Was Lidstrom a generational talent?

[BraveCanadian]

Hockey Canada separates males from females and those numbers appear to be for minor hockey up to the CHL.

It is unclear to me how they are tallied on that page. I simply refer to their own report in my previous post.

www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/Hockey-Programs/Adult-Rec.aspx

Adult rec teams from coast to coast can register with Hockey Canada. Insurance options, an interactive web site and sanctioned tournaments – contact your branch and register now!

% of kids may be down but the actual number of kids is up. That's what really matters for the overall talent pool.

You've got a problem in your ever increasing and better talent pool argument, then, don't you?

Population of Canadian males 1996 Census:

5-9: 1,019,290
10-14: 1,023,360
15-19: 1,003,355

Total: 3,046,005


Population of Canadian males 2011 Census:

5-9: 925,960
10-14: 983,990
15-19: 1,115,845

Total: 3,025,795

I never said females would be in the NHL. Again, is it somehow cheaper and easier for girls to play minor hockey?

Then they don't matter in this discussion at the moment.

And no one was implying that cost was the only reason enrollments are down. It is certainly one of the reasons. So that is another useless discussion point.

Besides, if the competition of an elite Russian league with the NHL matters so much to you, you must admit the NHL was a far lesser league before the elite Russians were able to join in the late 80's.

You really need to check some facts:

Country|00-01|12-13|Change
Canada|538|484|-54
USA|149|220|+71
Czech Republic|70|44|-26
Russia|73|29|-44
Sweden|47|63|+16
Finland|34|30|-4
Slovakia|30|12|-18

That is a lot of talent from outside North America either disappearing or choosing to play elsewhere.

Like I said earlier. The Americans are doing the heavy lifting filling up roster spots in the NHL with help from Scandinavia.

It doesn't matter if we accidently end up changing ourselves with hormones in our water and/or genetic engineering, or it's done "naturally" via nature, it still results in an evolutionary process. What else do you want to call it??

The main point is we have changed a lot recently, despite you claiming we haven't.

No. Just no.

 

[danincanada]

It is unclear to me how they are tallied on that page. I simply refer to their own report in my previous post.

www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/Hockey-Programs/Adult-Rec.aspx

The "Canadian hockey branches" they cite appear to be for minor hockey and the national program. They certainly don't include all adult and men's leagues in Canada or the numbers would be huge. I play in a men's league and I'm not part of one of these branches.

You've got a problem in your ever increasing and better talent pool argument, then, don't you?

Population of Canadian males 1996 Census:

5-9: 1,019,290
10-14: 1,023,360
15-19: 1,003,355

Total: 3,046,005

Population of Canadian males 2011 Census:

5-9: 925,960
10-14: 983,990
15-19: 1,115,845

Total: 3,025,795

I meant the actual number of kids playing hockey of course. Anyways, if the number of kids playing has gone up then these statistics are irrelavent.

You are now focusing on the last 15 years. How about the change in the talent pool further back? Did Eddie Shore face the same talent pool, or Doug Harvey? It's a slippery slope for your argument. The numbers will be close if we compare more recent years obviously but the logic remains.

You really need to check some facts:

Country|00-01|12-13|Change
Canada|538|484|-54
USA|149|220|+71
Czech Republic|70|44|-26
Russia|73|29|-44
Sweden|47|63|+16
Finland|34|30|-4
Slovakia|30|12|-18

That is a lot of talent from outside North America either disappearing or choosing to play elsewhere.

Like I said earlier. The Americans are doing the heavy lifting filling up roster spots in the NHL with help from Scandinavia.

Again, go back further, please. The talent pool argument goes back much further than this. The numbers will fluctuate but the overall the pool has grown with time. You know this.

So the number of American NHLers has grown immensely and so has their talent pool. Why am I not surprised?

No. Just no.

Strong rebuttal here.

