Steve Rockey writes:
>Mike Machnik has indicated (I believe) that he feels there has been
>some decline in college hockey talent since the mid '80's.
 
I should perhaps clarify my comments.  I believe there are two areas
in which DivI hockey suffers in comparison with the mid to late 80s.
One is that there are fewer top-notch players playing the game.  The
other, perhaps a result of the first, is that there are fewer high
caliber teams today.
 
If I take any of the lists of Hobey top tens from 7-8-9 years ago,
and compare them from 1 to 10 with the Hobey top tens from recent
years, I just do not think today's players measure up overall.  There
are the "studs", to be sure, but not as many.
 
And I would also take many of the teams from that time frame over
today's teams.  In recent years, you are lucky to find one team a year
that deserves to be considered among the best ever.  I think the mid
to late 80s had several of these teams each year, with 1987 perhaps
being the high point.
 
>I see a
>fairly stead improvement on average but I can imagine some sort of
>relative decline compared to professional hockey considering the
>huge influx of European players compared to the dribble of European
>players in college hockey.  His view may also be one based on the
>best talent (and/or pro potential) versus my view of average talent
>and specifically college talent since I think that pro potential is not a
>relevant criteria.
 
I agree and am not basing my opinion on perceived pro potential - I
hardly ever think about this, in fact.  My comparison isn't based on
any improvement in play the NHL may have enjoyed.
 
>Div. 1 hockey has not expanded significantly in the
>last few years but the pool of talent has expanded and improved as
>youth hockey has continued to grow and improve in areas that did
>not traditionally produce hockey players plus there has been a
>dribble of European players.
 
This is perhaps where we disagree.  I don't think the pool of talent
has increased much if at all, and I do think DivI has expanded
significantly since the time frame I'm comparing today with.
 
Today, we have more teams at the DivI conference level than ever
before.  Every league has expanded by at least one team - many
involving teams that were technically DivI in the late 80s but were
really playing at a level below that of the conferences then.  When
Notre Dame, SCSU, UAA, UAF, Merrimack, etc. moved into conferences,
they began to compete for DivI conference-level talent on much the
same basis as the teams they joined - and all of those teams are
better today than they were before.
 
What I see is that besides fewer superb players choosing the college
route, we also have the additional teams taking players here and there
away from the established conference teams.  The result is the
mediocrity (for lack of a better word) in many of the conferences.
The plus side is that it has fostered greater competition in game
play, and more teams are better today than ever before.  The negative
is that we do not have nearly as many of the great matchups as before
because the best teams are just not as good as their predecessors.
 
I think Minnesota is a good example.  For all the talk we go through
about Minnesota having a stranglehold on MN players - and to a certain
extent, they still do - I believe it is actually the case that more
good players than ever before are passing up Minnesota to play
elsewhere.  And as a result, Minnesota has not been able to ice a team
in recent years that came anywhere near the Gopher teams of the late
80s.  Again, that is only my view.
 
>For example Cornell's freshman Ryan
>Smart, a NHL draft pick and the potential to be a great college player,
>is a product of western Pa. youth hockey--I believe their first Div. 1
>player.
 
But Ryan Smart is not a good example because he remains one of few.
Western PA youth hockey, like that in other areas where the game is
flourishing, still has a little ways to go before it can begin to
produce such players on a regular basis.  In several years, we may
even see DivI players coming out of California and Florida.  And that
may result in the game getting back to the level I think it was at in
the 80s.  But it will take time.
 
This is an entirely different topic, but I also believe that at least
in Massachusetts, fewer top-notch players are being produced today
than a decade or so ago.  The high cost of the game is making it more
difficult for families to have their kids play hockey from a young
age, regularly and with quality instruction.  And in Mass, the public
HS programs have suffered a heavy hit with the increased costs and the
propensity for towns to cut hockey to save money.  Now, a kid in Mass
who wants to go DivI almost has to come up with the money to go to a
Catholic HS, or a prep school, or to join a junior team.  The days are
gone when kids grew up playing on the ponds and went on to lead their
town HS team to glory, earning a DivI scholarship along the way.  For
many kids, the sport is just too expensive to play now.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93