Ever notice that a lot of the best players in Hockey come from big Hockey markets? Connor Bedard is pegged as the next superstar and he's from Vancouver. A top 5 city in Canada by population and home of an NHL team. Connor McDavid, the current face of the league is from suburban Toronto. If you look at American players, Jack Eichel (Mass.), Hughes brothers actually grew up playing most of their youth development years in Toronto while their Dad was employed by the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sidney Crosby created a path of good players coming from Halifax, NS and it seems as though Auston Matthews has created a path from Arizona. But what about the really small market places? How do kids from Virginia make it to the NHL? Or Utah? Why are there so few of them? At the end of the day, I think the answer to these questions is lack of challenge.
We know from generations before us that the way to achieve growth is by pushing our limits. This is why there are personal trainers for those looking to improve on their physique. This is why the military has boot camp. They challenge those looking to enlist to see who can face the challenge head on and come out on the other side without quitting. Professional sports are no different.
in 1990, the Brick Invitational was created. it's hosted every summer at the rink in the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada. Certain regions in the United States and Canada are given teams. These teams prep 1-2 years in advance to pick their roster in hopes of winning this tournament. Many of the NHL's best players have competed in this event. This does not suggest that attending the brick at 10 years old means your kid is going to make the NHL but there does seem to be some correlation that suggests that players competing at the highest level at 10 years old and continue to play at the highest level into their teens, do have a much better chance of becoming an NHL player than those who face weaker competition and fight to challenge themselves more than the weaker competition is capable of challenging them. The earlier you break into the strongest group, the more likely you are to be successful as the group tapers off as years go by.
Edmonton is not the only place these types of events happen. Prime Hockey, an organization with the parent company Play Hockey, hosts multiple events during the 11/12u years to scout the best possible players at this age. They've purchased a big organization that does the same thing in Europe. They take these young players to Europe, Toronto and various other American cities to compete against each other and other strong independent programs across the US and Canada. It creates tremendous growth in the players due to overall competition being incredibly strong however, the costs of becoming a high calibre hockey player are incredibly high. It consumes almost every weekend of time and the dollar costs associated are a minimum of $2000 per Weekend when you factor in team fees, flights, hotel, meals and rental car.
There are 547,429 registered hockey players under USA hockey. To give a comparison from the same 2021-2022 season, there were 973,792 HIGH SCHOOL aged participants in 11-player football. During the 21-22 season, Utah had 3861 players registered under USA Hockey 1440 of those players were 19 & over (adult league). The moral of the story here is, costs of becoming an NHL player will continue to grow until we build a base where more players are competing locally. In Utah, every High School has a football team. There are 6 division I programs for college. Utah rarely produces 1 division I talent per birth year in Hockey and those players typically have to leave the state of Utah for better competition between the ages of 13-15.
As a group, in smaller states we need to build the base. Make it affordable, make it less time consuming. Get numbers up and the level of interest in commitment will grow from there. Our goals should be more players registered in every rink. More rinks built, more High Schools having competitive programs. More programs finding success internally by growth at the grass roots levels.