In a nutshell this displays the stubbornness and resistance to the talent pool argument. {mod}

 

[Rhiessan71]

I certainly do get it, you're simply not giving current players enough credit. They play in a league with goalies that are overly equipped to stop pucks due to better equipment, coaching, and size. They also have to deal with fronting and shot blocking that was unheard of in the 80's, as well as more tactical coaching and better defending overall.

Unfortunately, I was talking about the 90's, not the 80's sooooo...

Do you not watch hockey now? Are you implying Kane and Datsyuk don't have great vision and lack instincts and creativity??

I never said that I believe there aren't players with great instincts and creativity in the League today.
What I said, is that I don't believe there are as many as there were in the 90's.
Gotta pay attention.... {mod}

I never said that. Orr did have a huge advantage over everyone else in terms of skating (speed and agility) when he played that he probably wouldn't have now. I bet even he would admit that.

I'm sorry, when you watch a guy like Karlsson simply skate away from 90% of the guys trying to catch him, huge advantage doesn't come to mind?

 

[Canadiens1958]

Montreal 1959 vs 2013

The "Canadian hockey branches" they cite appear to be for minor hockey and the national program. They certainly don't include all adult and men's leagues in Canada or the numbers would be huge. I play in a men's league and I'm not part of one of these branches.



I meant the actual number of kids playing hockey of course. Anyways, if the number of kids playing has gone up then these statistics are irrelavent.

You are now focusing on the last 15 years. How about the change in the talent pool further back? Did Eddie Shore face the same talent pool, or Doug Harvey? It's a slippery slope for your argument. The numbers will be close if we compare more recent years obviously but the logic remains.

Again, go back further, please. The talent pool argument goes back much further than this. The numbers will fluctuate but the overall the pool has grown with time. You know this.

In a nutshell this displays the stubbornness and resistance to the talent pool argument. {mod}

1959 Montreal City Championships reflecting app 20,000 youth participants from mosquito - today's atom to intermediate, today's late junior:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bLopAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dUEDAAAAIBAJ&hl=fr&pg=1524,1409298

Few comments. The City of Montreal Championships in 1959 did not reflect the complete Island of Montreal. Strictly male.The GMIAA schools were not included nor were the two regions that became Lac St. Louis in the west or Bourassa in the east included. Nor were the 4 to 8 year olds which represents about 30% of the youth hockey playing population at any given time. See the recent numbers:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/quebec-hockey-bucking-the-trend-1.852028

Today the Montreal Region with Bourassa merged into the mix, including girls caters to app 7,000 hockey playing youngsters. The GMAA, present day version of the old GMIAA has app 1400 hockey players. Given that app 20% of the youngsters play both and that the GMAA also covers Lac St. Louis the actual number would be app. 7000-7,500.

www.gmaa.ca

So in 1959 there would be app 27,000 to 30,000 hockey playing youngsters in a small Montreal Region compared to 7,000-7,500 today including girls in a larger Montreal region.

Furthermore in 1959 the small Montreal region alone had app the same number of hockey playing male youngsters as the province of Manitoba(29,000 -30,000) has playing hockey youngsters today.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1497093

In a nutshell the further back we go the weaker your population argument becomes.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I meant the actual number of kids playing hockey of course. Anyways, if the number of kids playing has gone up then these statistics are irrelavent.

Except Hockey Canada's own reports show that the percentage of kids playing hockey has gone down from 12% to 10%.

Your retort -- thats ok as long as the actual number of kids is up!

But it isn't.

10% of 3 million is less than 12% of 3 million unfortunately.

You are now focusing on the last 15 years. How about the change in the talent pool further back? Did Eddie Shore face the same talent pool, or Doug Harvey? It's a slippery slope for your argument. The numbers will be close if we compare more recent years obviously but the logic remains.

You're moving the goalposts again.

I chose that season because it was the first with 30 NHL teams.

