Articles

[hockeygod]

Reducing lifelong disability from sports injuries in children

See related research article by Emery and colleagues at http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/doi/10.1503/cmaj.101540

Canadians admire their professional athletes, especially
if they overcome adversity and continue to play while
injured. These athletes are often role models for children
and youth. However, imitating professional athletes by
playing while injured comes with serious health and economic
consequences. We should ask ourselves whether such
practices on the hockey rink, soccer field or ski hill are worth
the risk of long-term disability.

First, as parents, let us dispense with the fantasy that our children
will become the next Sidney Crosby, David Beckham or
Nancy Greene. Only about 500 Canadians play in the National
Hockey League.1 Given our population of 32.5 million, that
means only 16 of every 1 million Can adians play professional
hockey at the top level.1 Similarly small proportions will achieve
professional or Olympic success in other sports.

Second, let us consider the health and economic consequences.
The annual incidence of catastrophic injury related
to sports or recreation is 6.9 per 100 000 participants, and a
substantial proportion of those injured are athletes less than
21 years old.2 Each year, nearly 500 Ontarians are admitted
to hospital because of a hockey-related injury, with thousands
more seeking acute medical care.3 Children aged 11–
12 years who play in hockey leagues that allow bodychecking
have more than a threefold increased risk of concussion
or other injury.4 In youth hockey, concussions are underreported
by team players and personnel: a maximum of 24.3
concussions per 1000 player game hours was estimated from
a survey of non-elite male youth hockey players, as compared
with a maximum of 0.61 per 1000 based on official
injury reports.5 Repeated concussions can cause long-term
disabilities that prevent return to play and have a lasting
impact on the ability to function and enjoy life.6 The economic
consequences of these injuries include the direct costs
of care and indirect costs resulting from loss of future productivity,
which are often much higher than direct costs
when young people are involved.

Allowing a child or youth to return to the same game after
an injury risks permanent damage, and it may even be career
limiting for elite players hoping to be future professional or
Olympic athletes. Injuries heal better and faster if they are
protected from further insults during recovery. With concussions,
preventing further trauma is crucial.

As a society, we hope to prepare young people for life
events, including how to persevere through difficulties. However,
we should not confuse excellence and bravery with behaviour
that needlessly and unwisely causes long-term harm.

Whose responsibility is it to reduce lifelong disability from
sports injuries in children and youth? Certainly not professional
athletes. Their livelihoods depend on taking risks. Similarly,
sports commentators and the media have a vested interest
in celebrating risk- taking behaviours and physical contact in
sport because audiences love the spectacle.

What about parents? Even though protective instincts and
bonds between parents and children are strong, so too are
hopes and dreams. Some parents contribute to the problem by
living vicariously through their children, seriously overestimating
chances of elite amateur or professional success, and
exhibiting unrestrained enthusiasm sometimes bordering on
rage. Simply educating parents will probably not work.

Reducing lifelong disability from sports injuries in children
and youth demands a public health solution similar to that used
to combat smoking and drunk driving. A coordinated, multifaceted
approach involving awareness, education and rule changes
is required. Unnecessary risk taking and violent physical contact
in sport need to be “de-normalized” through education and
awareness campaigns. Getting sports organizations to change
the rules is another solution. Parents who understand the problem
and want their children to play with less risk can champion
the cause. Former professional athletes whose careers were
ended by major injuries can also help. The medical profession
can contribute by providing evidence on what works in primary
and secondary prevention of injury and by developing guidelines
for practitioners and coaches on mandatory recovery times
before allowing players to return to play. Finally, tracking rates
and long-term consequences of sports injuries will be essential.

Children and youth can still be pushed to succeed in sports,
but with fewer risks and less physical contact. The goal is not
to change the behaviour and practices of professional and
Olympic athletes. Rather, it is to keep our young players
healthy to enjoy the rest of their lives. Unnecessary lifelong
disability will not help anyone, least of all a minor who cannot
fully appreciate the consequences of serious injury. Let’s be
careful not to excel at causing long-term harm rather than true
sporting achievements.

Alun D. Ackery MD MSc, Allan S. Detsky MD PhD; with the editorial ad –
visory team: Paul C. Hébert MD MHSc, Matthew B. Stanbrook MD PhD,
Ken Flegel MDCM MSc, Noni E. MacDonald MD MSc

For references, see Appendix 1, available at http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi /content /full
/cmaj.110634/DCI

Competing interests: None declared by Alun Ackery or Allan Detsky. See
http://www.cmaj.ca/misc/cmaj_staff.dtl for editorial advisory team statements.

Affiliations: See http://www.cmaj.ca/misc/cmaj_staff.dtl for editorial advisory
team statements. Alun Ackery is with the Division of Emergency Medicine,
Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.; and Allan
Detsky is with the Departments of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation,
and Medicine, University of Toronto, and the Department of Medicine,
Mount Sinai Hospital and University Health Network, Toronto, Ont.

Correspondence to: CMAJ editor, pubs@cmaj.ca
CMAJ 2011. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.110634

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Lower rate of serious injury no justification for more bodychecking: U of C researcher

By Sean Myers June 20, 2011

CALGARY — University of Calgary professor Carolyn Emery has found more evidence she says conclusively argues that removing bodychecking from Pee Wee hockey will reduce concussions and injuries in young players.

She claims her new study, published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, shows there is no significant spike in injuries in bantam hockey players in Quebec, the first level hitting is allowed, over Alberta bantam players who’ve been checking for two years in Pee Wee.

The study takes dead aim at the belief among some coaches and parents that waiting to allow checking in older age groups will only delay injuries.

Her study did find a 33 per cent increase in severe injuries (those requiring a player to sit out for over a week) in Quebec bantam players but Emery said that was not significant compared to the risk in Pee Wee.

“I would argue it’s irrelevant … in light of a fourfold greater risk of concussion and a threefold greater risk of that (severe) injury type in Pee Wee,” said Emery. “Across four years of play the evidence is fairly conclusive that removing bodychecking in Pee Wee ice hockey will have a significant public health impact in terms of concussion and injury reduction in youth ice hockey players.”

In her study of Pee Wee players last year, Emery said an estimated 1,000 game-related injuries and 400 game-related concussions could be prevented per year in 11-and 12-year-old Alberta players if body checking was eliminated.

Her bantam study also doesn’t rule out a cause for increased severe injuries in Quebec coming from the “survivor” effect.

In Alberta, some players drop out of hockey after Pee Wee because they don’t like the hitting or due to a history of multiple concussions. Those type of players would presumably carry on into bantam in Quebec she argued, where she said they would be at greater risk.

The bantam study looked at injury rates in 68 Alberta teams and 62 Quebec teams. There were 272 injuries including 51 concussions among the Alberta teams and 244 injuries including 49 concussions in Quebec.

The study supports the conclusions of 14 of 15 studies showing an increased risk of concussion and injury when bodychecking is allowed in Pee Wee said Emery.

“The results are consistent in all of these studies except for one,” said Emery. “So our work supports the evidence that’s out there.

USA Hockey has banned body checking from Pee Wee across the States starting next season. The hockey body is instituting an new progressive checking skill development program.

Emery, a hockey parent, would like to see something similar brought in to Canada.

Grace Lane is a Calgary parent with three boys who all played hockey up until this spring when her youngest decided to drop out rather than face body checking in Pee Wee next fall.

“He’s not interested in being hit,” said Lane of her son Nathan, 10, who played in atom this past season.

Her son Jason, 12, is going into his second year of Pee Wee and her oldest, Alexander, 14, suffered his third concussion in his first year of bantam this past season.

“We were seriously, at that point, considering pulling (Alexander) out of hockey” said Lane, president of the Westwood Hockey Association. “But he loves hockey. He cried, begged, pleaded.”

Lane isn’t sure checking should be removed from Pee Wee completely but perhaps from all by the elite level teams.

