Minor Hockey and out of touch expectations

[swoopster]

Thanks Yukon, take a look at my comical post when I was the NE US scout for the WHL Seattle Thunderbirds... and who was the coach... guess!

"Junior B is junior hockey for small towns. Having lived in some of those towns they're still a big deal in those communities, but it's almost certainly the end of the road.
And then Junior C is barely above minor rec hockey. It's again in the cities. It is what it is, I'm unclear - you might have to pay a modest amount. But nobody is selling it as a ticket to the pros."

Yet here in the US we are selling that level of hockey as a possible route to NCAA hockey.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

OK, so we are talking different things then.

in Canada we have Major Junior/Junior A/B/C for ages 16-20. None of which are "pay to play" that I know of.

Major Junior is of course the CHL. You et paid a stipend plus your billet, and is where you go if you think you have a shot at the majors. Scholarship is offered to a Canadian university depending on how many years you play.

Junior A is the AJHL here in Alberta. Still high level hockey. You play here either because you want to preserve your NCAA eligibility, or think you can still get picked up by an AJHL team.

Junior B is junior hockey for small towns. Having lived in some of those towns they're still a big deal in those communities, but it's almost certainly the end of the road.

And then Junior C is barely above minor rec hockey. It's again in the cities. It is what it is, I'm unclear - you might have to pay a modest amount. But nobody is selling it as a ticket to the pros.

You might want to check again... Jr A/B/C are basically all pay-to-play now, right?

Sometimes younger players in Junior B still have a path to Junior A and beyond, but as you say, basically a dead end. Junior C is Introduction To Beer League.

The way it was described to me, the USHL and CHL/Major Junior are parallels, as are maybe the NAHL and Jr A, while everything below is... selling the dream.

But somewhere in parallel to junior are dozens of USHS prep schools and it sounds like the prep/academy school concept is expanding in Canada too. And then the regular high school and major midget/U18 leagues as well. The proliferation is just so enormous it's hard to wrap one's head around it all. And that's just hockey, which isn't even as popular as other major sports in the US... and those sports all have their own special brands of crazy too... Canada might be lucky if it's mostly/most-prominently just hockey!

Here we are on our little planet, looking up at the stars and realizing that's just a small part of our own galaxy we can see with our naked eye, and there are sooo many fainter stars out there with all their planets, and sooooo many other galaxies with their own stars which have their own planets....

 

[puckpilot]

And I still blame video games too. (Shouts at passing cloud!) I grew up in a rural setting and there was no other kid within 5 miles of me except my brother. We'd play on the road (CAR!), or a field, in the snow, whatever, even if it was just two of us, all day, any day, any weather.

When I was growing up, I was walking to and from school at age 6. During summers, I'd get kicked out of the house in the morning, and I'd wander the neighborhood looking for other kids to play with. And every so often, someone would say lets do X, and everyone would run home to get their stuff for a spontaneous gathering for street hockey, bike jumping, whatever.

That kind of thing never happens now, at least not when the kids are really young. Parents are scared of bad things happening to their kids now. So they walk/drive them to school, set up play dates, with the need to know where the kid is at at all times. That's the way it is with my nephews and friend's kids. I'm not criticizing. It's just the world we live in now. If I had kids, I'd be doing the exact same thing.

Because looking back, for me personally, I wonder how lucky I was in terms of avoiding danger. I'd stay out all day and never let my parents know where I went. Not even a phone call from a friend's house. I'd even ignore my Mom when she'd shout my name from the upstairs window so the whole neighborhood could hear. I'd come home at dark, with parents worried to death, and dismiss their concerns as overreactions.

I found out in my adulthood, at the time I was running around the neighborhood unsupervised was the same time a famous child abductor/murderer was running around my neck of the woods. I don't think there are any more dangers now than there were back then, but parents are definitely more award and proactive in not taking any risks. Stranger Danger, right? Because sometimes that danger can be from another kid. So IMHO that's part of why sandlot stuff doesn't happen the way it used to.

 

[Yukon Joe]

When I was growing up, I was walking to and from school at age 6. During summers, I'd get kicked out of the house in the morning, and I'd wander the neighborhood looking for other kids to play with. And every so often, someone would say lets do X, and everyone would run home to get their stuff for a spontaneous gathering for street hockey, bike jumping, whatever.

That kind of thing never happens now, at least not when the kids are really young. Parents are scared of bad things happening to their kids now. So they walk/drive them to school, set up play dates, with the need to know where the kid is at at all times. That's the way it is with my nephews and friend's kids. I'm not criticizing. It's just the world we live in now. If I had kids, I'd be doing the exact same thing.

Do I think we've probably gone overboard in terms of helicopter parenting and trying to prevent our children from being exposed to any risk, no matter how slight? Absolutely. And I think some of those excesses were witnessed during Covid (on both sides - either keeping kids home from school for months, or by worrying about the miniscule risks of proven vaccines).

But does that mean we should go back to the 1970s-1990s era parenting? Heck no. People smoked everywhere. I remember riding in the back of our station wagon all the time (not the back seat, the very back). Nobody was concerned about concussions (to bring it to hockey).

I remember as a kid starting age 12 I had free range of the whole city of Saskatoon on my bike. No cell phones, so my parents just trusted me to come home. Growing up I thought Saskatoon was this perfectly safe little prairie city, but as an adult I realized it had one of the highest crime rates in Canada, and in the 1980s it was a much higher crime rate then it is now.

