Is hockey slowly becoming an aristocracy? (Need help answering this question)

OKR

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Nov 18, 2015
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Barkov’s dad was a pro hockey player in Finland and Russia, not his uncle.
 

Zenos

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Oct 4, 2009
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Genetics is a huge one, you can't be a pro athlete without pro athlete genetics, and as more pro athletes are discovered the probability of finding one whose parents weren't or who is the first one in the line to roll those genetics gets lower. You also can't be a pro athlete without a culture that pushes you toward that particular sport and parents that support you being an athlete as opposed to say pushing you to be a doctor or something. You also can't be a pro hockey player without affording hockey. All these things matter a lot, most (including the genetics) are not optional.

This is an interesting aspect to me too. Certainly a lot is spoken about kids of NHL players and the advantages (often nepotism) at play there...

But just looking at the Oilers roster for example (just because it's the one I'm most familiar with), you have guys like Darnel Nurse who's dad was a Canadian football WR (and his sister is a Canadian Basketball Olympian, cousin is a hockey Olympian) or Caleb Jones who's father was an NBA power forward. Even JJ Khaira's parents were apparently high-level volleyball players. So it seems that success in athletics in general is nearly as important as success in hockey specifically.

Chalking this up to wealth alone seems awfully simple.
 

ZenOil

Fast Twitch Hitch
Sep 23, 2010
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The nature of the sport will always make hockey expensive. Or any winter sport for that matter. The aristocracy is probably a combination of guidance, genetics, cash money.
 
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NightMist

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Mar 18, 2021
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The original thread, while commendable and interesting, will only produce false results that would be rejected as unusable by any legitmate institution. The reason? It is not a multi-variant analysis. Any findings outside of that kind of study would be subject to all the wrong avenues of causation and causality. Within our amateur hockey forum postings, its at least fun to bounce around among ourselves. It just won't give the right answer.
 
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Confused Turnip

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Nov 29, 2019
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It's a juvenile argument to suggest hockey is reserved for 'rich kids.' It is certainly not very accessible to poor kids (like many sports) but the middle class is quite obviously very well represented in hockey circles.
The average middle class household in Canada makes $62k/year (total for the household). Tuition to a top hockey school costs $60k/year.

I mean, I guess technically there is money left over...
 
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golfortennis

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So Jeff Petry is an interesting example. HIs dad was a good major league pitcher for many years, primarily with the Detroit Tigers. At least for elite level hockey, that is one of the hotbeds in the US. Petry was certainly in the upper echelon of income. So his son was not going to without opportunity.

I think the genetics play into athletes whose kids become high-performance athletes, although maybe not necessarily the same sport. Where the same sport comes into play is that a guy like a Nick Foligno or Matthew Tkachuk, grew up around the NHL rink. No doubt they got to spend a number of hours messing around on the ice with other players after the formal practice was over. As was mentioned, at a young age especially, this can be extremely valuable.

But don't discount the name opening doors. I know of baseball teams where kids have tried out, and are up against sons of major leaguers, who in some cases really aren't any better, but they were making the team no matter what. Perhaps there were "contributions" to the team's expenses, but in all likelihood, it was the name getting them there.

I think this is coming to an end, but it also helps show how ridiculous the NCAA amateurism is. Petry's son can have everything provided for him, and there is nothing said. But if you or I know a kid, maybe even since birth, and want to help him out, the NCAA would declare him ineligible.
 
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Nac Mac Feegle

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It's not what you know, it's who you know. Been like that forever, and not just in the sporting world.

The kids of players or have connections to the game at a high level definitely have more opportunities and "ins" to the game. Inside information, access to hockey minds and talent and the latest in training, nutrition and the tricks of the trade that others don't know about. Hell, even something as knowing the proper fit for gear (especially skates) or what type of curve or lie works best on your stick for your playstyle as a kid is a huge advantage to development. Knowing people who run the better youth programs, and having that NHL-connected surname is a big advantage to getting into the right programs and summer camps, too.