“I’m mixed, I have two kids who are playing and they like that aspect of the game,” said Lane who plays on a women’s recreational team.

“My middle son who hasn’t had any concussions, he loves to hit. He’s a clean hitter and believes it’s a really integral part of the game. And people have to remember it’s to knock the person off of the puck not take the person’s head off of the body.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[Tom Molloy]

Relentless pursuit of excellence

Hal Terse the Coach in Chief of Minnesota Hockey and Jack Blatherwick a training expert wrote articles in Let's Play Hockey magzine. Hal about the changes to the American youth develoment model that they are encouraging coaches to adopt and Jack writes how young players should train and why they can't simply imitate what the pro's do.

Kevin Sullivan of Boston, who I consider the bridge of information exchange between the hockey playing countries, sent me the articles.Good stuff.
—————————————————————

By Hal Tearse

Coach in Chief, Minnesota Hockey

USA Hockey continues to expand their American Development Model (ADM) that is intended to provide youth players a better quality of experience in the game, higher skill levels and a safer environment that will attract and retain more players. The model is tested in other parts of the world, makes lots of sense for kids, and it has the support from many disciplines in the medical field.

Hockey associations and clubs around the country are quickly adopting the concepts and ideas, although some are fearful of the changes that are required. The interesting part of all of this is that many of these ideas have been around for a long time and only now are they organized into a coherent long term development program for youth players and older athletes.

The next step for the ADM is to begin to change the culture of our programs from one that is focused on short term measurements of numbers of games won to a long term view of a relentless pursuit of excellence.

A change in view to long-term development requires a very different approach from the very lowest levels of the game all the way through high school and junior hockey in this country. It is about the relentless commitment on the part of coaches and program organizers to insure that all players are given the opportunity to learn the skills they need to successfully advance to the next age level and competitive level of the game. Players that reach their mid teens with skill deficiencies are doomed and will not ever have a chance to realize their potential. This occurs far to often.

Other hockey federations in the world, including Canada, view the player development period all the way to ages 19 or 20. In the NHL, the ages for optimal performance is 26-36, according to researchers. There are some players who stand out at earlier ages but not many.

Only after the development period is complete are players ready to move into the highly competitive environment where they can continue to grow as players. Sadly, in the U.S. nearly 95 percent of our players have already left the game by age 16 and we have very few programs for those who want to continue to train and develop as players.

Although broad reaching organizations like USA Hockey and Minnesota Hockey are difficult to change, change occurs one coach and one team at a time. The coaches of each youth, high school, and junior team are the true leaders and developers of hockey players as they move through the system. It is at this point where we succeed or fail as developers of hockey players.

Coaching is the fulcrum of success or failure in every team and program. There are four essential criteria for successful coaching and development of players.

1. A coach needs to be relentless in improving as a coach each year.

2. Each team needs an assessment and development plan that is tailored to the specific needs of the players on the team.

3. Insuring that every player on the team acquires the necessary individual and tactical skills required to play at the next level.

4. Be accountable for achieving results in the three points above.

Does this mean winning lots of games and maybe going to the state tournaments? No. It means focusing on developing all of the players on the team with an understanding that each season is just one chapter in the long career of each player.

Maybe a coach gets 2 or 3 seasons with some players and that is even better if the coach is really focused on development. Otherwise the players move on and hopefully to coach who is also development oriented rather than just focused on winning games in youth hockey.

Making a shift like this is not easy in our current culture of �win, win, win.� It is also not easy for coaches because a shift of this nature makes the job more difficult. It does require coaches to be better prepared and more knowledgeable about the game and how to teach it.

Attending the required Coach Education Programs (CEP) is just beginning for coaches as they prepare for each season. Other seminars, books, and DVDs will enhance a coach�s skills. Spending time with more experienced and like-minded coaches is time well spent.

Adopting a viewpoint of learning as a coach is critical. A relentless pursuit of excellence for a coach will translate to the same for their team and players.

In Minnesota, local associations are responsible for their own programs and development of coaches and players. Every association should have an on going coach development, mentoring and assessment program in place that focus on technical competency and measurable outcomes. There are hurdles to this idea but it does work and the players get better because the coaching is better and focused on the right areas.

Youth hockey in Minnesota is a $150 million industry that hinges on coaching. Poor or inadequate coaching means time and money are wasted and players leave the game at an early age well before they have reached their potential. Good coaching should be the relentless pursuit of every association.

Minnesota Hockey offers a coach development program for local associations. It is a combination of on- and off-ice sessions and can be expanded on request. A team of experienced coaches will come to a local association and work with youth coaches to help them in their relentless pursuit of excellence. Interested associations can contact Minnesota Hockey for more information. halt@minnesotahockey.org

The offseason is the best time for coaches and associations to begin their own relentless pursuit of excellence.

See you around the rink.

Why young athletes should NOT train like NHL players
By Jack Blatherwick

Let�s Play Hockey Columnist

One hundred percent of the offseason training for young hockey players should be planned to develop (or improve) skills, athleticism and creative rink sense. On the other hand, established NHLers are often training to recover from a grueling season of competition, injuries, stress and travel. Their priorities include maintenance of endurance, strength and core stability.

These are huge differences: development or improvement vs. recovery and maintenance. Therefore, the definition of �young� in this case includes any player who wants to make great improvements in the offseason, and this includes high school, youth, junior and college players, plus many young professionals who are not satisfied that they have reached their peak performance yet.

The most important athletic qualities � as defined by coaching groups I�ve polled � include quickness, agility, speed, explosive strength, reaction to sudden changes, plus the endurance to maintain these qualities throughout a game. To play at a higher level, it is essential to combine athleticism with stick skills, skating, vision, rink sense and creative decision-making.

For several weeks after an NHL season, professionals should not train with the intensity required for these anaerobic capacities; recovery is more important. This often takes a few weeks of aerobic training, which means long, slow distances, jogging or bicycling. Late in the summer, the intensity and range of motion is increased before starting the NHL season.

Young players should NEVER waste valuable time doing long, slow distances. Aerobic endurance is important, but it can be improved by doing interval training for the higher priorities: athleticism, skills and rink sense. In other words, don�t waste time doing what fitness gurus call �cardio� workouts.

Cardiovascular fitness can be improved to a greater extent using intense anaerobic interval training. This has been verified for three decades by solid scientific research (see articles and books by EI Fox, WD McArdle, VL Katch, FL Katch, and most recently, an excellent study by E Ziemann et al., in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, April 2011).

To develop athleticism at young ages, strength training should be combined with jumps and sprints, not separated from them, so learn all you can about post-activation potentiation and complex training (discussed in future articles). Core stability for young athletes means strengthening core muscles at increased speed and range of motion, and this should be integrated into highly athletic movements.

On the other hand, established NHLers must isolate core muscles and train them at slower speeds for the first weeks of the offseason, because they aren�t doing as much dynamic athletic training at this time of the year.

How does a young athlete accomplish all this? Participate in sports that require quickness, speed, agility and explosive strength. There are many team sports that fulfill this need, and tennis or other racket sports are tremendous. Skills, vision and decisions are integrated with athleticism, just as in hockey.

High-speed, creative hockey scrimmages can be the best, whether this is 5-on-5, or fewer players � on full ice or smaller areas. The smaller rinks (Hat-Trick and Velocity) require skills and decisions in tight areas. Eliminate whistles for icing and offside, and encourage goalies to avoid freezing the puck. Turn the scoreboards off, so players are encouraged to try creative new skills with no fear of failure.

If coaches are concerned about winning in the winter, and if this restricts development of creativity and skill � this should never happen in the summer. Scrimmage for development and fun. Keep the game moving at high tempo. Eliminate whistles and there will be improvement in cardiovascular fitness as well as speed, agility, quickness and explosive strength.

Scrimmages are the best way to combine athleticism with skills and rink sense, and great players say unstructured hockey is the key to improvement.

Train the way NHLers did when they were young, not the way they do to recover and maintain fitness.