What it demonstrates is exactly what I said:

either a) the talent from overseas is not this vast increasing pool over the last decade like you are constantly implying with no evidence whatsoever or b) a good chunk of it is staying across the pond.

Either way the talent pool in the NHL hasn't increased significantly in recent times based on the actual facts we're uncovering in this thread.

Again, go back further, please. The talent pool argument goes back much further than this. The numbers will fluctuate but the overall the pool has grown with time. You know this.

I'm sure it goes up and down with the demographics and interest in hockey. You should know this..

I'm fairly certain it has mostly plateaued for a number of reasons for many years now.

So the number of American NHLers has grown immensely and so has their talent pool. Why am I not surprised?

Except their registrations which are now in league with Canada produce less than half the NHLers.... so they are not directly correlated. Another fact you are continually ignoring while moving your goalposts back and forth.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Based on?



pre-80s is a very convenient cut off for making this argument.

Personally I think the pool peaked somewhere after the wall fell up until the early 2000s.

I used the 80's as a general point, there is a clear arc upwards of non Canadians in the NHL in both terms of quality (ie elite) and quantity starting with the 21 team league and inclusion of the 4 WHA teams, most of the 1st wave was from the US with the 2nd wave from Europe.

the point of the matter is that the increased talent streams have far outpaced expansion and the starting point of a mostly all Canadian NHL in the late 70's.

As for Canadian hockey registration overall, who really cares?

the Soviet have shown that elite talent can be produced in small concentrated numbers. How many kids are skating in Pee Wee is an interesting discussion but not very relevant to the NHL talent pool, what is is the large number of Junior A teams form the 3 major junior teams in Canada .

As for the idea that somehow with more talent streams and more top level development tiers just under the NHL that elite or near elite talent is down, it's just extremely unlikely.


Heck we can see how talented the guys are with actual eye tests, too many people here are equating parity and the increased competition and lower scoring with a lesser quality player when everything other than scoring stats suggest otherwise.

Even if one buys that todays bottom guy players are just "faster skating plugs" they sure can execute the defensive game plan their coaches expect, much more so than their predecessors who literally at times look disinterested and unable to defeat the elite attacking players in the NHL, ie Orr.

 

[Rhiessan71]

I used the 80's as a general point, there is a clear arc upwards of non Canadians in the NHL in both terms of quality (ie elite) and quantity starting with the 21 team league and inclusion of the 4 WHA teams, most of the 1st wave was from the US with the 2nd wave from Europe.

the point of the matter is that the increased talent streams have far outpaced expansion and the starting point of a mostly all Canadian NHL in the late 70's.

As for Canadian hockey registration overall, who really cares?

the Soviet have shown that elite talent can be produced in small concentrated numbers. How many kids are skating in Pee Wee is an interesting discussion but not very relevant to the NHL talent pool, what is is the large number of Junior A teams form the 3 major junior teams in Canada .

As for the idea that somehow with more talent streams and more top level development tiers just under the NHL that elite or near elite talent is down, it's just extremely unlikely.


Heck we can see how talented the guys are with actual eye tests, too many people here are equating parity and the increased competition and lower scoring with a lesser quality player when everything other than scoring stats suggest otherwise.

Even if one buys that todays bottom guy players are just "faster skating plugs" they sure can execute the defensive game plan their coaches expect, much more so than their predecessors who literally at times look disinterested and unable to defeat the elite attacking players in the NHL, ie Orr.

And...some people can see how the creation of all these robots (and that IS what you are describing when you say "they sure can execute the defensive game plan") at far younger ages than previously is suppressing natural instinct and creativity.

The actual reason why we will prolly never see another Orr or another Gretzky is because no kid is given the freedom to explore that side of the game anymore.

It galls me to this day to see a freakin 12 year old benched because he took an offensive risk or didn't make the safe play.
It's complete bull**** and it happens more than you know.

