Misconception: Players develop the most at the highest levels of competition. If you are good enough to play at the next level than you should be there.
Reality: Even in the OHL, which is the highest producer of NHL talent in the world, the overwhelming majority of those players will never play professionally. The average rookie in the NHL is 24 years old. So the idea of rushing through a players development to play up a level or leave their team to go play for a “better” team or in a “better” league is misguided at best. Probably the most noticeable area we see this debate is in Minnesota where there is a battle between USHL/NAHL and Minnesota High School over the state’s top prospects. There have been success stories on both sides of the coin so to say one way is better than another is an argument that cannot be won or lost. However, we can clearly see in our data models that there is no advantage to the players who play up a level in youth hockey, leave high school early for juniors or leave college early for pro; there is no pattern to show that decision yields higher levels of success.
What we have now however, are players from as young as 12 or 13 being pushed to AAA programs where they have to travel all across the country and playing 65 game seasons. We have even talked to players who tell us their grades are slipping because they can’t keep up with school given their intense hockey and training schedule. If you can take the hockey goggles off for a second and look at that behavior, it is simply ridiculous. Less than 1% of these players, even at the AAA level, are going to make a living playing hockey. Sacrificing academics, childhood, high school and/or college experience to play at the” highest” level is a poor choice 99.6% of the time; it’s math
Topic: AAA in Philadelphia area (Read 29070 times)