Visit Jack�s website at http://www.overspeed.info.

Let�s Play Hockey wants to publish your hockey stories. From tournament reports, to feature stories on teams, players or coaches, to opinion pieces on the game of hockey, Let�s Play Hockey accepts submissions from readers throughout the hockey community. To submit your hockey story and/or photo(s), e-mail us at editor@letsplayhockey.com.

'The Game is the Greatest Coach'
'Enjoy the Game'

[hockeygod]

Small (with talent) is the new big at NHL draft

ERIC DUHATSCHEK Globe and Mail Tuesday, Jun. 21, 2011

The day before the 1987 entry draft, as the NHL introduced its potential first rounders at the annual meet-the-prospects function, a diminutive centre from the Swift Current Broncos named Joe Sakic found himself standing between a pair of behemoth prospects, one on either side, who towered over him.

At that moment, David McNab, then a scout for the Hartford Whalers, dared to dream Sakic might actually fall to No. 18, where the Whalers were drafting. As skilled as he was (and the Burnaby, B.C.-born Sakic was coming off a 133-point WHL season, his first in junior), the prevailing NHL wisdom at the time was that bigger was better. Standing there, in a long line of prospects, the 5-foot-11 centre was positively dwarfed by the likes of Luke Richardson (6 foot 4, 215 pounds) and Brendan Shanahan (6 foot 3, 218). How low could Sakic go?

The answer came the next day: All the way to 15th.

Team after team passed up a player who would eventually become the NHL’s eighth-leading scorer of all time for one reason alone: The perception that anyone under six feet couldn’t survive or thrive in the NHL.

Among the players chosen ahead of Sakic that year: Wayne McBean, Chris Joseph, Dave Archibald, Bryan Fogerty, Jay More, Yves Racine, Keith Osborne, Dean Chynoweth and Stéphane Quintal. The Quebec Nordiques ultimately landed Sakic, but not before spending their first choice, ninth overall, on Fogerty.

And much, much later in that same draft class, the Calgary Flames took a flyer at 166 in order to draft 5-foot-6 Theo Fleury of the Moose Jaw Warriors, thinking he might top out as a great minor-league pro. Instead, Fleury is No. 56 on the all-time scoring list, and the list of players selected ahead of him too long to enumerate.

So fast forward to the present, and the consensus No. 1 pick in Friday’s NHL entry draft is a skinny, if slightly taller, centre, also from Burnaby, who played for the WHL’s Red Deer Rebels and grew up idolizing Sakic. That would be Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

For that matter, the 2011 equivalent to Fleury, Sakic’s great junior rival, is also in this draft – a 5-foot-6 American buzz saw named Rocco Grimaldi, who is projected to go in the second half of the first round, but whose stock is rising fast.

In the postlockout NHL, where hooking, holding and interference have largely been eliminated from the game, small is suddenly okay, provided the skill level is there.

“Minds have opened up to the smaller player,” said Craig Button, a former NHL general manager and chief scout who now works as a TSN analyst. “I’ll never forget being in a scouting meeting with Bob Clarke once and we were going on about this forward and that forward, and Clarkie would ask, ‘How big is he?’ We’d say, ‘5-11.’ And Bob would make these scrunching looks with his face, as if he were in the greatest pain ever, and say, ‘I don’t know.’

“Finally, Dennis Patterson, who still scouts for the Flyers, says: ‘It’s a good thing you’re not in this draft – because we wouldn’t be taking you.’ And Clarkie knew, Dennis had him dead to rights.

“So all that’s changed – and I laugh because in Philadelphia, Claude Giroux and Mike Richards, two really good players for the Flyers now, are both sub-six-footers.”

Officially, Nugent-Hopkins is listed at 6 foot 1, 164 pounds, so his frame is slightly different than Sakic’s. According to Button, he also shares Sakic’s vision, skill and slipperiness, but doesn’t shoot the puck as well.

“Everything else is so much like Sakic, except for the shot,” Button said. “Joe was able to knife his way into those really dangerous areas where he could either shoot or make a play. Nugent-Hopkins is the same way.

“They know what’s going to happen, they see the play unfold, and that’s the vision part. Then they have the quickness in their feet and their hands to get to the hard areas and not be deterred. Then they finish it off by making unbelievable plays.

“Everybody said, ‘You couldn’t touch [Wayne] Gretzky.’ Well, you couldn’t touch him because you couldn’t hit him. It has nothing to do with not trying, you just couldn’t do it. In the games I’ve seen [Nugent-Hopkins] play, I’ve never seen anybody get a clean piece of him.”

The Edmonton Oilers have the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft. Even if their greatest needs are for size up front, and depth on defence, the thinking is the Oilers cannot pass up the chance to select Nugent-Hopkins.

But if, for some reason, something changes, then he’ll be there at No. 2 for the Colorado Avalanche, a team that – wouldn’t you know it? – currently employs Sakic as its executive adviser and alternate governor.

Almost a quarter-century later, that would most assuredly complete the circle. The times, they really have changed.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[Tom Molloy]

I kept track of the hits on this site last week. I started at 8 a.m. MDT last Thursday and went to this moring. In the last week we had 77,507 hits which is 11,072 per day.

On a personal note a team in the Czech Republic offered me a coaching position as U20 assistant (the head coach is the only coach who speaks english) and coach mentor for their youth hockey. They were waiting for a grant from the city council which met last Friday. I haven't heard anything; so I assume they didn't get the grant. I requested that I be able to do something like go one month and come home a month.

I meet with a local coach who runs a lot of skill camps etc. tomorrow.

I have been working with a pro player who has played NCAA, American League, Eastern League and was in Finland last season. We do about 75 min. of skill every morning this week. It was kind of neat on Tuesday as Tomas Pacina who is a Czech and also NHL skills coach was on the ice next. I went in to say hi to him and he was getting ready to go on the ice with Jerome Iginla. I have never met him before and we talked about ten minutes. Really nice guy. He goes on the ice to work on his skills 2 times a week.

It was interesting watching as Tomas had him working on doing everything with the puck from the triple threat position.

'The Game is the Greatest Coach'
'Enjoy the Game'

[hockeygod]

Teams missing hidden gems in NHL draft

DAVID SHOALTS Globe and Mail Wednesday, Jun. 22, 2011

A study by three academics at Simon Fraser University shows a surprising trend at the NHL draft and puts a dent in one long-held belief.

Peter Tingling, an assistant professor at the B.C. university’s faculty of business administration, and colleagues Kamal Masri and Matt Martell studied the NHL draft results from 1995 through 2003 and concluded teams miss a lot of good players in the later rounds because they dedicate their resources to the early rounds where the picks are easier.

While the authors confirmed the obvious, that players taken in the first round have the best chance of a meaningful NHL career (65 per cent of them by the authors’ count), they also discovered that players taken in the fourth through seventh rounds all have the same rate of success (roughly 11 per cent).

But on average, NHL teams harvest just two successful players a draft, so the authors concluded, in a study to be published in the July edition of the academic journal Sports and Business Management, teams lack consistency in evaluating teenage amateur players. They say teams’ rate of success in the last four rounds of the draft in the years they studied were no better than if they made their selections by simply drawing names. Outside of the first round, the authors discovered the order in which teams drafted did not give them an advantage in picking better players.

“People are focusing on the first 100 players [in the draft],” Tingling said Wednesday. “We say if you focus on the back half, you can pick up some gems.”

And this is where an NHL axiom took a hit. The Detroit Red Wings have long been held up as a team that finds gems in the late rounds, thanks to the drafting of players such as Pavel Datsyuk (171st overall in 1998) and Henrik Zetterberg (210th overall in 1999).

But when they studied the drafting success of individual teams, the authors found the Red Wings were slightly worse than most NHL teams at drafting players who had successful careers, which they defined as playing more than 160 NHL games. From 1995 through 2003, the Red Wings did not pick one such player in five draft years, a failure rate of 55.5 per cent. The Toronto Maple Leafs, a team long held up as inept evaluators or talent or prone to trading away picks, were in a group of teams that only had two years out of nine when they wound up with no successful players.

