NHL players who have grew up with adversity?

WarriorofTime

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Jul 3, 2010
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They're equally bad in my opinion.
Everyone's got problems, don't know unless you've worked a mile in someone's shoes, etc. etc. That being said, every problem rich people have is prevalent among lower classes as well and compounded by the fact that they don't have the same economic means.
 
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Puckclektr

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Jul 15, 2004
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By the time you factor in equipment and travel, it costs $10-15k per year for a kid to pay AA/AAA in Western Canada. Double that if your kid is playing spring hockey and doing additional training.

The median annual household income after taxes in Canada is around $62k per year ($70k Alberta, $62 in Ontario, $50k in Nova Scotia). There is no amount of financial restraint/caution that can free up a quarter of an average family's yearly budget for discretionary spending like elite hockey. Not to mention that hockey will continue to become more unfeasible for the average Canadian as house prices and the general cost of living continues to rise.
People do it. Just like anything if you budget you can do it.
My friends at work have no idea how I go on 2-3 vacations every year. I save and dont spend beyond my needs. Everyone wants to keep up with the Joneses. I tell my friends pack a lunch and stop buying timmies everyday. $10 a day right there. Not to mention the amount they eat out for dinner and go for drinks is crazy. Can easily be $500 wasted a month just in take out and coffee. That’s $6000 a year.

My good buddy and his wife both have factory jobs making about $20-22 an hour and have two kids and one is in AAA and they make sacrifices and cAn afford to pay for it. why? Sacrifices.
 
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WarriorofTime

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Jul 3, 2010
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People do it. Just like anything if you budget you can do it.
My friends at work have no idea how I go on 2-3 vacations every year. I save and dont spend beyond my needs. Everyone wants to keep up with the Joneses. I tell my friends pack a lunch and stop buying timmies everyday. $10 a day right there. Not to mention the amount they eat out for dinner and go for drinks is crazy. Can easily be $500 wasted a month just in take out and coffee. That’s $6000 a year.

My good buddy and his wife both have factory jobs making about $20-22 an hour and have two kids and one is in AAA and they make sacrifices and cAn afford to pay for it. why? Sacrifices.
You have to make it a priority. It's a "sacrifice" that does not make a lot of sense for a lot of families when you can enroll Junior in the local soccer league instead for much less cost. You have to decide hockey is inherently more worthwhile of an endeavor to justify the extra cost. That gets back to culture.
 

WarriorofTime

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Jul 3, 2010
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It's pretty insulting that people are saying "just stop ordering Starbucks" as a way to justify the high costs of AAA Hockey. It is what it is and it will continue to be a sport dominated by the wealthy and upper-middle class that can afford and justify the very high costs. I bet a lot more NHL players came from families of Bankers than Construction Workers.
 

Nostradumbass

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Jan 1, 2007
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Trying to think outside the box cause there aren't many examples NOWADAYS it seems, but first thing that came to mind was Ozzy Wiesblatt being raised by a single mom that was completely deaf and all the boys played a high level of hockey

I realize he's not in the NHL yet but he was recently a 1st round pick of SJ
I think his brother experienced some adversity when he mouthed off to the cops and got arrested.
 

AvroArrow

The way she goes
Jun 10, 2011
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Hockey is a wealthy mans sport...no need be racist and add a skin colour to it.

It's not racist, but white Europeans are the ones who founded America/Canada and still make up much of the upper class and almost the entire NHL. It's a lot more difficult and pretty much impossible for minority/immigrant families to enroll their kids into hockey. I for one always wanted to play hockey but my parents couldn't afford it, so they got me a basketball/soccer ball (Which I'm grateful for) and played those, but my dream was always to play hockey, sadly 99% of us minority/immigrant kids can't. It is mostly a rich white mans sport, not racist just the harsh truth.

Adversity is almost always associated with the environment you come from. Poorer areas are generally where you'll see gang violence, drugs etc. Which is why these kind of stories are a lot rarer in hockey vs sports like Basketball/Football
 
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HugeInTheShire

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Mar 8, 2021
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Who have grew up with adversity.... More like, Who have grown up with adversity or just players who grew up with adversity

I think all people no matter the skin colour or income must overcome some level of adversity to achieve an NHL carrier, just varying levels.
 