But hey, as long as they're learning the NHL way eh Hardy. That way of course...playing not to lose.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I used the 80's as a general point, there is a clear arc upwards of non Canadians in the NHL in both terms of quality (ie elite) and quantity starting with the 21 team league and inclusion of the 4 WHA teams, most of the 1st wave was from the US with the 2nd wave from Europe.

the point of the matter is that the increased talent streams have far outpaced expansion and the starting point of a mostly all Canadian NHL in the late 70's.

I would agree that the level of talent rose up throughout the later part of the 70s and all through the 80s and early 90s with the new sources of players (the wall falling) and a big demographic surge from the boom

As for Canadian hockey registration overall, who really cares?

Considering Canadians still make up over half the NHL I think what is happening with that development network certainly matters.

the Soviet have shown that elite talent can be produced in small concentrated numbers. How many kids are skating in Pee Wee is an interesting discussion but not very relevant to the NHL talent pool, what is is the large number of Junior A teams form the 3 major junior teams in Canada .

Oh? And where do those teams get their players developed?

As for the idea that somehow with more talent streams and more top level development tiers just under the NHL that elite or near elite talent is down, it's just extremely unlikely.

Then you should be able to show it somehow hmm?

As for the reason why it seems like these countries produce only elite talent in small numbers is that there isn't a lot of sense in coming over to be a 4th liner when you can stay in the KHL instead and not have to deal with culture and language.

Heck we can see how talented the guys are with actual eye tests, too many people here are equating parity and the increased competition and lower scoring with a lesser quality player when everything other than scoring stats suggest otherwise.

So if we ignore the measure of scoring then we can see that players are more talented now? Ha!

I do agree there is a lot of parity in the league at the moment but that doesn't stop standouts like last years Blackhawks from happening if they can manage the cap.

Furthermore.. I would love to know what the "everything other than scoring stats" is... you guys have a lot of opinions that don't jive with the facts that I have found in this thread.

Even if one buys that todays bottom guy players are just "faster skating plugs" they sure can execute the defensive game plan their coaches expect, much more so than their predecessors who literally at times look disinterested and unable to defeat the elite attacking players in the NHL, ie Orr.

Yeah, cause 4th liners today would stop Orr in his tracks........

 

[Canadiens1958]

False Measure

I used the 80's as a general point, there is a clear arc upwards of non Canadians in the NHL in both terms of quality (ie elite) and quantity starting with the 21 team league and inclusion of the 4 WHA teams, most of the 1st wave was from the US with the 2nd wave from Europe.

the point of the matter is that the increased talent streams have far outpaced expansion and the starting point of a mostly all Canadian NHL in the late 70's.

As for Canadian hockey registration overall, who really cares?

the Soviet have shown that elite talent can be produced in small concentrated numbers. How many kids are skating in Pee Wee is an interesting discussion but not very relevant to the NHL talent pool, what is is the large number of Junior A teams form the 3 major junior teams in Canada .

As for the idea that somehow with more talent streams and more top level development tiers just under the NHL that elite or near elite talent is down, it's just extremely unlikely.


Heck we can see how talented the guys are with actual eye tests, too many people here are equating parity and the increased competition and lower scoring with a lesser quality player when everything other than scoring stats suggest otherwise.

Even if one buys that todays bottom guy players are just "faster skating plugs" they sure can execute the defensive game plan their coaches expect, much more so than their predecessors who literally at times look disinterested and unable to defeat the elite attacking players in the NHL, ie Orr.

False measures lead to false conclusions.

Start with the Soviets. Same Soviets were claiming in the sixties and sixties that upwards of a 1,000,000 were playing hockey. Regardless of whether these numbers are discounted or taken at face value their results are rather meager.

Your portrayal of American hockey and its history is rather unique and inaccurate. US hockey has always been solid at the amateur and Olympic levels. See Hobey Baker onwards. Fact is that US hockey flowed thru the universities. During the depression, NHL salaries were reduced, so post university in Canada and the USA it was rarely worth it, short or long term, for a university grad to continue into the NHL. This was also true in Canada - pre NHA, most of the Montreal grown players, McGill grads, had short hockey careers. Others like Harry Watson, 1924 Olympian and future HHOFer passed on the NHL in favour of business.