What that showed, the authors feel, is the Red Wings’ European scouting, under the direction of Hakan Andersson, outperformed the North American staff.

However, the authors also concluded the differences between the teams were so slight that no team could be considered to be superior to any other at drafting players. When they studied the draft results from 1981 through 2003, they found that of the 5,981 players selected by NHL teams, only 20.1 per cent played 160 or more NHL games and 58.3 per cent of them never played even one NHL game.

That was one of the only conclusions Carolina Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford was willing to agree with. The big problem with the draft, he said, is that scouts and general managers have to analyze 18-year-old players and project how they will perform as adults, which naturally makes drafting the guessing game the authors say it is.

“First of all, we’re drafting very young players,” Rutherford said. “So for a number of years all organizations are going to have some that don’t turn out, some that turn out and some that turn out better than you think. If you look at it over time, there is not as great a difference as you might think.”

Tingling readily agrees the age of the players in the draft causes great difficulty but still believes NHL teams can do a better job.

“Drafting is intrinsically difficult, we acknowledge this,” Tingling said. “It would be a whole lot easier if [the players] were not 18 years old. People say it’s like picking a Nobel Prize winner from a Grade 8 chemistry class. But if we did everything easy life would be a lot more simple.”

It is good business sense for teams to concentrate harder on finding good NHL players in the last four rounds of the draft, Tingling said. In a salary-cap world like the NHL, the cheapest players are the ones you draft, and good players taken in late rounds can be obtained for less money than inferior players simply because the inferior ones were drafted earlier.

Too often, teams are unwilling to apply unconventional thinking to draft picks, Tingling said. One example is Dustin Byfuglien, one of the NHL’s top scoring defencemen for the Atlanta Thrashers last season, who was taken in the eighth round of the 2003 entry draft by the Chicago Blackhawks.

He lasted that long, the authors said, because he let his weight balloon to 275 pounds and teams were scared off by his lack of conditioning despite his skills. But Byfuglien worked hard on his conditioning after he was drafted and became a top NHL player.

Another mistake teams make, Tingling said, is getting their scouts together before the draft to finalize their plans. Too often, the scouts simply confirm what teams already have decided about the top players and little information is gleaned about the lesser-known players.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

KHL luring Russians away from NHL

DAVID SHOALTS | St. Paul, Minn. – From Monday's Globe and Mail – Published Sunday, Jun. 26, 2011

A trend continued at the NHL entry draft over the weekend – the Russians are not coming.

While there were twice as many Russian players selected in this year’s draft compared with 2010, when a mere four were taken, an overall slide that began in earnest in 2005 has not stopped. And every NHL executive asked for a reason named the same culprit – the Continental Hockey League (KHL).

Ever since the KHL began enticing young Russian players, usually with money, to stay and play at home rather than develop for a year or more in the North American junior or minor leagues they are electing to stay home in increasing numbers. In response, NHL teams draft less and less of them every year.

“I think what’s happened to the Russian player is the real good ones you know are going to come over and play, they’re locked in to play [in North America],” Ottawa Senators general manager Bryan Murray said. “But the [Russian] guys are like a normal Canadian kid, where he has to go back for development or go to the American Hockey League for a year, we find that they don’t want to stay.

“They get encouraged to go back, get money to go back to the KHL. So [the players] have no patience and therefore we don’t take the chance on them.”

All of the NHL people questioned said the trend does not mean Russia is producing fewer hockey prospects, even though the four players taken in 2010 was the lowest since Russians were first drafted by NHL teams beginning in 1969. The high mark was 1992 when 45 players were selected, with the sharp decline starting in 2005 when 11 players were taken compared with 24 the previous year. It was no coincidence that the infusion of money from wealthy Russian businessmen into the KHL began around the same time.

By the 2010-11 season, there were 27 Russians playing in the NHL, down from 60 in 2001-02.

While relations between the NHL and KHL are better than they were a few years ago when players like Alexander Radulov walked away from an NHL contract with the Nashville Predators to sign with a KHL team, there is still no formal agreement between the leagues. They have agreed to respect each other’s contracts but Radulov is still playing in the KHL, which still rankles Predators GM David Poile. Another problem is the Russian Hockey Federation’s refusal to sign a transfer agreement with the NHL.

“The KHL has most of these players signed up and committed for the long term,” Poile said. “So it’s a draft pick that you may not be realistically getting in the short term or the long term.

“The St. Louis Blues took Vladimir Tarasenko last year [16th overall]. He was a very highly-rated player, so everything being equal he would have been taken higher in the draft. But not everything is equal any more when you’re taking the Russian players.”

This means a change in how some teams bring in young Russians. Murray, for example, traded for 21-year-old Russian forward Nikita Filatov at the entry draft. He was taken sixth overall by the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2008 but has bounced between the NHL, AHL and KHL ever since. Murray is hoping a change of scene will bring out the best in Filatov, who told him he wants to play in the NHL.

“We traded for Filatov partly because of ability and he indicated he wanted to try and stay here, so we took that chance,” Murray said. “If he doesn’t make it, I’m sure the first thing he’ll do is try to get a contract back there.”

Russian players who are drafted now by NHL teams are usually ones who are already playing in the North American junior leagues or have indicated they want to play in the NHL. Tampa Bay Lightning GM Steve Yzerman, for example, made centre Vladislav Namestnikov the first Russian taken over the weekend at 27th overall in the first round.

But Namestnikov is the son of former NHL player John Namestnikov and grew up in North America. He plays for the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League.

Yzerman took three of the eight Russians drafted on the weekend. Since he did not have any high draft picks, he figured it was worth the gamble.

“Any player you pick in the second round or later, most are three to four years away,” Yzerman said. “We felt in three or four years, if they’re good players, they will be here. All the good players eventually come over from Russia.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Interesting note about Floorball and how popular it is – contrasted to hockey!
—–

CBC Sports June 28, 2011 By Elliotte Friedman

From his 30 points…

27) Continuing concern: the low amount of Czechs and Slovaks being drafted. Apparently, more people in those countries are registered to play floorball than hockey. (The unbelievable Mikael Granlund goal from the Worlds? Floorball move called "zoroing," I've been told.)

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Paul Kariya announces retirement

ERIC DUHATSCHEK Globe and Mail Wednesday, Jun. 29, 2011

At the age of 36 and after taking a full year away from the NHL to try and recover from the effects of multiple concussions, Paul Kariya retired Wednesday after a distinguished 15-year career.

And on the day he did so, Kariya had sharp words of criticism for a league that he believes still hasn’t done enough to address the issue of head injuries.

“The thing that I worry about,” Kariya said in an interview, “is that you’ll get a guy who is playing with a concussion, and he gets hit, and he dies at centre ice. Can you imagine what would happen to the league if a guy dies at centre ice?”

Kariya said that if the NHL wants to get serious about reducing the number of concussions in the game, it needs to introduce harsher penalties, in the same it did to eliminate the bench-clearing brawls that were so prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s, but are completely absent from the game now.

“If you want to get rid of it, I’m a believer that you don’t go after the employees, you go after the employers,” said Kariya. “The first concussion I had, on a brutal, blindside hit, the guy got a two-game suspension. That was in 1996. The last one, from (the Buffalo Sabres’ Patrick) Kaleta, was exactly the same play, and he doesn’t get anything.

“If you start at 10-game suspensions and go to 20, that sends a message to the players. But if you start fining the owners and suspending the coach, then it’s out of the game.”

Kariya went on to say that every hit that ever knocked him out came as a result of an illegal hit.

“Every single one,” he reiterated. “I’m not saying you’re going to ever eliminate concussions completely because it’s a contact sport, but if you get those out of the game, then you eliminate a big part of the problem.

“A two-game suspension? That’s not enough of a deterrent.”