But, at the end of the day, you still have to be good enough to make it at the CHL/NCAA level to be a legit prospect for the NHL. The legacy kids are simply given better and more tools to maximize their potential compared to the majority of regular middle class kids.
 

Zenos

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Oct 4, 2009
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The average middle class household in Canada makes $62k/year (total for the household). Tuition to a top hockey school costs $60k/year.

I mean, I guess technically there is money left over...

Not to go all stats-nerd on you, but:

1) that's the median after-tax household income, not the average
2) that's the median Canadian income, not the median Canadian middle-class income

Still, I think your point stands. Just wanted to clarify
 

Bank Shot

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Jan 18, 2006
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This. Certainly there's some genetic advantage - studies related to other sports (mostly cycling) suggest that aerobic fitness (VO2 max) is about 50% heritable, the combination of slow-twitch (endurance) and fast-twitch (sprinting) muscle fibres is about 45% heritable, and strength and muscle mass is more than 50% heritable. So it's definitely not negligible.
But hockey (obviously) relies on a number of other attributes like agility and balance (which are apparently more "trainable" skills), not to mention the mental / or tactical aspect of the game.

I think it's mostly about environment in the case of these kids. They have the wealth and the opportunities; the right role-models, coaches and motivators (their own parents and their parent's circle); and probably a decent bit of name recognition and downright nepotism too.

Yeah nothing about a guy like Sam Ganger who is both small and slow screams genetic advantage.

He did have a refrigerated outdoor rink in his backyard so you could say that his biggest advantage was money.
 
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Pittsburgh1776

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Aug 9, 2010
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There isn’t a single current family “dynasty” that can be named by OP or anyone else. This is an interesting topic than can be studied, but only if people are interested in all the potential causal factors of why you might see people with family connections make it to the NHL. So far a lot of the replies just seem interested in problematizing yet another aspect of our society as some sort of capitalistic/nepotistic hellscape.

Hockey, like many other sports, depends on a lot of emotional, mental, and physical skills (as well as passion for the game) that are most advantageously developed early in life. People with a parent or brother in the NHL/advanced leagues would naturally be exposed to the game early and develop an interest in it. And it’s a lot easier to get into something when you know someone who has done it before and can let you know all the ins and outs and do’s and don’ts of professional hockey.

You need a lot more data than what was presented to make any kind of conclusion, not just in volume but in comprehensiveness to capture all the factors at play.
 

95snipes

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Dec 11, 2019
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I really dislike this kind of nonsense.

We're not seeing more family dynasties in the sport because of superior genetics. We're seeing them because these players come from wealthy families and are getting better opportunities to succeed than almost everyone else.
Both play a factor. Are you kidding me?
 
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Zenos

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Sam Gagner's dad played in the NHL for 15 years... bad example.

I think that was exactly the point he was trying to make.

But even then I‘d disagree with that simplistic idea. Just because Sam was „undersized“ by NHL standards, doesn’t mean he didn’t (also) inherit some other wonderful genes. I’d be willing to bet both Sam and his father have at least a few exception physical traits which lend themselves well to a career in hockey.
 
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TesseractPrice

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Aug 1, 2019
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Hockey has an extremely small player pool (<1.8 M per IIHF website). I'd bet the proportion of a player having another pro in his family is higher than other larger team sports like soccer and basketball

Hockey is more expensive than a lot of sports, especially so at the higher the level. Either having a rich family and/or one that can directly contribute to the teaching is obviously a major factor

I don't buy the gene argument to be an important one TBH. While genomics obviously play a huge factor on an athlete development, his environment is much more significant. Soccer and Basketball are full of players with modest backgrounds with no legacy of "genes" transmitted to the progeny; these guys are still freaks of nature though lol

Hockey is not seen as a ticket to wealth in less rich communities while these two sports are. There is a form of self-seggregation and social grouping going on in the sport. I don't really see it changing in the future too
 

admiralcadillac

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Oct 22, 2017
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Agreed, but hockey is more widespread and more popular than ever. The number of NHL teams (and thus roster spots) have increased significantly since the early 1990s. Is there something different, or worthwhile examining, that changed recently and can explain the sharp increase in percentage of players who have a family connection?

