Vlad The Impaler said:
The average has not changed in over 40 years
It is 5'9 like it or not
the national average is the average of everybody, whether they are 45cm tall babies or shrinking 90 year old seniors, whether they are midgets or freakishly big. the average size of hockey players is deffinately more than 5'9 and is constantly increasing. the average for drafting goaltender height has increased nearly an inch in the past 5 years. in the NHL 50 years ago the average weight was 166lbs. now it a feather shy of 200lbs to 203lbs depending on who you consider to be in the NHL and who not. the average height of an NHL player 40 years ago was 5'11, now it is 6'1.
and it is not like it is only in the NHL. in the AHL, the stats are nearly identical, yet that is the league that the small skilled North American players are supposed to be stuck in due to the lack of size. the average height of the Central Hockey League is over 6 feet. the average size of Canada's World Junior team was 6'1, 202lbs (some sources say 205lbs, but i'm not going to bother adding them up to get the average).. and they haven't finished growing.
and over the past 40 years, the average height of all North Americans has increased 1 and a half inches btw (from 5'8 to 5'9 1/2), and nearly 25 lbs heavier. that's just 1 and a half generations. once the baby boomers are gone you'll see that height increase another good inch or two. the elderly represent 1 in 8 people right now, which is a big high and has increased up to 25% in some areas over the past decade. using the National Average is extremely flawed in discussing height of NHL caliber athletes.
you better come up with a good counter argument, because all of that took a lot of research (man, do i need a life).
Cosis said:
2. My definitions of big are not overzealous. I do not consider 6'0 200 to be big. Thats normal sized nhl standards but not big.
neither do i, as that's the NHL average. i do however, consider players that are 6'1-6'2, 210-215lbs big. they make up some of the hardest hitting players in the league. Jarome Iginla is the best player in the league that's a power forward, and he's 6'1, 208lbs.
3. Big skill guys are much harder to find then anything. This is a fact. Cripes almighty. Call up any NHL GM and ask him how hard it is to find a big guy with skill and see what he tells you. If it was so friggin easy thered be 700 guys 6'4 230 skating around.
who said they have to be 6'4, 230lbs to be big? there's a lot more players over the average that are highly skilled than player under the average that are. there's a lot more Jagr's, Forsberg's and Iginla's than there are St Louis', Sullivan's, and Gomez's.
4. Using the NBAs big guys as an example of how the bigger a person is the less cordinated they are, is perfectly acceptable and a perfect example. This is why guys 6'4 do not usually skate as well as guys who are 5'11.
now you are claiming it's a perfect example? i'm sorry, but to be tall and lanky enough to drunk the ball isn't going to translate into NHL skills.
5. NHL players have gotten bigger because *drum roll*...The clutch and grab game.
NHL players have gotten bigger because they've evolved with the game. that's not going to change. when the NHL has grown fast, physical, and mobile defenders, the forwards now need the size, speed, and skill to play against them.
If you want to think that teams are gonna pass up smaller skilled guys then larger physical guys, thats your choice. I disagree. Skill will reign supreme again in the new NHL.
the NHL will continue to draft skilled players with size. and those will be the ones that make the NHL because those are the ones that will be able to compete with the other skilled players with size.