Last summer, Kariya issued a statement through his agent Don Baizley that he was planning to take the 2010-11 season off in the hopes that he could be fully recovered in time to sign for the start of 2011-12. And while he is now symptom-free, and says he “feels great,” his doctor advised him that the risk of re-injury was too great.

Even 12 months ago, concussion specialist Mark Lovell warned Kariya that this day was likely to occur. After the Kaleta hit, Kariya said he hoped his symptoms would go away over time, as they had before.

“Instead, they just kept getting worse and worse. My doctor said, ‘there’s no one in my profession that could clear you to play in this condition.’ Even last summer, he said, ‘even if you recover 100 per cent, I would advise you to retire.’

“I knew I was bad, but I didn’t know I was that bad. But they had concussion data on me all the way back to 1996, and then from the (Gary) Suter hit (just before the 1998 Winter Olympics), so they could track my results from one concussion to another.

“The drop in my brain function, the doctor said, was down by 50 per cent. At that point, I wasn’t thinking, ‘Am I going to play again?’ I just wanted to get healthy.”

To that end, Kariya began a five-month rehabilitation process that involved multiple activities – weight lifting, yoga, surfing, ballroom dancing – all designed to enhance his neural responses. He also started receiving treatment in a hyperbaric chamber and began taking supplements – primarily high doses of fish oils – and eventually began to see some improvements.

“After two-and-a-half months, I saw a 40-50 per cent improvement, but the scans were still showing braining damage. After five months, I was up to 80 cent. As spring came around, and teams started calling, I went back to the doctor, but he said, ‘Paul, there’s just no way you can play again. You’re still too vulnerable to another concussion.’”

Kariya believes that because there are no visible outward symptoms of concussion, NHL teams tend to play them down to their players. He contrasted it to the treatment levels accorded to a player who suffered a major knee injury.

“If it’s an ACL/MCL tear, right away, the doctor, the player and the management, they all know he’s out for six-to-12 months. There’s no question about it. There’s a rehabilitation protocol that you follow and that’s what they do.

“With concussions, the guy walks into the dressing room the next day and they ask, ‘how are you doing? Are you okay to go tomorrow?’ It’s totally backward. I had (two major hip reconstructions) and I’ll take that any day over a concussion.”

Though he didn’t watch a lot of games this past season, he stayed in touch with Teemu Selanne, his close friend with the Anaheim Ducks and thus was aware of how concussions and illegal hits to the head were a hot-button issue in the NHL this past season. Only last week, the NHL board of governors approved a change to rule 48 – the head shot rule – that broadened its parameters and eliminated the language “blind-side or lateral hit to the head” from its wording.

From now on, “any hit resulting in contact with an opponent's head where the head is targeted and the principal point of contact is no longer permitted.”

However, the rule also includes language that permits a referee’s discretion, where “the circumstances of the hit, including whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the hit or the head contact on an otherwise legal body check was unavoidable, can be considered.”

According to Kariya, the concussion that sidelined Pittsburgh Penguins’ star Sidney Crosby halfway through the season is an example of how far the league still needs to go in order to alter its mindset.

“Crosby is a perfect example,” said Kariya. “You have the best player in the game playing on a the same team as a guy (Matt Cooke) who is ending guys’ careers with those kinds of hits.

“Hopefully, things will change.”

Kariya will finish his NHL career with 989 points in 989 games. He was a two-time winner of the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly conduct and sportsmanship, and was selected to the NHL’s first all-star team three times (1996, 1997 and 1999) and the second team twice (2000, 2003). Kariya played for Canada in the 1994 and 2002 Olympics, and was chosen to play in 1998, but couldn’t compete after suffering a head injury on a crosscheck from the Chicago Blackhawks’ Suter just days before he was supposed to head overseas.

One could argue that Kariya’s most memorable NHL moment came in the 2003 Stanley Cup final between the Anaheim Ducks and the New Jersey Devils when the Devils’ Scott Stevens laid him out with a crushing hit, leaving him motionless on the ice for several minutes with what was undoubtedly an undiagnosed concussion. Kariya returned to play after a short absence and later scored the decisive goal that permitted Anaheim to force a seventh game in a series that was ultimately won by New Jersey. It was the closest he ever came to winning the Stanley Cup.

“I feel very fortunate for the 15 years I spent in the NHL,” said Kariya. “At some point, whether you play 10 or five or 20 years, you have to retire eventually – and no matter what you do afterward, you need your brain to be functioning.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Cup sets off on summer journey with Bruins

THE CANADIAN PRESS / TSN / July 5, 2011

The Stanley Cup is on the road with the Boston Bruins for a two-month celebration unlike any other in sports.

By the time the team gathers for training camp in September, the iconic trophy will have visited almost every member of the organization on a trek that stretches from coast-to-coast in Canada, throughout the United States and to remote locales in Europe.

Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs took the Stanley Cup to Yosemite National Park over the weekend before passing it on to assistant coach Doug Houda, who chose to spend his allotted time with it in Whitefish, Mont., on Tuesday.

The first player to get his day with the Cup is Nathan Horton, who was knocked out of the championship series against Vancouver with a vicious hit from Aaron Rome.

He'll host the trophy in mid-July in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., before sending it off on an adventure in Europe. Tomas Kaberle plans to bring it to his hometown of Kladno, Czech Republic — just as brother Frantisek did in 2006 after helping the Carolina Hurricanes become champions — while captain Zdeno Chara will share it with the people of Trencin, Slovakia.

The Cup will reach its farthest point east with backup goalie Tuukka Rask, who is spending time with it in his hometown of Savonlinna, Finland — not far from the border with Russia.

A return to North America from there will see it make a number of stops around Ontario at the end of July: Oshawa (Shawn Thornton), Welland (Dan Paille), Guelph (Rich Peverley), Tillsonburg (Gregory Campbell), Brampton (Tyler Seguin), Peterborough (Marc Savard) and Ottawa (Chris Kelly).

In August, the Stanley Cup will visit seven other provinces. Patrice Bergeron is scheduled to have it in Quebec City, Mark Recchi (Kamloops) and Milan Lucic (Vancouver) will bring it to B.C., Shane Hnidy is hosting it in Neepawa, Man., and Johnny Boychuk will take it to his hometown of Edmonton before the Maritimers get their day with the Cup.

There will be stops in P.E.I. (Adam McQuaid), Nova Scotia (Brad Marchand) and Newfoundland and Labrador, where Michael Ryder will be just the second player from that province to bring it home following Detroit's Daniel Cleary in 2008.

Other highlights along the way include a visit to Flint, Mich., where Conn Smythe winner Tim Thomas will spend one of his two days with the trophy in the city he was raised.

The time Stanley Cup champions spend with the trophy over the summer helps add to its legacy. Players often get creative with the silver chalice, just as Andrew Ladd did a year ago, when he took a helicopter to the top of a mountain peak outside Vancouver at the crack of dawn and posed for the iconic image of Chicago's 2010 championship.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Quebec association separates girls from boys

By ISABELLE MAHER, QMI Agency, July 7, 2011

MONTREAL – A hockey association south of Montreal has irked parents by banning girls from playing alongside boys.

Hockey Richelieu says it instituted segregated hockey in the Atom division to develop its girls' hockey programs.

But parents say the move, which takes effect next season, is discriminatory.

"We're in Quebec in 2011, not in Taliban country!" said Marc Louis-Seize, whose eight-year-old daughter is the only girl on her team.

"They want girls to play with girls, that's passe."

The decision will force girls to quit their teams at Hockey Richelieu and sign up with local squads that offer girls' hockey. Some parents say they'll be forced to drive long distances for practices and games.

Jacques Hebert, executive vice-president of Hockey Richelieu, says he's aware of the complaints but says that segregated hockey is necessary to keep women's teams alive.

"The problem is that women's teams are losing good people, creating an imbalance, and the product is diluted," he said.