 

[FLAMESFAN]

I've always said if these parents put even half of this effort/resources into their kids education, those kids would be much more successful than chasing a dream.

 

[jetsmooseice]

OK old man. The thing is if your goal is the NHL (ours isn't) then look at what all the top prospects are doing. They're all coming up through "modern training", most are going to uber-expensive hockey academies, and have dedicated themselves to hockey from a fairly young age.

I can't remember the last player who came from a "farm-kid who played hockey with his buddies" kind of background.

Depends how you define the 'farm kid who played hockey with his buddies'. There are a lot of boys in the WHL who grew up in rural areas and did not do the academy thing.

For example, Conor Geekie of the Winnipeg ICE. Grew up in a tiny town near the MB/SK border. Had access to the local rink probably whenever he wanted. Played AAA hockey for the Yellowhead Chiefs. Baseball in the summer, even played at a high-for-Manitoba level. He did do some 'modern' stuff like spring hockey, the Brick team, etc., but did not go to an academy as his teammate Matt Savoie from Edmonton did. Both became first round NHL picks this year.

On the Brick thing, it's interesting to look and see where Geekie's Brick Tournament team from 2013-14 is now. There are some NHL draft picks in the mix (Geekie, Filmon, Pickering, Mateychuk) but most are run of the mill WHL players, MJHL players, MMJHL (basically Jr. B), etc. So it's a stark reminder that even if your kid makes the "holy grail" for Canadian 10 year olds, their trajectory is still probably more realistically headed to Jr. A than to the NHL.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Just in talking about expectations...

My own kids hockey club was rather proud of the fact that at a recent Edmonton Oilers game there were three of their alumni playing. All three had played what would now be U15AAA back in 2012-2013. One of those three is the backup goalie who might be stealing the starters job, while the other two are AHL call-ups, but still it's something.

So the club posted a picture of that 2012-2013 team, and for fun I was going through googling all the players. As far as I can tell those are the only three that have ever played in the NHL, although one or two more do play in the AHL for other organizations. I would dare say about half went on to play some kind of hockey - whether that tapped out at Junior A,/B, University, WHL, or AHL.

The other half though didn't really go on to anything. Whether they just didn't want to go and play Junior B hockey in Saskatchewan, or they never had that opportunity, I'll never know.

But I dare say that is actually better odds than I would have thought.

Oh - I actually found one of the guys now plays rec hockey in the same league I do - so that's certainly an option as well.

p.s. I should say my son plays U13AA. In the next couple years he stands a real shot at making the U15AAA team but that's far from guaranteed

p.p.s. and I should also say that my son's club has more success then other local clubs at developing players for higher levels. I can't really say why.

p.p.p.s and finally this one team from 2012-2013 may well not be representative

 

[Pez68]

Just in talking about expectations...

My own kids hockey club was rather proud of the fact that at a recent Edmonton Oilers game there were three of their alumni playing. All three had played what would now be U15AAA back in 2012-2013. One of those three is the backup goalie who might be stealing the starters job, while the other two are AHL call-ups, but still it's something.

So the club posted a picture of that 2012-2013 team, and for fun I was going through googling all the players. As far as I can tell those are the only three that have ever played in the NHL, although one or two more do play in the AHL for other organizations. I would dare say about half went on to play some kind of hockey - whether that tapped out at Junior A,/B, University, WHL, or AHL.

The other half though didn't really go on to anything. Whether they just didn't want to go and play Junior B hockey in Saskatchewan, or they never had that opportunity, I'll never know.

But I dare say that is actually better odds than I would have thought.

Oh - I actually found one of the guys now plays rec hockey in the same league I do - so that's certainly an option as well.

p.s. I should say my son plays U13AA. In the next couple years he stands a real shot at making the U15AAA team but that's far from guaranteed

p.p.s. and I should also say that my son's club has more success then other local clubs at developing players for higher levels. I can't really say why.

p.p.p.s and finally this one team from 2012-2013 may well not be representative

Quite a few tier 1 clubs around North America will have those "magic" years, where they have multiple players go on to play high end hockey. It is by far the exception, rather than the rule. Some birth years just produce extraordinary talent.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Quite a few tier 1 clubs around North America will have those "magic" years, where they have multiple players go on to play high end hockey. It is by far the exception, rather than the rule. Some birth years just produce extraordinary talent.

Fair enough possibility.

I was more curious where the "rest of the team" went, than focusing on the three playing in the NHL, but you're right it could be a magic year for those kids as well.

 

[Pez68]

Fair enough possibility.

I was more curious where the "rest of the team" went, than focusing on the three playing in the NHL, but you're right it could be a magic year for those kids as well.

A combination of Junior A, Junior B, and club college, is how it works here in the Chicago area. The overwhelming majority ending up in the ACHA, or pay-to-play junior teams. Very, very few of them end up playing USHL or NCAA, and then pro.

 

[jetsmooseice]

But I dare say that is actually better odds than I would have thought.

I will say, just being a "run of the mill" WHL (or OHL, or Q, or USHL) player as I alluded to earlier has got to be a phenomenal life experience on its own even if that is where the road ends. I mean, you don't get the megabucks but you basically get to live the life for a few years, doing what you love on a big stage where it isn't just parents and girlfriends at the games, before you start on real life. And you will always have bragging rights in every beer league you ever play in

I don't know if it's worth taking out a second mortgage for that (ha), but it is a laudable goal.