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New life-after-hockey program crucial for the modern-day, younger NHL |
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Some older Calgary Flames probably feel it was only yesterday David Moss was a fresh young face and an integral part of the team’s future: after honing his craft in the American League, Moss scored 20 goals in his first full NHL season – and two years later, he was on pace to break that mark, amassing 17 goals in 58 games, and was playing on a line with Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay when he was injured in practice. His game never really recovered. Two years after the injury, he was out of Calgary altogether, signing a two-year deal in Arizona. And one year after that deal ended – and after his third and final season with the Coyotes – Moss was gone from hockey’s highest level and playing in the Swiss League.
Time flies, and the 34-year-old former Michigan Wolverine announced his retirement as a player Wednesday, with exactly 501 NHL games, 100 assists and 178 points in the game’s best league to his credit. He earned a very good living over the course of nine NHL seasons – the sum total of his contracts is precisely $10 million – so Moss will have the kind of financial wiggle room most of us can only dream of when transitioning out of something that’s been second nature to us our entire lives.
But as virtually any former NHL player will tell you, life after hockey isn’t all about adjusting to a different, more modest tax bracket. Like most other jobs that are labors of love, it’s the emotional disconnect forced upon you that proves the most challenging of obstacles connected with retirement. And that’s why it was very encouraging to see the NHL and NHL Players’ Association reveal Thursday they would work together on a program focused on smoothing the road players travel once their playing days are at an end.
Certainly, many players are able to take advantage of the prestige of their position as athletes, public figures and role models after they retire. But the new “Core Development Program” – one that will be voluntary and exist independently of the NHL Alumni’s “Break Away” initiative, which has a similar mission statement – will help those players who never manage to leave deep imprints on the communities in which they play, who can’t become ambassadors for an organization, who never play even half as long at the NHL level as did Moss.
Indeed, when you understand (a) the average NHLer’s career lasts five or six years and approximately 250 games; and (b) the league is getting younger with each season that passes, pushing “greybeard” players out of jobs in their early thirties; you understand why it’s more crucial than ever that the league and PA cooperate to give them a solid chance at replicating the success of their on-ice journey in the “real” world.
It’s not easy to persuade players to turn their attentions to the distant future, and for good reason: these are young men enjoying the payoffs of years of training and sacrifice, and people are fighting each other for the opportunity to blow smoke up their ass…essments. It takes discipline to continue to transfer their drive and determination to another profession. But that was the way NHLers used to do things as recently as a handful of decades ago. Players would spend their summers interning at financial institutions or other businesses, knowing full well they’d have to eventually make the jump once the injury bug or Father Time pushed them out of the sport.
Of course, year-round training prevents modern-day players from choosing that route today. But Thursday’s announcement makes it more difficult for them to have excuses about the trajectory of their lives once their hockey careers have concluded. Resources are being made available, and there are people who want to see them continue to prosper – and that goes for superstars, players like David Moss, or those who barely get a sniff at the NHL level.
If you’re a fan of an NHLer when he’s active, you ought to be a fan of them for life. And if that’s the case, you should be giving kudos to the PA and the league for doing more to take care of the human beings behind the gloss and glamor of the pro sports spectacle.
Because it goes by fast, as David Moss now knows, and the end can hit you harder than any bodycheck or balled-up fist ever could.
Blogger •NHL Columnist • 
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