Quebec's ice hockey federation says 6,500 girls play the sport in the province, and official Yvan Dallaire says it's gaining popularity.

"In the '80s, a 12-year-old girl was playing on the same team as an 18-year-old girl because there weren't enough players," he said. "Today, not only can girls have their teams, but more and more leagues tend to separate the girls from the boys, such as soccer. There is nothing sexist about it."

Hockey Quebec has received some calls from parents who are upset about Hockey Richelieu's decision.

"We have referred them to their local association, which has a certain autonomy," said Dallaire.

Hockey Richelieu says it won't go back on its decision despite the complaints.

"It's a done deal," says Jacques Hebert. "If some girls have to travel too far to (play), they may qualify for an exemption. Otherwise, the girls will play with the girls."

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Chasing down the dream – Cuban cyclist proves attitude is everything

BEVERLEY SMITH | Globe and Mail Published Friday, Jul. 08, 2011

NOT A HOCKEY ARTICLE, but a remarkable story about overcoming the odds…

It is not easy looking at Damian Lopez Alfonso, his face puffy and deformed with half a mouth, his forearms amputated, his body scarred.

But that we may be disturbed by the sight shows our disability, not his.

Alfonso, 34, is a cyclist, and a pretty damn good one. On Sunday, he’ll be competing in the first World Cup of his cycling career at a Paralympic-qualifying event in Baie-Comeau, Que., in a quest to get to the Games in London next year.

And the Cuban native catches a break: for the first time, he gets to ride a bike with the stumps of both arms resting on upturned handle bars.

Alfonso’s path to Sunday’s start line has been far more difficult than his path to the finish line will be. Although severely disfigured by a childhood accident in Cuba, he has a dignity that has opened doors and broken down barriers. He has never been ashamed of himself. He has never cried over his fate. He has never asked for favours.

When he was 13, he tried to retrieve a kite caught in power lines, tried to coax it down with a metal bar. Tragedy. During an explosion, when 13,000 volts of electricity sizzled and cracked, the metal bar bounced onto and burned Alfonso’s face, arms and torso. He spent a year in a Havana hospital and lost the lower part of his arms to infection.

Alfonso caught a glimpse of a brutal reality when he saw a reflection of his face in a hospital glass door during his recovery. Shocked, he screamed: “I’m a monster!” But he got on with his life. He does not like to lose a day to bathos and pathos.

Nothing fazes him. Alfonso eats with a fork. He can draw and write. He uses a borrowed iPhone when in New York. He is a bicycle mechanic. He can flip the top off a pop can. He can pick a crumb off a table. He neither wants nor needs prosthetics for everyday living.

Back home from the hospital, Alfonso gravitated towards his bicycle, his mode of transportation since he was a little boy, but his parents took it away from him, fearing, as his father said, that he would “kill” himself on it. Alfonso took to borrowing bikes from his friends, a move that constantly got his young buddies into hot water with his parents. Still, he kept seeking them out, riding at every opportunity.

“It makes me feel normal,” he said.

He suffered two bad crashes before he got the hang of it. Finally, his parents acquiesced, realizing it was what he really wanted and needed to do. Now they support him wholly.

A decade ago, he had another life-changing experience, a result of a chance meeting with Tracy Lea, former president of the U.S. Cycling Federation, at a Havana cycling race. Lea recalls competing in the race, and realizing a rider with no arms was beside her. Alfonso sped off, too fast to catch. And yes, he was riding against able-bodied cyclists, something he does almost every weekend in Cuba.

She met him again at another race in Havana a couple of years later when she was fumbling to fix her bike. He took the tool from her and deftly set things right. Lea began to think of ways to help him, – even though he hadn’t asked for help. “He didn’t even ask for a tire tube,” she said.

Lea, a fundraiser by trade, stumbled on the National Foundation for Facial Reconstruction in New York, and three years ago, came close to getting Alfonso to New York to have facial surgery. But getting a visa for him to get into the United States proved problematic. “We just ran into severe communication issues,” she said. “I almost gave up. I was very disappointed.”

Last fall, she had a chance to race in Cuba again, and she decided to go for the sole purpose of solving Alfonso’s travel issues. She did. And then things fell into place to create Team Damian in New York: lining up a team of doctors including one of the top facial surgeons in the world, Dr. Joseph McCarthy to reconstruct his face; getting prosthetics with the help of Achilles International and the Hanger Foundation; getting an astonishing digital system from Shimano, with a push-button system to allow him to change gears; finding him a place to stay while he was in New York; and taking the steps to get him qualified for the Paralympics, starting with an event in Canada.

What is most remarkable is that Alfonso has inspired the cycling community of New York and beyond to look past their own handlebars to help a fellow cyclist who lives thousands of miles away. Donations poured in to help offset expenses.

His surgery – provided free, probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, by the best in the world – was considered one of the most difficult reconstructions the team had done. The burns had destroyed blood vessels needed to generate new tissue.

The first surgery was particularly tough. They rebuilt an eyelid by sewing it shut. For four weeks, he had no vision in that eye. And then they pulled a skin flap from the scalp over his other eye, using it to help build the vascular system. Four weeks later, they had to put it all back together again. He also underwent a chin implant, which his body rejected, and last month, he had it painfully removed.

“It was extremely hard for him psychologically that first week, but within a week, he was back on top of his game,” Lea said.

He told photographer/friend/translator Marco Quezada: “I’ve been through worse.”

As much as others have touched Alfonso’s life, he has left his mark on them, too.

“I’m a New Yorker, born and raised,” Quezada said. “And it was just a humbling experience to meet him for the first time. He didn’t ask for any of this. He was perfectly happy with what he was doing.

“It’s changed me personally. I can never complain about having a bad day. This guy lives like this every day of his life. He has opened up our eyes.”

Ace McDade, a former cyclist who offered up his home in Ridgewood, N.J. to Alfonso, says the young Cuban has made an impact on the lives of his three young daughters.

When Alfonso first rolled up in the car to their home, he stepped out and played basketball with children from the neighbourhood for 1 ½ hours. McDade quickly learned that, even without forearms and hands, Alfonso can toss a basketball 50 feet.

“He frightens some kids and he doesn’t frighten others,” McDade said, “But after two minutes, they are all totally accepting of him. He’s an incredible athlete that they revel in. The adults do double takes, but the kids just accept it. It’s really great for our kids and our community that people are exposed to things they wouldn’t normally be exposed to.”

Come Sunday, Alfonso will face the start line in Quebec and another journey will begin.

“I wake up every morning, just happy to be alive,” he said. “I have a normal life. You have to have a positive attitude. A lot of people wake up with a negative attitude, but that is what your day is going to be like.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

What will college hockey crisis mean for the CHL?

By Neate Sager, Yahoo! Canada Sports, Fri Jul 08, 2011

It would be remiss not to highlight the great upheaval unfolding in NCAA hockey, since nothing is and of itself. As most people know, the creation of the high-roller Big Ten Hockey Conference has had a domino effect with several of the best programs across the Midwest, which has hastened the University of North Dakota to push for a second superconference, breaking up two of the best college conferences, the WCHA and CCHA.

There's no foresight with these developments so it is early in the game to predict what ramifications this could have for the Canadian Hockey League. Please bear in mind, though, that at time when the WHL in particular is making headway at recruiting in the expanding player pool in the western United States and is trying to crack the talent-rich, college hockey-crazy Minnesota market, several smaller programs could be severely diminished. First, the details, from Brad Elliot Schlossman:

At least five other teams will join UND in this league: Denver, Colorado College, Nebraska-Omaha, Minnesota-Duluth and Miami (Ohio).

Notre Dame and an eighth school — possibly Western Michigan — also could be added to this group by the end of the summer.

… The league will begin at the same time as the Big Ten Hockey Conference, significantly changing the landscape of the college hockey world in two years.

