welfare bum, you can play hockey. Hell, even a couple kids from welfare families ended up playing hockey. The geographic location surely had something to do with it, but that's besides the point of the thread. The kids from the block/ghetto/etc is part of a much larger issue.
My town was state champs in MI a few times in the 80's/90's btw.