As we watch training camps across the 30 team landscape of the NHL enter their second week, many children across Canada are also entering their second week of auditions for where they may play. In Winnipeg we call it ‘try outs’ but in actual fact these are evaluation auditions so that kids may be tiered off and placed in appropriate skill brackets. In some cases the first tier allotment happens at ages seven and eight.
On the surface the concept seems acceptable if not logical- place all the kids with equal skills and abilities in the same tier so that none are given a distinct advantage or obvious handicap. If your child is of the higher quality they will play in the A1 bracket until their age has AA and AAA teams.
Really it’s not unlike the NHL and how teams look at their own development squads. Bring all the player assets together and see what they can do then we can tier them off to the appropriate development level. It sounds just as logical until you realize that one entity is a for-profit model in a franchised league while the other is at the start of what is hopefully a positive experience around recreation.
The NHL uses the AHL, CHL, ECHL and European leagues as its tiers for players with the NHL being the top. Depending on age and a few other factors professional players are tiered from the top down and that system is mimicked all the way down to Timbits hockey to some extent. It’s ridiculous. The purposes and end goals are entirely different, or at least they should be.
Would you allow fighting in youth hockey because it’s allowed in the NHL? Of course not, so why do the same with how players are tiered and developed.
In fact youth hockey is almost backwards in come capacity. If your child is deemed in the top tier it is expected that you will practice and work more for greater success and to improve/develop your skills and abilities. It’s almost the reverse of ‘no child left behind’, because in fact many kids are left behind.
The problem is community centres and regional minor hockey associations have a vested interest in success. It helps attract top players. This year alone two kids from a neighbouring community were approached to play ‘out of catchment’ in another. They are siblings and have been age advanced in previous years and have had the ‘prodigy’ title attached to them. So why does it matter where they play if they are talented. For the kids, it does not but the Associations can gather more support from scouts and CHL (this case WHL) organizations for their programs. More scouts watching AA and AAA means more kids wanting to be in those communities to be seen and that’s because so many are chasing the dream. It’s a perpetuation scenario but at the very basic form it’s about the talent grinder kids begin to go through.
Here’s the problem, parents see the dream at the very earliest stages of minor hockey because it all looks so familiar to what they watch, read and discuss with the NHL. If it’s like the NHL it has to be the correct way of doing things…right?
There are no principals of recreation in professional sports. There are no reasons to have any as the goals and purposes are entirely different yet our minor hockey system caters to developing that elite 1%.
Meet Shane Grushko, the founder of Ice Bay, the email distribution list serving Winnipeg and greater Manitoba since 1999. This was the original ice trading contact list for hockey coaches that wanted to find, buy and sell sheets of ice all started by a hockey dad who had trouble finding ice. I called Shane to talk about the changes he has seen in regards to ice, minor hockey and what Ice Bay is today, fifteen years later. You can see the latest edition HERE
What has been the biggest growth part for ice bay that you have noticed?
“There’s a greater demand for ice now than before. It used to be teams practiced once a week now it’s two to three times and all on indoor ice.… “We used to be able to rely on outdoor ice but that’s changed. We have teams who won’t practice outdoors and the availability of ice is unpredictable now….
What have you seen change with minor hockey?
“The biggest change is spring hockey starts in September. Before it was taboo and you couldn’t talk about spring hockey. Teams and leagues were unsanctioned and frowned upon. The massive growth in spring hockey makes it almost bigger than regular season. Kids are playing the regular season to train for spring….
How has Ice Bay changed?
“It used to be a place to buy and sell ice not it’s a contact list for teams, clinics, players, coaches and organizations to promote and recruit for their programs. Now with all these programs kids are not being kids anymore, they don’t have enough time. The NHL is everybody’s dream since the Jets came back and you can see that by the increase in programs on Ice Bay. “Parents spend thousands of dollars getting extra ice time and sessions for their kids but when it comes to school they won’t pay the price. Why wouldn’t you get a tutor for your kid if you are getting 25 extra ice times a season?…
What’s the biggest problem with what you see in minor hockey?
“There’s lots of ice around, you just have to share it. There are many drills coaches can do on half ice yet everyone wants full ice. Do 8 year olds need full ice every practice? The problem is that kids have a better chance of being almost any other career than going to the NHL but we ignore that reality.
Why do you keep up Ice Bay?
“I want to contribute. Both my kids are in their 20s now, out of hockey so this is my way of volunteering. I just want to give something back to the sport….
Please look at the email I linked to in Google Docs and consider this is at the end of September. I did not include the 15 attachments including the actual Ice Bay list for ease of use.
What else happens with this kind of promotion is beyond player skill and ability separation its socio economic separation. Those who can or want to afford to pay for the training will and the results may push them and their child further ahead but also further away from others. This of course is nothing new in hockey or in any sport but why then make hockey community based? These programs and clinics serve little to no value to any community let alone the ones that all kids have to belong to, the community clubs where kids play in the all-important regular seasons at their various age and skill category. These programs most certainly have an impact on the tryouts these communities and associations hold to conduct the business…er recreation of hockey. Get your child the best training and skills development outside of the season and he or she can go in and dominate the rest of the community.
But that’s not how it looks anymore, because if your child is not doing something extra you are almost in the minority. It’s the evolution of the last 15 years, just as Grusko explained. The effect now is that if you want your child to be able to be apart of the community hockey programs they better be doing something extra because they can’t compete. Isn’t that the wrong approach to recreation?
The sheer volume of private, unsanctioned hockey available to parents has gone so far to taint the core values of recreation and community building that tryouts are nothing more than showcasing for teams. With paid coaches hired by associations to manage the better teams who are the tryouts benefitting, the kids who want to play hockey or the ones who want a future in hockey?
That’s where this all ties into the bigger picture, the one that has the Hockey Canada logo square in the middle. It’s to their benefit to allow this all because it feeds the machine they need for the CHL and ultimately their development programs that give us the World Juniors- also known as the TSN cash cow.
If the WJHC is our measuring stick for results then one has to wonder if Canada is moving in the right direction. The problem is that direction and process starts at the bottom in Timbits and house league, and that’s probably where the first changes have to begin.
The next installment will look at how some other countries, highly dominant in their sport view their development and perpetuation strategies compared to Canada.
The investigation continues.