Both the WCHA and Central Collegiate Hockey Association will be left with five teams — not enough for an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. They will likely have to combine under one of the league's umbrellas, but it is unknown which one. (Grand Forks Herald)

Picture Paul Kelly of College Hockey Inc. waking up with a severe migraine. This is more dystopia than utopia for NCAA buffs, and a little disheartening for those who believe all prospects in North America deserve at least two viable options. Having the big programs aligned together might be great for TV contracts and ticket prices. However, if more top players are concentrated among a select few teams, how does that help keep a blue-chip prospect away from the CHL if there is concern about being buried on the third or fourth line as a 19-year-old freshman?

Tom Reale also pointed out almost all of the left-out schools, including Bemidji State, college hockey's answer to Butler in basketball and Boise State in football, are those which are in NCAA Division II for all sports except hockey. Bemidji or St. Cloud State losing the luxury of being able to sell tickets to a game against Minnesota or Minnesota-Duluth could be very bad.

In the west, it almost certainly means a stratification of the sport — and potentially, the loss of some programs. The remaining schools of the WCHA and CCHA are going to have no practical alternative than to band together for survival, and the result is not pretty. (Without A Peer)

Point being, someone stands to tap the growth in American hockey and it might not be the NCAA. As Western College Hockey noted, it "hasn't been able to capitalize on that growth, and if anything, is moving backwards."

One should at least be open to the possibility this could help the USHL, although it would take many years, become a league someone could play in until it's time to turn pro at age 20 instead of going to the CHL or NCAA. Meantime, some major junior hockey people must be metaphorically licking their chops (it wouldn't do to be seen doing it openly, you understand) about this shakeup. Chris Dilks pointed out an unintended consequence of having two mega-conferences could be for more players to head (or stay) up north:

Today [Thursday] was a very bad day for college hockey.

I've seen plenty of speculation that this spells the inevitable doom for the schools left on the outside looking in. There's definitely very legitimate concerns for those schools right now, but I don't think anyone can say with absolute certainty what their future will be. What I can say with a great amount of certainty is that yesterday, there were 24 strong schools in the west playing major conference college hockey. Today, there are 12, possibly 14.

… does this move push the pendulum for players more in the direction of the CHL? Head to head, the NCAA still offers a better package, with the option to get an education AND play pro hockey, which the CHL doesn't do. But for a 16-18 year old player that has a CHL offer, but not an NCAA one? Is it worth taking that gamble and waiting for the opportunity to play major college hockey that may never come? If you take 10 teams out of the picture, that's 180 full scholarships that aren't out there anymore. (Western College Hockey)

For any U.S. readers, there is no glee taken in passing this such news. The principle here is that what's best for hockey is the greatest good for the greatest number. That means having all 60 CHL franchises and all 59 NCAA Division I programs thrive to their best ability. It's a little disheartening the agenda of a few athletic programs might put that in jeopardy.

—–

The Secondary Conference is Official

by WCHBlog on Jul 7, 2011

The other shoe dropped today, and it was revealed that a new start-up conference will be announced on Wednesday. North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College, Nebraska-Omaha, Minnesota-Duluth, and Miami are the conferences new members, with Notre Dame and an eighth team, most likely Western Michigan, as potential members.

I don't want to talk too much about the future, because this conference won't begin until 2013-2014, and my suspicion, and hope, is that a lot will change between now and then. So for now, I'll try to stay in the present and simply say: today was a very bad day for college hockey.

I've seen plenty of speculation that this spells the inevitable doom for the schools left on the outside looking in. There's definitely very legitimate concerns for those schools right now, but I don't think anyone can say with absolute certainty what their future will be. What I can say with a great amount of certainty is that yesterday, there were 24 strong schools in the west playing major conference college hockey. Today, there are 12, possibly 14.

There has been a tremendous surge of growth in American hockey in recent years. The talent pool has grown exponentially. The USHL has expanded. The NAHL has expanded. College hockey hasn't been able to capitalize on that growth, and if anything, is moving backwards.

I often make fun of people who invoke Herb Brooks' name as some sort of infallible hockey deity, when he was a much more complex character than that. But one thing he was absolutely right about was that with the caliber and depth of talent in the state of Minnesota, the state had the capability of putting together more than just two top-notch college hockey programs. He was eventually proven right when it put together five of them, and now, it appears that we're moving back to two.

This seems like a good deal for the schools involved, though again, that could be debated, because I'm not sold on it. But is it really worth moving an individual program one step forward if it takes the entire sport two steps backwards?

Other random points:

– On the day that five of its largest members decided they no longer wanted to be part of the conference, here was the WCHA's brilliant counter-move:

WCHA spokesman Doug Spencer told The Associated Press the conference is aware of the reports but will "reserve comment" until "the league feels it is appropriate."

No comment at all. Nothing even resembling leadership in a time of serious crisis. It's not like this announcement came as a complete surprise. People can blame the Big Ten, and athletic department greed all they want, but the total ineptitude and inaction from the WCHA league office also deserves a heavy share of the blame here.

-As far as the future for the schools left out, I've seen a lot of people writing off the effect on the WCHA schools, but even if they don't have to drop their program, they'll at least take a serious hit. St. Cloud, arguably the strongest left out so far, was charging anywhere between $25-40 per game for conference games last year, which is ridiculous enough on its own, but obviously not going to continue with a conference slate made up of teams like Alaska-Anchorage, Michigan Tech, and possibly the likes of Ferris State and Bowling Green. And it's not like they can make up the revenue in other areas. The only way to cram more advertisements into a St. Cloud hockey game would be if people started sponsoring other advertisements.

-As far as competition, the remaining schools definitely lose some prestige, and likely become a clear third option for potential players, but the talent pool is big enough that these teams will likely still be able to draw similar levels of talent. With junior hockey expanding like I said, there will be no shortage of prospects to recruit. Recruiting still isn't an exact science, so good college players will still fall through the cracks and trickle down.

-That said, does this move push the pendulum for players more in the direction of the CHL? Head to head, the NCAA still offers a better package, with the option to get an education AND play pro hockey, which the CHL doesn't do. But for a 16-18 year old player that has a CHL offer, but not an NCAA one? Is it worth taking that gamble and waiting for the opportunity to play major college hockey that may never come? If you take 10 teams out of the picture, that's 180 full scholarships that aren't out there anymore.

-So the Secondary Six wanted freedom to get a better TV deal/conference tournament revenues. Now that they're on their own, they'll have to provide their own solutions. Where is the TV deal going to come from? Versus is the most likely national cable network, and they could be looking for Friday/Saturday night programming. But I'm not sure. The league is made of teams that are either non-factors in mid-major sized markets, or a big deal in markets that aren't even a blip on the radar. They may get a tough lesson in how little cachet their schools carry. Are they really going to draw enough people to beat out a far cheaper Mixed Martial Arts re-run?

As far as the conference tournament, it's the same issue the Big Ten had. There's nowhere to host it that will draw a significant number of fans from more than one school. If they host top seeds host for the playoffs, good luck if Miami ever wins the league.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

WHL: Winterhawks bench boss talks about Portland's prospect pipeline

By Kelly Friesen, Yahoo! Canada Sports, Tues July 5, 2011

To find out how the Portland Winterhawks have had two first-round picks in back-to-back NHL drafts, go straight to the source.

There is a lot that went into the Winterhawks helping forward Sven Bärtschi (13th overall, Calgary) and defenceman Joe Morrow (23rd, Pittsburgh) join their older teammates Ryan Johansen and Nino Niederreiter, who were taken back-to-back in 2010 by the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Islanders. It's part player development, part recruiting players through the Bantam and Import drafts. And the Winterhawks drafting track record has been nothing short of spectacular.

To hear coach-GM Mike Johnston tell it, a huge reason is the professional atmosphere around the team, which reached the Western Hockey League final this spring.

"We treat our players like NHL teams treat their players," says Johnston. "We feel if they are already in an NHL-like environment, it will be easier for them to get to the next level. We constantly work with them in practice and help get their off-ice conditioning to a professional level."

