Good read

[JSR]

How about this JSR? If you are a stud player in Chicago or St. Louis playing Tier 2 AA because your family can't afford to pay the $15,000 or so a year it costs to play AAA then you most likely won't get a first look much less a second. In the community based model in Minnesota there are all kinds of players I can point to that get looked at and recruited because they are very good but still they play for teams that are not AAA, or even AA caliber. More likely A caliber teams.

This would be more inline with reality and the truth atleast from what I have seen of these two exact areas.... again not applicapable to 100% of the rest of the country but I would agree it's accurate to those two locations

[The Exiled One]

I'm scratching my head to figure out who makes the Edina Varsity not playing any summer hockey. I can't think of one. The vast majority of anyone within sniffing distance of that team does a lot of off season hockey/training. To imply otherwise is misleading.

I know for certain of one. I work with his dad. This would have been about six years ago and the kid did not go on to play juniors or college.

[Froggy Richards]

I'm scratching my head to figure out who makes the Edina Varsity not playing any summer hockey. I can't think of one. The vast majority of anyone within sniffing distance of that team does a lot of off season hockey/training. To imply otherwise is misleading.

I know for certain of one. I work with his dad. This would have been about six years ago and the kid did not go on to play juniors or college.

I agree. Even in today's world, you can't say that it's absolutely essential for a kid to play in the Summer to make a top High School team. Some kids are good enough to where they wouldn't have to skate in the Summer. MOST kids do need some ice in the Summer in order to keep up, but not all. Although politics would make this more difficult today than it was in the past. For example, if you were trying to make the Duluth East High School team as a sophomore and didn't attend Mike Randolph's camp, the deck would be stacked against you.

[The Exiled One]

Even in today's world, you can't say that it's absolutely essential for a kid to play in the Summer to make a top High School team. Some kids are good enough to where they wouldn't have to skate in the Summer. MOST kids do need some ice in the Summer in order to keep up, but not all. Although politics would make this more difficult today than it was in the past. For example, if you were trying to make the Duluth East High School team as a sophomore and didn't attend Mike Randolph's camp, the deck would be stacked against you.

And, keeping in mind, the VAST majority of MN kids will never play for a varsity HS team that will even contend for a trip to a state tournament. It should go without saying, it's a lot more difficult to make the varsity roster at Edina, Wayzata, Minnetonka, Duluth East, Grand Rapids... (etc) than it is to make the roster of an average or "just happy to be playing" high school program. However, even making one of the "other" teams will give a player a chance to compete against future NHL'ers... and THAT'S the beauty of the community model!

[SCBlueLiner]

How about this JSR? If you are a stud player in Chicago or St. Louis playing Tier 2 AA because your family can't afford to pay the $15,000 or so a year it costs to play AAA then you most likely won't get a first look much less a second. In the community based model in Minnesota there are all kinds of players I can point to that get looked at and recruited because they are very good but still they play for teams that are not AAA, or even AA caliber. More likely A caliber teams.

This would be more inline with reality and the truth atleast from what I have seen of these two exact areas.... again not applicapable to 100% of the rest of the country but I would agree it's accurate to those two locations

I agree with that JSR and I find something wrong with that. Kind of sick to think of all the talent that is getting overlooked because they either can't afford to play Tier 1 or their family decides against it for whatever reason (school commitments, family commitments, don't want to billet the kid out, etc.). If you ask me the system is broken everywhere else but MN.

[puckbreath]

I disagree with you on this point....

Will Butcher played only for the Madison Capitols until he went to the UNTDP, his Caps team never ranked inside the top 25 even........

According to MANY early ranking charts the second best 2000 born player in the country is a kid that plays for the Phoenix Jr Coyotes, I don't know if he plays up or not on the 99's but even they are only 28th and the 2000's are 64th...

I have several other dozen examples of the same thing here..... The point being if you are good enough and even playing for a lower lvel Tier 1 club they will still find you. Your statement I bolded above was over the top. MN is a great place to play and produces lots of quality players but it's the over the top statements like this that do not help promote it

One thing to keep in mind with examples of kid's from "timbuktu" who get noticed, and the entire "If you're good enough..." line is this:

- many, many kids these days are initiating things by contacting programs/coaches themselves, while still in hs.
Literally with a hockey "resume", many times including video.

I wonder how many kids have done this, that may have not been noticed otherwise ?

