Club Hockey

petey1321
Posts: 139
Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2002 2:10 am

Club Hockey

Post by petey1321 » Wed Jan 08, 2003 4:05 pm

This post is WAY overdue. I meant to post something in December specifically related to Duke in an effort to convince people to apply, but I didn't get to it. Anyway...<br><br>As anyone who has been here for any length of time knows, I'm a junior at Duke. What you may or may not know is that I play on the club hockey team here. We play in the ACCHL, which currently consists of us, UNC, NC State, Virginia, and Virginia Tech. If my count is correct, there is only one other kid from Minnesota in the league, Ryan Russell from Moorhead, who plays for Virginia Tech. To make a long story short, I think that is very unfortunate. As I've made rather clear on here, I went to Jefferson and played on B teams for most of my life and stopped playing hockey after a year of midgets so I could work and coach a peewee team. But, right now, I'm the third leading scorer on the team as a defenseman. I play with kids from all over, but our best players are from Chicago and the Washington DC area. Several of the kids on our team were several times over letter winners in high school, and I don't feel that they're heads and tails above a kid who played a year of midgets in Minnesota. I've noticed that there is a severe lack of players on the teams we've played against, league or non-league, from Minnesota, and I think that's unfortunate. So, while it's too late to encourage kids to come here and play for Duke, it's not too late for all you guys who play and read stuff on here but aren't going D-1, D-3, or to Juniors to play for your school's club team after high school. If anything, I'd just like to see Minnesota hockey getting its due, which it definitely isn't down here, and if you look at most schools rosters (schools that aren't in Minnesota itself), there seem to be way too few Minnesota players everywhere. I just hope you seniors will realize that there is plenty more hockey to be played after high school even if you don't go play in the NCAA. <p></p><i></i>

ptown tigers
Posts: 170
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2002 3:06 am

Re: Club Hockey

Post by ptown tigers » Wed Jan 08, 2003 5:57 pm

I know Kevin Englund from Princeton is going to try play club hockey when he goes to UND next year. He just loves the game and wants to continue playing. Even if its not as high quality as UND's D-1 team. <p>Good Teams Would be Nothin without Good Water.....</p><i></i>

HardHitter15
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2003 6:50 pm

Club Hockey

Post by HardHitter15 » Wed Jan 08, 2003 6:50 pm

Just a little note to ya petey, and I'm sure your aware of this too, when Minnesota hockey players go to college and do not play D-whatever most of them try to find a club team like yourself. But in trying to find that club team you have to remember your also going to school. And passing classes is a big part of getting that great job. And often times players find it hard to play on the club team every night because they are struggling in class and need to study or if some of them have jobs they need to work. I think this is one of the main factors as to why you don't find as good of talent down there and why not enough Minnesotans play down there, because I'm sure there is a lot of them down there just not playing. <p></p><i></i>

Mitch Hawker
Site Admin
Posts: 370
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2002 12:16 pm

Re: Club Hockey

Post by Mitch Hawker » Wed Jan 08, 2003 6:54 pm

Good post Petey.<br><br>College Club hockey is a great option for many players for many different reasons.<br><br>If you enjoy playing the game but don't have the opprtunity to play D1, D3, or Junior A...or don't want to wait to begin school, there are 236 college club teams sanctioned by the ACHA.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.achahockey.org/">www.achahoc ... <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Less than 1 percent of minnesota high school senior hockey hockey players will get a scholarship right out of high school and even when all the players who go through the USHL etc to get a D1 scholarship are factored in, the total is maybe 3 - 3.5% of the players.<br><br>College Club hockey is a great option for the other 90+% of high school players and, as Petey mentioned, even for players who did not play all the way through high school. <br><br>Some of the Division 1 club teams are pretty good and the best of them might be competitive with Junior A teams and some lesser NCAA teams (e.g. MAAC, lower D3, etc.). <br><br>Some of the club teams also draw pretty well, as I have read about the University of Arizona IceCats playing in front of crowds of over 5,000 in the past.<br><br>The bottom line is that if you enjoy playing the game competitively, why not do it for as long as you can?<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

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