Still the USA was producing viable NHL players, mainly goalies, Frank Brimsek, Mike Karakas, Sam LoPresti, 2 of 7 starters in the NHL. Cully Dahlstrom etc.

The salary factor changed in 1957 - early NHL players association which slowly drove salaries upwards with the result that by the 1959-60 season and going forward NCAA grads were entering the NHL - Bill Hay, Red Berenson, Lou Angotti. Some from the 1960 USA Olympic gold medal team chose the NHL - Tommy Williams, Jack McCartan while others picked careers or business - Christian brothers, Cleary.

The better salaries also enticed two Swedes - Sven Tumba in 1957 and Ulf Sterner 1964 to try NA hockey. Both returned to better salaries in Europe but showed that they were on the NHL track.

When the NHL started expanding in 1967 the increased jobs and salaries created greater opportunities with motivation for qualified players.

BTW - your Orr comparable or metric is revealing. Trust you realize that even a great player like Bobby Orr or Wayne Gretzky or others see their efforts thwarted the overwhelming majority of the time they are on the ice. To generate three points a game requires maybe 30 seconds of success. Conversely, the slugs that generate under 10 points in an 80+ NHL season do not accomplish anything of note in the overwhelming majority of their games. Just filler time, slugs vs slugs while the quality players rest.

 

[danincanada]

Except Hockey Canada's own reports show that the percentage of kids playing hockey has gone down from 12% to 10%.

Your retort -- thats ok as long as the actual number of kids is up!

But it isn't.

10% of 3 million is less than 12% of 3 million unfortunately.

That's a 60,000 decrease in Canada then, which is a far cry from the 300,000 increase of registered Americans in a similar time frame. Again, Canadian registrations appear to be on the rise again these last couple of years.

You're moving the goalposts again.

I chose that season because it was the first with 30 NHL teams.

What it demonstrates is exactly what I said:

either a) the talent from overseas is not this vast increasing pool over the last decade like you are constantly implying with no evidence whatsoever or b) a good chunk of it is staying across the pond.

Either way the talent pool in the NHL hasn't increased significantly in recent times based on the actual facts we're uncovering in this thread.

I don't need to move the goalposts because here was my original post (#292) on the current talent pool in the NHL vs. the early 90's:

I'd say '93 or '94 when most of the best Russians were here and really started to adjust to the NHL and North America was a great time for us fans. The style of play was more wide open as well. I don't think the talent level has decreased since then though,

It seems like you have found a decent answer to this, which is the talent pool has grown slightly overall, mainly due to the US (and Swiss, German, etc.), since the early 90's. All I want is the truth to come out, not this constant denial. This is the bloody History of Hockey section so why not truthfully look at the talent pool from the inception of the sport until now??

Except their registrations which are now in league with Canada produce less than half the NHLers.... so they are not directly correlated. Another fact you are continually ignoring while moving your goalposts back and forth.

I never claimed it's exact, and I already admitted this earlier, and this is common sense. The fact of the matter is that the potential for elite and professional level hockey players will increase with a larger talent pool. That's also common sense.

The registration boom in the US is too recent to fully see the affects on the NHL yet anyways. We should see a relatively constant growth of the number of Americans in the NHL due to their increasing talent pool as these kids grow up and get drafted.

http://unitedstatesofhockey.com/2012/05/31/raw-numbers-hockey-participation-up-in-2011-12/

Playing membership increased by 2.12 percent from 2010-11 (500,579), marking the third consecutive year of positive growth for USA Hockey. Since 2005-06, hockey participation has grown by 15.6% nationwide, which is incredibly positive, considering the economic woes in the United States. People are finding a way to play the game even through tough financial times.