No way of knowing for sure of course, but to me, the "If you're good enough......." line, while very true in the past, is not so true anymore these days.

I still disagree, mainly because the Phoenix Jr Coyotes, or the Madison Caps, or any other lower ranked Tier 1 team is not "timbuktu", the reason ebing is that despite their team not being highly ranked they are still Tier 1 and still playing against top Tier 1 teams and that allows them to be noticed. It's actually been said within the Tier 1 commuity that it's better to be the "stud" on a 40th ranked Tier 1 team than a middle of the road player on a top ten team. It allows you a chance to stand out and be noticed more.... Now for most states outside of Minnesota (or Northern WI and a few other "pockets") if you are not playing Tier 1 then yea the ability to get noticed and advanced is minimal to none. Liek I said the statement was "over the top" that doesn't mean it couldn't have had SOME truth in it, it just went too far

Yeah, no problem.

My comment was more general in nature, than directed at your examples per se.

Apologies for any confusion.

[JSR]

How about this JSR? If you are a stud player in Chicago or St. Louis playing Tier 2 AA because your family can't afford to pay the $15,000 or so a year it costs to play AAA then you most likely won't get a first look much less a second. In the community based model in Minnesota there are all kinds of players I can point to that get looked at and recruited because they are very good but still they play for teams that are not AAA, or even AA caliber. More likely A caliber teams.

This would be more inline with reality and the truth atleast from what I have seen of these two exact areas.... again not applicapable to 100% of the rest of the country but I would agree it's accurate to those two locations

I agree with that JSR and I find something wrong with that. Kind of sick to think of all the talent that is getting overlooked because they either can't afford to play Tier 1 or their family decides against it for whatever reason (school commitments, family commitments, don't want to billet the kid out, etc.). If you ask me the system is broken everywhere else but MN.

Yea, I can't disagree, there are some talented kids that probably deserve a shot but don't get it in those locations... To some degree the blame is shared even by the scouts and coaches as they kind of get a little lazy allow the Tier 1 teams to winnow things down for them so they don't have to go looking around as hard. MN perceptually has always had a ton of talent and depth so the scouts continue to assume that is always the case so they are willing to spend the time and effort there, in some other places if you don't play some sort of Tier 1 you won't get looked at so your not on the "radar" so getting a chance becomes very very difficult, sort of a vicious circle.....

[Shinbone_News]

I would argue that a kid like Will Butcher, being in Wisconsin, benefits from proximity to Minnesota, and Wisconsin community hockey is pretty strong too. Not a stretch for scouts at all.

Also, it's manifestly clear that the USNDTP works VERY hard to find kids from USA Hockey regions other than Minnesota, and those kids are universally Tier 1 AAA players. It caps the number of kids Minnesota can send to national camps, and also incidentally recognizes that there are a significant number of Minnesota kids who will actually turn them down in order to either stay home and play high school or go to some other juniors program.

I stand by my original comment: Hockey players in Minnesota have a distinct political advantage, full stop.

I recently talked to several high school coaches, both private and public schools, who told me something astonishing: They had each gotten calls from families from all over the country, Texas, California, Arizona, Florida, inquiring about the possibility of transferring to Minnesota in order to get their kids onto a MN HS hockey team. Universally they were concerned about getting seen by scouts and having a fair shot at Tier 1 or 2 Juniors.

Yes, I think that's ridiculous too, but the barriers to playing at higher levels are very real, and if a kid has his heart set on it, the parents will look at desperate measures. We have it pretty lucky -- the luxury of saying "that's ridiculous" when our kids will definitely get more chances to be seen by scouts.

[WestMetro]

Ive asked this question before, not sure I ever got a clear answer.

Why in the world did Minnesota let the NDTP get established somewhere else to begin with ?

Even never minding how it got started in Ann Arbor, Minnesota hockey powers should lobby to get it moved here someday. It really belongs here.

[karl(east)]

Ive asked this question before, not sure I ever got a clear answer.

Why in the world did Minnesota let the NDTP get established somewhere else to begin with ?

Even never minding how it got started in Ann Arbor, Minnesota hockey powers should lobby to get it moved here someday. It really belongs here.

I don't know if this was the whole story, but several people in the MN hockey brass, most notably Herb Brooks, hated the very idea of the NTDP. Herb thought it was an awful use of USA Hockey resources to focus them on just one team. Hence the whole "broaden the base of the pyramid" strategy.