All told, including the aforementioned four first-rounders, the Winterhawks have had eight players taken among the first 60 selections in the 2010 and '11 entry drafts.

Late round steal

Some were players long projected to blossom. Portland, however, did have to work hard to get some of its star players in a Winterhawks uniform. Johansen, who played on Team Canada's first line during the 2011 world junior championship and should do so again unless he makes the Blue Jackets for good, was a prime example. The centre was selected 150th overall in the 2007 WHL bantam draft, making him perhaps the biggest steal of the past five years.

"We think Ryan dropped in the draft because his hometown (Port Moody, B.C.) didn't offer a AAA bantam league, so he was forced to play in the AA league [one tier lower]," says Johnston. "And he was also a fairly skinny kid with not a lot of size at the time. Ryan hit his growth spurt later than most of the other kids."

The hard part with Johansen was convincing him to pass on a scholarship to Northeastern University in Hockey East to join the Winterhawks for the 2009-10 season.

"I went and watched Ryan when he was playing for the [Junior A] Penticton Vees and our scouting staff evaluated him as a player with enormous potential," says Johnston. "And we made it a priority to do our best to get him to join our organization."

"So I went to a restaurant for some coffee with him and his dad and I told them how good I feel Ryan could be. And what I did was took some pictures of (Prince George’s) Brett Connolly and some other top talents and I asked him if he thinks he can be as good as these players; and I told him I think he could be better than these players. And I think that conversation gave Ryan more confidence in his hockey future and also showed his family that we believe in him."

Swiss bliss

A mixture of networking and scouting played into the Winterhawks' adding Niederreiter and Bärtschi through the CHL import draft.

"Our assistant coach, Travis Green, played over in Switzerland during the NHL lockout, so the contacts he's developed was a factor in drafting Nino (Niederreiter) and Sven (Bartschi)," says Johnston. "And you know we also scouted these players at the IIHF tournaments and have talked with scouts over in Europe."

Niederreiter's impressive play at the world under-18 championship in Fargo, N.D., in April 2009 was his major selling point to the Winterhawks.

"I watched Nino at the under-18 tournament in Fargo and he really impressed me," says Johnston. "Then we followed up on him and watched him 10-15 more times. He seemed to be one of the most talented players in the draft, and obviously knowing that he's willing to move to Portland was important in the decision to draft him."

Simply chatting with Niederreiter's agent led the Winterhawks to Bärtschi, who had 85 points in his first season in North America.

"Nino and Sven have the same agent, so we asked Nino's agent if there was another top talent over in Switzerland and he told us about Sven," says Johnston. "And Sven was kind of under the radar, so knowing his agent helped us find out more about him."

Who's next?

Bärtschi, Johansen, Niederreiter and left wing Brad Ross, a Toronto Maple Leafs second-rounder, are each entering their age-19 seasons. The Winterhawks are well-stocked beyond their older drafted players. This season, draft followers will have a close eye on defenceman Derrick Pouliot. The former No. 1 overall choice in the bantam draft is growing into a smooth-skating, puck-moving rearguard. He counted five goals and 30 points in 66 regular-season games this season. For a 16-year-old defenceman who came directly from midget hockey, that's very good; it compares favourably with the numbers Carolina Hurricanes first-rounder Ryan Murphy had in 2009-10 as a rookie with the OHL's Kitchener Rangers.

"Pouliot is a defenceman that can control a game," says Johnston. "He's a puck possessing defenceman that understands the game with a lot of intelligence. He reminds me a bit of [future Hall of Famer] Scott Niedermayer, but he also shows similar poise to [Detroit Red Wings captain] Nicklas Lidström. He's definitely a potential first-rounder. I'd say his current skill level is ahead of where [Pittsburgh first-rounder] Joe Morrow's skill level was last year this time."

Kelly Friesen is a Western Hockey League writer for Yahoo! Sports.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

EKATERINBURG, RUSSIA – We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

The Hockey News Rory Boylen 2011-07-18

Welcome to the home city of Pavel Datsyuk and, more specifically, the Kurganovo Complex, which sits about 20 minutes outside of town down an unassuming side road lined by open land and small clusters of shanties with makeshift sheet metal fences.

The area itself reminds you of cottage country, with its rough roads, lakes, pines and secluded lifestyle, but it’s a whole other world out here, a whole other continent on the eastern slope of the Ural mountain range. On the drive out from town to the complex, you pass a large marker that represents the end of Europe and the beginning of Asia.

As one of the stewards on the plane we took from Frankfurt to Ekaterinburg said when we told him why we were going to this destination: “That’s a strange place to go for a hockey camp.”

For the fourth year, the PD13 Hockey School will be hosted by No. 13 on the Red Wings and run by a collection of instructors with various backgrounds in the sport. You’ll meet them all in this space at some point during the week as we follow the inner-workings at the kids’ camp for players aged eight to 12 that runs Monday to Friday. We’ll also give you an inside peek at Pavel Datsyuk the person, but for now, how in the heck did this North American-designed camp sprout up so far from home?

It all started on a Detroit Red Wings plane trip a few years ago when Datsyuk approached Jay Woodcroft, then a coach with the Wings and currently an assistant with the San Jose Sharks. Datsyuk knew of a hockey camp Jay and his brother, Todd (an L.A. Kings scout), ran in Belarus and wanted to take that approach in his hometown to give something back to the community.

“He wanted to expose the kids in Ekaterinburg to a different style of coaching, to the North American style,” Jay Woodcroft said.

That North American style is all about fun and a positive attitude. It’s not something common in these circles, so it provides a unique experience for the kids. A lot of them are making repeat appearances and the glow in their faces as they arrived, recognized and ran up to greet their North American instructors tells you all you need to know about the impact this experience has had on them. It’s a reaction Datsyuk is proud to have helped create.

The facility itself has a resort feel, with dormitories for instructors and kids to stay in, a double ice-pad arena (Olympic and North American-sized), plus a weight room, boxing gym, basketball courts, a dual-purpose soccer and tennis court, cafeteria, wooded trails and a lakeside beach that is just like home, except without a single cottage in sight.

But it wasn’t always like that. Year 1 of the school was held here when a single aged arena stood with a “Soviet-style training camp feel” to it. For Year 2, the school was moved downtown. But because of Datsyuk, his supporters and a little input from Jay and Todd at the conclusion of that second year, the Kurganovo area was transformed into a modern complex in shockingly fast fashion in time for Year 3.

“To me, it has become a destination in and of itself,” said Jay Woodcroft. “Families can come and walk to the lake and spend time around the water. They can come and work on different things – there’s lots of stuff to do.

“It’s become an attractive part of the hockey school where you’re not just dropping your son off at nine in the morning and picking him up at four, you’re going to hockey school and you’ll be immersed in it from the time you get dropped off until when you get picked up at the end of the week.”

And it was all made possible by Datsyuk. Ask anyone here about him and you’ll quickly get an idea of his selfless, down-to-earth nature. He doesn’t seek to be treated like an NHL superstar – on the contrary, he just wants to be one of the guys.

Which he is, making the experience not just special for the kids, but enlightening for the instructors as well.

“Just a couple months ago Pav was at a Bass Pro Shop in Detroit and he saw some kid there who looked like me,” said T.J. Aubrecht, a former American high school varsity player who also played a year with the Minnesota Junior League’s Hudson Crusaders.

“He asked the kid if he could take a picture with him and sent it to me with the caption ‘I didn’t know you were working at the Pro Bass Shop in Detroit.’ That was pretty cool for me because I didn’t expect him to be thinking about me throughout the year. I’ll remember that for a while.”

Pavel Datsyuk asking someone to take a picture with him? This is the type of personality you’ll get a glimpse of during the camp this week.

Rory Boylen will file reports regularly over his time with Pavel Datsyuk and Co. at his hockey camp held at the Kurganovo Complex near the Red Wings star's hometown of Ekaterinburg, Russia.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

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