Among the playing membership, the biggest gains were made in the 7-8 age range, which saw an increase of 4.26 percent from 2010-11.

 

[danincanada]

Montreal is not the norm

1959 Montreal City Championships reflecting app 20,000 youth participants from mosquito - today's atom to intermediate, today's late junior:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bLopAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dUEDAAAAIBAJ&hl=fr&pg=1524,1409298

Few comments. The City of Montreal Championships in 1959 did not reflect the complete Island of Montreal. Strictly male.The GMIAA schools were not included nor were the two regions that became Lac St. Louis in the west or Bourassa in the east included. Nor were the 4 to 8 year olds which represents about 30% of the youth hockey playing population at any given time. See the recent numbers:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/quebec-hockey-bucking-the-trend-1.852028

Today the Montreal Region with Bourassa merged into the mix, including girls caters to app 7,000 hockey playing youngsters. The GMAA, present day version of the old GMIAA has app 1400 hockey players. Given that app 20% of the youngsters play both and that the GMAA also covers Lac St. Louis the actual number would be app. 7000-7,500.

www.gmaa.ca

So in 1959 there would be app 27,000 to 30,000 hockey playing youngsters in a small Montreal Region compared to 7,000-7,500 today including girls in a larger Montreal region.

Furthermore in 1959 the small Montreal region alone had app the same number of hockey playing male youngsters as the province of Manitoba(29,000 -30,000) has playing hockey youngsters today.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1497093

In a nutshell the further back we go the weaker your population argument becomes.

This makes sense to me and I think Toronto would probably be similar. They were the two Canadian teams back then and were collecting Cups hand over fist so everyone and their dog wanted to play hockey in those cities.

Many immigrants, who usually flock to the major cities, grow to love the sport but probably not at the same rate as Canadians who were born here so that probably has an influece as well. Meanwhile, lots of families may have moved to the suburbs over the past 50 years if Montreal is anything like Toronto in that regard.

While the amount of kids playing hockey in Montreal decreased it increased just about everywhere else (the rest of Canada, the US, Europe) since then, so this doesn't speak for the overall talent pool. Good to know though.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Baby Boom

This makes sense to me and I think Toronto would probably be similar. They were the two Canadian teams back then and were collecting Cups hand over fist so everyone and their dog wanted to play hockey in those cities.

Many immigrants, who usually flock to the major cities, grow to love the sport but probably not at the same rate as Canadians who were born here so that probably has an influece as well. Meanwhile, lots of families may have moved to the suburbs over the past 50 years if Montreal is anything like Toronto in that regard.

While the amount of kids playing hockey in Montreal decreased it increased just about everywhere else (the rest of Canada, the US, Europe) since then, so this doesn't speak for the overall talent pool. Good to know though.

You completely dismiss the effects of the "baby boom", post WWII?

The following details about Monklands High School in the western part of NDG, a Montreal district. Monklands was the original West Hill High School that in the late thirties, forties produced future NHL players like Ken Mosdell, Doug Harvey, Reggie Sinclair and others plus a string of CFL players.

http://lostschools.mcgill.ca/

Note at its peak enrollment,1967, the renamed West Hill to Monklands did not approach forties West Hill enrollment numbers.

Likewise school enrollment peaked in Montreal circa 1960-61 and by 1971 was below 1951 numbers.

Throw in a few Canadian population facts 1961 median age 26.3 vs 2011 median age 40.6 and the efforts to link participation in hockey to population does not work.

As for the displacement to suburbia argument does not work. The hockey associations in those areas cater to between 100 and 1,200 players, mainly the low end. In the era where the Catholic grade schools had hockey, the house league alone per grade, 4 classes of 36 boys would generate a 6 team mini NHL. Extend the numbers and compare to today.

Getting back to NDG. Recent numbers for the association are in the 600-800 range. In the fifties each of the park leagues in NDG at the house league level alone had 500-600 players, seven parks.

