I had a conversation yesterday with one of my best buddies in the game, a former college coach now involved in youth hockey, and he asked me a simple question:
“What do you think is the biggest issue in youth hockey today?”
I think the obvious one that most people would agree on is cost. But let’s put that aside for now.
The biggest issue is the narrowing of the talent pyramid at way too young of an age and the ripple effect it has on so many facets of the game and youth hockey itself. Most notably, the FOMO and pressure both associations and families feel having to operate in a recruiting and business landscape rather than a development one.
My friend actually had his own answer that intersects pretty well with mine. His answer was summer hockey. And here’s where the two overlap:
His stance was basically that summer hockey has become the new transfer portal we’re seeing in college hockey. When you sign up for these “elite” summer showcases – or tournaments or super teams – you’re delivering a signal that you’re signing up for the crazy. You’ve essentially told the youth hockey clubs out there that love to recruit, maybe even exploit, that you are game for jumping into what I would call the dark side of the youth hockey experience. You’re ready to go ALL-IN on the crazy.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place to go ALL-IN. And not all clubs or summer programs exploit the FOMO of parents and actually create a good environment and experience for the kids. But I’d imagine that there are a lot of people that will resonate with what I’ll describe below:
How many parents’ email inboxes are flooded with can’t miss opportunities for “elite” things? By signing up for the crazy at young ages, your reward is getting on more email lists, which will then follow with MORE ELITE opportunities, and you start to get inundated with all the things you NEED to do for your kids to advance to the next level.
Then comes the FOMO. And the sinking feeling that if you don’t do a certain thing for your kid they’re going to be left behind. And the pressure to sign up for things you know deep down are, at best unnecessary, and at worst flat out wrong.
Some of these club directors are creating these little summer super teams made up of kids all over the country to ultimately lead people back to their fall teams. That FOMO parents feel (and the love they’re feeling from being recruited) end up blinding them into making decisions for their kids at way too young of an age that they know deep down in their gut aren’t right. But they’re operating out of fear and advance their kid to the grass which is very rarely greener on the other side.
Being around tryout time, I am receiving SO MANY MESSAGES about what I described above from really good youth hockey operators trying to fight to keep their kids local and parents pulling their hair out trying to navigate the process. This is the reality of the insanity of what the youth experience around the game we love has become.
Examples from just recently:
Teams of local kids finishing near the top of the national tournament losing close to half their players to teams halfway across the country. Wild and shameful promises made that anyone that knows anything about the game knows is full of garbage. Parents either moving their entire family or allowing their kids to billet before they even get to high school. Threats that if you don’t do a spring program your kid won’t make a team in the fall. Making a summer showcase team and paying full price only later to be told that the spot has been taken by somebody else, but hey their kid can still play for a lower team the club is taking.
I promised myself that I would try to tell more positive stories about the hockey world this year, but these messages keep adding up and I have to speak up and try to educate as best I can. It’s like death by a thousand paper cuts. For better or worse, this is the reality of the day in the life of the Hockey Think Tank.
A message to some youth hockey operators – do you really find joy in recruiting kids that are seven years old to play “elite hockey”? Or recruiting 12 year olds to leave their families and friends to play “elite hockey?” Like, I honestly don’t understand it. And if someone has an argument of where I’m wrong or where this is good for kids, families, or the game…please…I’m all ears. I’d love to hear you out.
A few days ago we put a clip out on social media from our interview with Hockey Hall of Famer Chris Pronger about how super teams are actually anti-development. Now to be fair, coaching trumps everything and if you get the right coach it really doesn’t matter.
But if you get a coach who is a “recruiter” and not a “coach”, or who someone that coaches to win rather than develop – which we’re seeing WAY MORE of both scenarios nowadays with the heightened emphasis on MyHockeyRankings – I don’t care how good players are they’re not going to “make it” in the end. Because at the end of the day, to achieve the higher levels of hockey you HAVE TO BE GOOD. It doesn’t matter what team you’re on, you HAVE TO BE GOOD. The older and higher the level, the less all this political BS matters.
Pointed Stat:
Glenn Hefferan, the commissioner of the USHL, told us on our podcast that even after taking out Minnesota kids (which make up 25% of the USHL) and kids from other junior programs, players in the USHL came from 54 different Tier 1 programs!!
Anybody that knows anything about hockey will tell you that for your development and advancement it’s way better to be a top player on an average team than a middle or bottom player on a super team. Here’s NHL agent Scott Bartlett, who represents Cale Makar, at our Hockey Think Tank conference years ago with some great perspective:
And here’s the thing I’d also like to tell parents:
There’s a reason why your son or daughter is getting attention. It’s probably because they’re good. Or you have a lot of money to subsidize good players not having to pay, but that’s a conversation for another day. They’re getting attention because they are GOOD AT HOCKEY.
Who made them good at hockey where they are deserving of the attention?
