1.)Inevitably your point comes down to conflating the organization of hockey with individual hockey talent. Two distinct concepts that you combine in an effort to support a unique point of view. Hockey talent as defined by the ability to skate, manipulate a puck with a stick, properly position your body to optimize various hockey movements has not changed over time like you pretend. All of this is govrned by the laws of physics,human mechanics, gravity, the age at which people learn skills, the age at which people start to lose skills. Laws of physics, human mechanics, have not changed since ice hockey became a popular sport, same as they were previous to the popularity of ice hockey and it is a safe bet that they will not change in the forseable future.
Alot written here but I have no idea on what it means.
Basically when Frank McKee played hockey was still very amateur with clubs very much extensions of social groups like clubs based on social cliques and nationality ect...
a modern comparison would be womans soccer in early years dominated by 1 or 2 teams with a huge head start advantage but then a huge explosion making it extremely difficult to compare the early video game scoring stars to current players in a more established and competitive time.
2.)Era bias. The recent Euro Project is a prime example. Further back the participants went in the 20th century the harder it became to find contemporary newspaper account about the amateur European players as well as the amateur Canadiens and Americans they were competing against. There would be sparks of information because some of the NA amateurs became future NHLers, so a rough idea started to emerge that the leading Europeans of the pre WWII era or pre 1969 IIHF Rule change era were pretty good players. Yet participants were reluctant to give them too much or full credit.
It's pretty clear that the earlier WHC competitions were quite a bit weaker in both elite and depth terms than the development in the late 60's and in the 70's.
Who are all these great players who went onto the NHL?
Names and context please.
3.)Your constant misrepresentation of what you refer to as all Canadian hockey.
Recognized fact that no one cares about because every one else recognizes that non Canadian ice hockey players - Americans, European were very smart people. They could actually count and figure out that the NHL or AHL salaries that were offered to non Canadian hockey players were vastly inferior that they could earn at home or like in the case of Drobny a small fraction that he could earn from pro tennis. So unless you could show that there is some obligation for any person to work at a job for about 1/5 to 1/3 of the salary they could earn doing the same job elsewhere or at another trade or profession, you have no point. Furthermore it is fairly easy to show that quality Canadian players were foresaking pro hockey or NHL because they could earn much more doing other things. Still happens. Happened even in the partially integrated NHL when Fred Arthur gave up a very promising hockey career while playing in the NHL for a career in medicine. Others have made similar decisions in the last 20 years.
no I have looked at it very closely, the number of Fred Arthurs' (potential top 5 or 6 Dmen pursuing other avenues) is quite small really and insignificant.
players from BC, the maritimes and United stated even amking the NHL were a rarity pre expansion and the number of imapct players is a handfull at best...period.
Contrast that to BC and in the 90's there was Brett Hull, Paul Kariya, Cam Neely and a guy named Joe Sakic just to name elite type of players.
Fact of the matter is that pro hockey throughout history never featured 100% of the best talent available. A sizeable number of qualified players always refused to participate because they had better paying options as compensation for their time.
No you are pretty wrong there pre considerations and the fall of the western league, pros were split among at least 2 different leagues and then from the late 20's to the early 70's it's an almost exclusive 100% All Canadian NHL with players from the 2 coasts far and few between never mind any elite talent.
The above view is either distorting or ignoring the realty of both NHL talent and it's composition and the rest of the world and how it's talent related to the NHL at any period of time.
Take any 2 points in time 10 to 20 years apart and they are quite different both in the NHL and outside of it.