I think elite athletic ability is certainly genetic.

The other factor is wealth. Players born into nhl families have the wealth and connections that allow them to access high level hockey opportunities.
 

Fantomas

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Aug 7, 2012
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Chalking this up to wealth alone seems awfully simple.

Nobody's doing this. But ascribing athletic superiority to genetics is really bankrupt mentality, and aligns too closely with eugenics and various forms of scientific racism.
 

Fantomas

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Aug 7, 2012
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Both play a factor. Are you kidding me?

The extent to which genetics is mentioned in hockey discourse, you'd think it was a major factor and there's simply no evidence for that.

I can inherit propensity for heart disease from my family. I cannot inherit brilliant hockey talent.
 

Pittsburgh1776

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Aug 9, 2010
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The extent to which genetics is mentioned in hockey discourse, you'd think it was a major factor and there's simply no evidence for that.

I can inherit propensity for heart disease from my family. I cannot inherit brilliant hockey talent.

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about when it comes to genetics and athleticism. It’s not a bad thing to recognize, it’s a fact of life and everyone is talented at different things.
 

krutovsdonut

eeyore
Sep 25, 2016
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You're on to something very similar to what I was looking for in this thread:

Family relations as a measure of talent pool










At the end of the day, I didn't follow through with the project because I couldn't find a reasonable way to crunch the data for 100+ years of hockey. Key takeaways from the above which might be useful to you at some point:

- IMO, the percentage of the NHL which consists of siblings is a reasonable measure of the scale of the talent pool, for reasons described in detail above. Therefore, we can take the increase/decrease of siblings over time as a proxy for the progression/regression of the talent development system. From there, we can make further hypotheses about the general state of the game.

- Bear in mind that non-sibling family relations (dads, uncles, etc) open doors of opportunity in a way that is simply not quantifiable or escapable. This can undermine the process of identifying and developing true talent, but it can also produce additional high-performing players (both in terms of genetics and simply being very well coached), so it's really sticky to try and judge the cause-and-effect relationships.

- On the other hand, if you focus only on siblings, you can get a truer sense of how competitive the environment is for players raised in near-identical circumstances. A significant rise in the % of siblings in the league would suggest that certain families are almost "buying success" in the development system, because logically there is no reason why households should produce multiple NHL-level talents on anything approaching a routine basis, if the odds of making it are actually as remote as we usually presume they are.

i like your hypothesis. it's basically old fashioned nature vs nurture.

there are virtually no brothers both playing epl or euro soccer at an elite level despite the fact you can infer a significant proportion of pro soccer players have brothers who pursued the same game with similar opportunities.

there is definitely an argument that, to a point, the smaller hockey talent pool means a less talented player can make good if better nurtured.

for one thing there is a pronounced oldest brother phenomonen in hockey where that oldest kid goes through hockey quite far and doesn't make it but a younger brother does because the family has learned the ropes by then.

i say to a point though though because i would actually say the amount of kids of nhl players who make it is pretty low compared to their levels of participation in minor hockey and the efforts of the dads. i would guess the majority male children of nhlers start down the hockey road, and get every opportunity. most check out long before their dad's do.

and don't forget double-athlete marriages, of which there are plenty steering their kids through amateur sports. don't think those parents don't think about the genetic implications when they hook up because i have heard them talk about it. those couples tend to shop around trying to find a sport where their kids excel.
 

steleh

Registered User
Nov 8, 2013
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Nobody's doing this. But ascribing athletic superiority to genetics is really bankrupt mentality, and aligns too closely with eugenics and various forms of scientific racism.


Don't be that guy. You have to be able to state facts about genetics without being racist or being accused of being one. Many, many of the top athletes in all of sports have a higher athletic ceiling than that of the average athlete. Their kids will inherit some of that advantage from their genes. How big of a factor will this be in the end? Who knows. But even a 5% larger lung capacity adds up in the end. I personally think nurture rather than nature plays the bigger part, money and opportunity, but to deny the genetics and lump that in with white supremacy and eugenics is just silly. Don't.
 

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