Puckclektr

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Jul 15, 2004
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You have to make it a priority. It's a "sacrifice" that does not make a lot of sense for a lot of families when you can enroll Junior in the local soccer league instead for much less cost. You have to decide hockey is inherently more worthwhile of an endeavor to justify the extra cost. That gets back to culture.
Every cost should be justified. Most purchases are done by card and impulse. If you are smart and use a cash system you can save lots of money. Enrolling Junior into soccer when he prefers hockey doesn't help junior. Let him do what he loves while instilling in him the sacrifices that the parents have made in order for him to do the things he loves.
My girls wanted to do gymnastics. My one liked soccer and the other liked volleyball but both loved gymnastics. They had the option to do both or be competetive in one. The both chose competetive. I told them if they don't work hard and give 100% they don't get to do it. They saw the sacrifices I made and were willing to try hard. They see their father buying himself second hand hockey equipment and clothing in order to ensure they could excel at what they loved.
 

Machinehead

GoAwayKakko
Jan 21, 2011
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It's pretty insulting that people are saying "just stop ordering Starbucks" as a way to justify the high costs of AAA Hockey. It is what it is and it will continue to be a sport dominated by the wealthy and upper-middle class that can afford and justify the very high costs. I bet a lot more NHL players came from families of Bankers than Construction Workers.
People who think you can just budget your way out of poverty have never had to worry about money and it shows.

I see people saying all the time "oh nobody works now because of the handouts!"

Yes, people have been living off of $1400 for three months now, Karen.
 

Machinehead

GoAwayKakko
Jan 21, 2011
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Panarin had one of the roughest upbringings of any professional athlete.

He was abandoned by his parents at 3 months old and was raised by his grandparents, he grew up so poor that his hockey equipment was stuff his grandpa found in a dumpster outside of a hockey rink; his skates were so big that he had to wear his shoes inside of the skates, his gloves were made by his grandma from the leather of a boot. He had to take a train alone to play hockey because it wasn’t accessible in the mining town he lived in and it was so dangerous his grandma would sew his money into his clothing so when he was routinely shook down by thugs they wouldn’t steal it. He went to try out for this elite team and his grandpa told him if he didn’t make it he would have to quit playing and go become a miner. He ended up making it. Then he went undrafted partially due to how undersized he is, worked his way up playing in Russia where he’s a political dissident, and now today is the second highest paid player in the NHL.
He doesn't do the leg kick because he likes to dance, that's for sure.

Well, he does like to dance, but that's a different story.
 

kerrabria

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May 3, 2018
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Panarin grew up in a poor Siberian family. His grandparents would sew secret pockets in his clothes to store his money because even little kids would get mugged.

I remember people talking about Julien Gauthier growing up in poor circumstances in a rough part of town, but Canada doesn't have ghettoes, so I just dismissed it.
 
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HockeyFan100

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Oct 7, 2012
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Steve Downie's father died in a car accident while driving him to hockey practice when he was about 9 years old. Was also deaf in one of his ears iirc.
 

HBK27

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People who think you can just budget your way out of poverty have never had to worry about money and it shows.

I see people saying all the time "oh nobody works now because of the handouts!"

Yes, people have been living off of $1400 for three months now, Karen.

Nobody is saying you can just budget your way out of poverty, but it can certainly help you quite a bit to achieve goals that others in your income bracket often don't reach.

As for the "nobody works now because of handouts", there is a certain truth to that. I work in the food production industry and there has been a shortage of workers across the industry for much of the past year. Retailers that we speak to are having the same problem and this also appears to be the case for many restaurants. It's not a matter of the stimulus checks, but that many states have broadened and/or extended unemployment benefits, so people can collect similar pay for doing nothing or working jobs that pay under the table. It's a significant part of the reason it was announced yesterday that the U.S. has a record 9.3M job openings - the highest rate recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking in 2000.
 