And you want to send your kid away to a super team and think the grass is greener on the other side? I’d much rather have my kid with the program that developed them that you know is doing things the right way than send them away to a program that needs to recruit across the country to be able to compete at that level.
Perspective from an experience I had when I was younger:
When I was 12 years old, I played for a AAA team in Chicago with way less of a roster but the way better coach. At the time there were only two AAA teams in the city. At the beginning of the year, we got smoked by the other team. But by the end of the year, we beat them. So naturally, what did the other team do that summer? They took the top players from our team, but my parents said no. We were going to stay with the good coach with the better culture.
So the next year we get smoked by that team at the beginning of the year again because we had far inferior talent. But then because we had better coaching, we beat them towards the end of the year.
Fast forward to that next summer and the parents of the kids on the other team were like what the hell is going on? Why is this ragtag group continuing to get better and beat us when we have the way better talent? So they decided to join us with the good coach. We won the national championship and two years later we had three kids playing at the NTDP. More than half the kids on our team played college hockey.
COACHING AND CULTURE over RECRUITING AND SUPER TEAM. Every single day of the week.
Guys, if you could be a part of some of the conversations I’m having right now, you’d be sick to your stomach. You can probably hear it in the tone of which I’m writing right now.
I was on such a high after this weekend – I had all three of my young daughters on the ice for a USA Hockey Try Hockey for Free day and it may have been the most fun I’ve had on a sheet of ice. Literal hockey euphoria.
And then, as Eminem stated, back to reality.
Apologies for the tone and tenor of this post, but we have to keep speaking up about the very real issues we see and hear about every day. This sport gave me my life. My fear is that less and less people are going to choose our sport because of this stuff. More people are going to leave for other sports or quit sports altogether which is also a huge problem for our kids physical and mental health.
Now I also don’t love writing solely about problems I also want to provide some perspective on solutions. The unfortunate reality is change is hard and it’s tough to regulate youth sports and hockey in particular.
For USA Hockey or Hockey Canada, there’s the threat of programs leaving for unsanctioned hockey or getting sued by parents with a lot of money when a restriction or regulation hurts their kid or their business.
And for good program operators, they fear losing their program and ultimately their business because the threat of going to the crazy earlier and earlier from the vocal minority of parents is real and they feel like if they don’t jump into it they’ll lose everything. These are harsh but real facts.
But what can be done?
1. I want to talk to the parents of the most talented players on your teams out there. People are going to follow what you do. The longer you take to jump into the crazy, the longer it will take for the domino effect of others to do so too. How many times have we seen in youth hockey where the top 1-2 players decide to leave and then everyone else loses their minds and feels like they need to leave too. So much of the power is in the hands of the parents of the top players in youth hockey. If I can convince any parents like that to hold off and think of development as a marathon and not a sprint (which every single expert on development will tell you), it will help the culture of our sport immensely. Especially the parents of the top 7-10 year olds feeling the need to jump to AAA hockey doubling your price and travel and pressure to perform. Or parents of 12-14 year olds feeling the need to send your kid away from home. It’s certainly not necessary and in many cases it’s counterproductive to their development.
2. I want to talk to the program directors or coaches that are doing things the right way. Stick with it. Don’t succumb. You may lose a few battles and kids may leave in the short term but if you continue to do the right things you will win the war. How many families leave for greener pastures and then ultimately end up coming back because they were sold a bill of goods? Stay true to what you believe in. And yes I know it’s much easier said than done, but it’s going to take all of you to stick together and do it right rather than succumb to something you don’t want to do.
3. Now I want to talk to the kids. What is IN YOUR CONTROL is so much more important than the things outside your control. Your work ethic, your attitude, your willingness to show up on days you don’t want to, your positive energy, the type of teammate you are – those are things that matter if you want to achieve your dreams. Not being on a super team or going to an “elite” summer showcase or playing AAA at 10 years old. Surround yourself with good people who are going to be honest with you, hold you accountable to high standards, and create an environment where you’re going to continue to grow your passion for the game. I’ve been around a lot of the best players in our game, and the one consistency amongst all of them is they LOVE HOCKEY. You continue to fall in love with hockey every day when you have a great coach and teammates or buddies that you love to compete with.
We did a study on all the American born players that made the NHL one year – and one of the things we looked at was what round each player was drafted in. The most amount of players came from the first round. But the secondmost players – UNDRAFTED. Everyone has a different path. And if you’re reading this, there’s probably a 99.9% chance that if you have that dream your path will be the long way.
And if your path is the long way – the more you focus on the things you can control, the more you see development as a marathon and not a sprint, the more you put yourself in environments where you’ll grow your passion for the game, the more you surround yourself with the right people, the more you stop comparing your journey to others, and the more you can stay in the present moment – the more you’re going to put yourself in a position to achieve your dreams.
If I can convince one kid, or one family, to buy in to what I just laid out above, I’ll consider this post a success. And the more families, especially the ones of the most talented players, can live this out, the more we can chip away at giving this amazing game back to the kids. That’s where it belongs.
