Richard S. Tuthill wrote
>
> Moral high ground? Let's get back from the forest to see the
> trees.
>
>         On a statistical basis, it is a tremendous advantage to have two
> or three
> extra years to add muscle mass before playing college hockey. To say
> nothing of developing a much better and mature head for the game.
>
 
I don't think anyone is disputing that a freshman who is entering
college as a 20-year-old has developed beyond where they were as an
18-year-old.  Of course, they've developed more muscle mass and improved
their game.  That's the whole principle behind spending time in the USHL
(or whatever other league you choose to substitute).
 
My point was that there is no moral high ground for an 18-year-old
freshman over a 20-year-old one.  The 18-year-old was good enough to
make it without the extra time.  Good for him.  The 20-year-old
persisted
after initially falling short.  Good for him, too.
 
 
>         There are not enough rides in hockey to redshirt all the
> freshmen like
> football does, and besides college hockey doesn't draw well enough to
> justify it financially if there were. So the system and the law of
> player
> supply and demand work to make PG years and USHL experience a
> requirement.
 
Agreed.  Most players aren't ready at 18.  They either need additional
physical development or need more games at a higher level of play.
 
>   That doesn't happen in a lot of sports.   Hockey is pretty unique
> here.
>
>         All of us can cite vignettes which are good counter-examples. In
> my mind,
>  they just prove the rule. Dave Hendrickson's example of BC is a case in
> point. The next year those kids he mentions were on the power play and
> playing for the national championship. True. And they were joined on the
> power play, if memory serves (and I am not going to bother to look it
> up),
> by a twenty or twenty one year old freshman from Niskayuna who had done
> BOTH the prep school and the USHL thing.
>
 
That's a pretty misleading point there.  Mike Lephart, the freshman to
whom
you refer, was an older freshman, but he didn't join the BC top
power-play
unit.
 
What I said originally about BC was:
 
[begin]
Two years ago, Boston College was rebuilding its program and had a
power play of four 18-year-olds and a 19-year-old.  The Eagles weren't
exclusively 18-year-old freshmen, but most of their marquee players
were.  A year later, they were playing in the national championship
game.
[end]
 
First, I never said they didn't have players who hadn't been 18-year-old
freshmen.  I simply said that their marquee players had been.  That
power
play was four 18-year-old freshmen and a 19-year-old sophomore.
 
Yes, last year they did add Lephart, but was he one
of BC's marquee freshmen?  No.  They had Brian Gionta, an All-American
freshman,
who was an 18-year-old.  Their top freshman defenseman, Bobby Allen, was
18 as
was Marty Hughes and (possibly, I'm not sure) Rob Scuderi.
 
Mike Lephart and Scott Clemmensen were both out of the USHL, so probably
were older.
 
However, if you looked at BC's top *two* power-play units, you wouldn't
have seen a
single senior and almost every player would have come into college as an
18-year-old.
 
So Dick's contention that my example is contradictory is wrong.  I said
they had
a few older players, but that the BC core were kids who had come in at
18 and
*still* weren't 21.
 
All of which is tangential to my main point: namely that programs should
get the
best players they can within the age limitations given by the NCAA.
Those
limitations are sufficiently reasonable to make an 18-year-old
competitive (as
compared to the situation in Mariucci's day).  And if a program
unilaterally
decides to go with a more limited recruiting position than the NCAA
allows,
that's fine.  But it isn't any more high-minded than those who don't.
 
To be more specific, BC's Brian Gionta wasn't superior to his teammate,
Mike
Lephart, simply because Gionta came in as an 18-year-old and Lephart
didn't.  None of
that nonsense mattered.  Superior-inferior distinctions only come down
to what
a player does on the ice.  (Where, BTW, Mr. Gionta doesn't fare too
badly.)
 
>         I think the point is that a large proportion of the kids who
> play at the
> D-1 level have now been forced into extra years after high school before
> they are big enough and good enough to play in college. From a hockey
> perspective that is perhaps OK. But the vast majority are not going to
> make
> careers in hockey. For them, is it OK? For the schools in question and
> the
> effect that it has on campus culture is it OK? Those are the questions
> which have to be asked.
 
As someone who enrolled at one of the toughest schools in the country at
age 17, I can say that an extra year or two of maturity before college
can perhaps be a great thing.
 
As for campus culture, I've never heard a *thing* about how a handful of
hockey players who are two years older would cause any difference at
all.
 
And if I'm a 20-year-old who has played two more years in the USHL and
then
moved on to a D-I school, how on Earth have I been harmed?  I've perhaps
had an opportunity to earn at least a partial scholarship, something
that
wouldn't have been possible right out of high school.  By putting the
extra
time in, I can now play college hockey at the highest level, instead of
"settling for" a D-II or D-III school.  (Don't flame me for this: I'm
just
saying that if the kid can play at the highest level and get an athletic
scholarship -- something not possible outside of D-I -- then perhaps he
owes it to himself to pay a few more dues to give himself that
opportunity.
My comment was NOT AT ALL meant to downplay D-II or D-III programs.)
 
BTW a LOT of Division I players do go on to minor league careers or
careers
in Europe.  With all the minor league expansion, there are a lot of
spots
open that get taken by collegiate players who were far from being stars.
Not, that isn't the NHL, but kids do make a brief career of it.
 
In any case, the 20-year-old freshman still gets a college education.
 
I continue to be amazed that people can consider some of these kids
as second-class college hockey citizens after they've chosen NOT to
take the easy way out.
 
Dave Hendrickson
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.