WarriorofTime

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Jul 3, 2010
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Every cost should be justified. Most purchases are done by card and impulse. If you are smart and use a cash system you can save lots of money. Enrolling Junior into soccer when he prefers hockey doesn't help junior. Let him do what he loves while instilling in him the sacrifices that the parents have made in order for him to do the things he loves.
My girls wanted to do gymnastics. My one liked soccer and the other liked volleyball but both loved gymnastics. They had the option to do both or be competetive in one. The both chose competetive. I told them if they don't work hard and give 100% they don't get to do it. They saw the sacrifices I made and were willing to try hard. They see their father buying himself second hand hockey equipment and clothing in order to ensure they could excel at what they loved.
I don't know how much you make or what sort of expenses you have, I just don't think it's fair for you to start imposing values on how people choose to spend their money. You judged people who go out to eat and mentioned you save up for vacations, but other people may look at your vacations and think "that guy is wasting money and that's why he's such a tightwad and never is able to join us for dinner". Again, you seem to come back to the costs of high-level hockey being inherently more worthwhile than other means that families with a lower socioeconomic status may choose to allocate their income. Everybody's priorities are different, and decisions have to be made. Those decisions are inherently easier for families of a higher socioeconomic status and that is why you see so many players in an expensive sport like hockey come from well off families.
 
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Machinehead

GoAwayKakko
Jan 21, 2011
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Nobody is saying you can just budget your way out of poverty, but it can certainly help you quite a bit to achieve goals that others in your income bracket often don't reach.

As for the "nobody works now because of handouts", there is a certain truth to that. I work in the food production industry and there has been a shortage of workers across the industry for much of the past year. Retailers that we speak to are having the same problem and this also appears to be the case for many restaurants. It's not a matter of the stimulus checks, but that many states have broadened and/or extended unemployment benefits, so people can collect similar pay for doing nothing or working jobs that pay under the table. It's a significant part of the reason it was announced yesterday that the U.S. has a record 9.3M job openings - the highest rate recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking in 2000.
Those workplaces should offer more than what you get in emergency assistance if they want to compete for labor. Free market, right?
 

OppositeLocK

Registered User
Nov 18, 2017
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Kessel had cancer.

Too many people equate adversity to not having money growing up. Lots of Russian players grew up dirt poor.

Really the only "privileged" players are the ones that had a father or uncle play in the NHL.
 

WarriorofTime

Registered User
Jul 3, 2010
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Nobody is saying you can just budget your way out of poverty, but it can certainly help you quite a bit to achieve goals that others in your income bracket often don't reach.

As for the "nobody works now because of handouts", there is a certain truth to that. I work in the food production industry and there has been a shortage of workers across the industry for much of the past year. Retailers that we speak to are having the same problem and this also appears to be the case for many restaurants. It's not a matter of the stimulus checks, but that many states have broadened and/or extended unemployment benefits, so people can collect similar pay for doing nothing or working jobs that pay under the table. It's a significant part of the reason it was announced yesterday that the U.S. has a record 9.3M job openings - the highest rate recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking in 2000.
Yeah because companies have been paying workers a shit, unlivable wage with real wages plummeting even as cost of living and inflation has risen for YEARS and were able to get away with it by telling people "take it or starve". Now that it took a pandemic for the government to realize some sort of assistance was necessarily for the millions of people struggling out there, companies are complaining that in the "free market" they are losing in the labor supply/demand market.
 

Paper

Registered User
Nov 4, 2009
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No scouts are looking around schoolyard road hockey games or on outdoor rinks for the diamond in the rough that can't afford to play organized hockey.
This isn't true. I saw a documentary on a Team USA team that found a guy who could make an extremely deceptive and nearly unpredictable shot while he was playing street hockey. They grabbed him for the team mid tournament.
 

HBK27

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Those workplaces should offer more than what you get in emergency assistance if they want to compete for labor. Free market, right?

Yes and we have increased wages to attract more employees, though it has still been a struggle at times. Good to see you reverse course though and admit that it is actually an issue.

Seems that you're also cool with "emergency assistance" being paid out to people that are perfectly capable of working and have employment opportunities available to them, but decide not to - instead collecting money to do absolutely nothing paid for largely by those that do actually work and pay taxes.
 

HBK27

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Yeah because companies have been paying workers a shit, unlivable wage with real wages plummeting even as cost of living and inflation has risen for YEARS and were able to get away with it by telling people "take it or starve". Now that it took a pandemic for the government to realize some sort of assistance was necessarily for the millions of people struggling out there, companies are complaining that in the "free market" they are losing in the labor supply/demand market.

You're completely generalizing and no, this is not at all accurate. Most people are not making more money with these government handouts and are still living just fine - they'd just rather take less money to not actually have to do anything versus making more money while having to work 40-50 hours a week.
 

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