Even out west or beyond Montreal and Toronto - your characterization of hockey in Canada falls apart. Hockey was booming. You are overlooking the media impact since the pre WWI era -newspapers, radio, television(HNIC). The Canadiens alone mined Regina for the following future NHL players - Red Berenson, Bill Hay, Terry Harper, Bill Hicke, Murray Balfour, Bob Turner and a few others in a ten year period.

As for Europe and its talent pool, the interpretation comes down to how much discounting, if any, is applied to Soviet claims about fifties and sixties participation levels. Taken at face value claims of a 1,000,000 participants drastically impact your portrayal. Having seen some of the touring youth teams in the seventies and eighties from the Soviet Union, I would be inclined to go in the other direction and see the claims as playing possum, suggesting a premium on the claim.

Regardless the link between population and talent does not hold. Simple economics apply, skill and getting paid sufficiently for the skill.
Has always applied to hockey.

 

[danincanada]

You completely dismiss the effects of the "baby boom", post WWII?

The following details about Monklands High School in the western part of NDG, a Montreal district. Monklands was the original West Hill High School that in the late thirties, forties produced future NHL players like Ken Mosdell, Doug Harvey, Reggie Sinclair and others plus a string of CFL players.

http://lostschools.mcgill.ca/

Note at its peak enrollment,1967, the renamed West Hill to Monklands did not approach forties West Hill enrollment numbers.

Likewise school enrollment peaked in Montreal circa 1960-61 and by 1971 was below 1951 numbers.

Throw in a few Canadian population facts 1961 median age 26.3 vs 2011 median age 40.6 and the efforts to link participation in hockey to population does not work.

As for the displacement to suburbia argument does not work. The hockey associations in those areas cater to between 100 and 1,200 players, mainly the low end. In the era where the Catholic grade schools had hockey, the house league alone per grade, 4 classes of 36 boys would generate a 6 team mini NHL. Extend the numbers and compare to today.

Getting back to NDG. Recent numbers for the association are in the 600-800 range. In the fifties each of the park leagues in NDG at the house league level alone had 500-600 players, seven parks.

Even out west or beyond Montreal and Toronto - your characterization of hockey in Canada falls apart. Hockey was booming. You are overlooking the media impact since the pre WWI era -newspapers, radio, television(HNIC). The Canadiens alone mined Regina for the following future NHL players - Red Berenson, Bill Hay, Terry Harper, Bill Hicke, Murray Balfour, Bob Turner and a few others in a ten year period.

As for Europe and its talent pool, the interpretation comes down to how much discounting, if any, is applied to Soviet claims about fifties and sixties participation levels. Taken at face value claims of a 1,000,000 participants drastically impact your portrayal. Having seen some of the touring youth teams in the seventies and eighties from the Soviet Union, I would be inclined to go in the other direction and see the claims as playing possum, suggesting a premium on the claim.

Regardless the link between population and talent does not hold. Simple economics apply, skill and getting paid sufficiently for the skill.
Has always applied to hockey.

Sure, the baby boom had a large impact in Canada as well, and that's reflected in the information you posted. My father was part of the baby boom, was raised in Nova Scotia he had 7 (!) brothers and none of them could afford to play organized hockey like I did. All of my relatives in Nova Scotia play hockey now so access to this is not necessarily more difficult now.

To assume the baby boom in Canada made up for the growth of the sport in the US and Europe is a hard sell.

Well, if you are going to take a claim that the Soviets had 1,000,000 participants back then at face value then go ahead. I haven't seen any proof of that other than one claim on this board saying it was like 25,000,000 or something.

 

[Boom Boom Bear]

Lidstrom hasn't even been mentioned the last five pages, can mods split this off-track thread?

 

[Killion]

^^^ Ya. Noted Boom Boom. Believe we've left the premise of this thread far behind us gang. Interesting conversation though and excellent points/contributions by all...

Closed.