Even 10 years after his death, Herb's shadow over MN hockey is very, very long.

[goldy313]

The National teams were originally going to be in Colorado, that's where many of the USOC orginizations have their headquarters.

Even when the USNDTP started they weren't very good when compared to other junior levels and probably wouldn't have beaten the top high school teams here in Minnesota. In the mid to late 80's even the USHL teams weren't that advaced from the MSHSL top teams and the USNDTP 18 team played in the USHL and were lucky to win 10 games in a season. I did lines in a number of games they played in Rochester, Mason City, and Waterloo as they part of the USHL schedule and most of those were pretty lopsided.

I'm not sure why such a league would have put in Minnesota in that time when so many better options were available to Minnesota kids. Times have changed since then of course.

[WestMetro]

I tend to agree it is a waste of resources.

But if there is going to be one, then it really should be in Minnesota,
where youth and U18 hockey is preeminent.

Transportation times and costs to and from MSP cant be much diff than Ann Arbor, so that factor has neutralized over the years.

They could boot the Magicians out of Richfield and play there. Nice area with good capacity, and close the to airport.

[Shinbone_News]

I tend to agree it is a waste of resources.

But if there is going to be one, then it really should be in Minnesota,
where youth and U18 hockey is preeminent.

Transportation times and costs to and from MSP cant be much diff than Ann Arbor, so that factor has neutralized over the years.

They could boot the Magicians out of Richfield and play there. Nice area with good capacity, and close the to airport.

Ha, nice idea. Never going to happen. USA Hockey is bent on growing the game in places other than MN where there's no marketing necessary.

You can thank Gary Bettman and the sun belt expansion. They succeeded (to some degree) in making hockey a sport that is now played in places where the lakes never freeze and the snow never falls.

Michigan is the perfect solution. Ann Arbor and Detroit are the nearest major metro areas to Canada (heavy hockey influence), but they are driving distance from Minnesota and Northern Illinois, where the vast majority of serious youth hockey is played.

USA Hockey is struggling to keep Minnesota Hockey at arm's length. We are the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

[almostashappy]

USA Hockey is struggling to keep Minnesota Hockey at arm's length. We are the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

800 pound gorillas are problems. MinnesotaHockey is an 800 pound revenue stream.

They should be mindful of that saying about bit hands and feedings.

[WestMetro]

Shinbone, what Im saying is the Ann Arbor location points may have been more valid back in the 70s/80s, but as time has gone by the U of Mich influence and Detroit/Windsor proximity have diminished in importance.

Meanwhile the Minn youth, HS and college hockey influence has greatly expanded.

Also, the Northwest Illinois suburbs along with StL, Texas, AZ, and LA youth markets have moved the center point of the national market further west.

Minn should make a preemptive move and use its greater influence on the national hockey scene to move "NDTP" here, while the TJ Oshie Olympic story is still fresh in everyones mind.

This would help Minn to move towards being an even greater overall net importer of youth/U18 hockey talent

Shinbone_News
Michigan is the perfect solution. Ann Arbor and Detroit are the nearest major metro areas to Canada (heavy hockey influence), but they are driving distance from Minnesota and Northern Illinois, where the vast majority of serious youth hockey is played.

[puckbreath]

I dunno; I'd vote for keeping anything USA Hockey related as far away from Minnesota as possible.

[Froggy Richards]

Shinbone, what Im saying is the Ann Arbor location points may have been more valid back in the 70s/80s, but as time has gone by the U of Mich influence and Detroit/Windsor proximity have diminished in importance.

Meanwhile the Minn youth, HS and college hockey influence has greatly expanded.

Also, the Northwest Illinois suburbs along with StL, Texas, AZ, and LA youth markets have moved the center point of the national market further west.

Minn should make a preemptive move and use its greater influence on the national hockey scene to move "NDTP" here, while the TJ Oshie Olympic story is still fresh in everyones mind.

This would help Minn to move towards being an even greater overall net importer of youth/U18 hockey talent

Shinbone_News
Michigan is the perfect solution. Ann Arbor and Detroit are the nearest major metro areas to Canada (heavy hockey influence), but they are driving distance from Minnesota and Northern Illinois, where the vast majority of serious youth hockey is played.

It's NTDP. National Team Development Program. See it called NDTP a lot on this thread.