Greenie wrote:
> It also appears that the majority of the penalties-with-intent-to-harm come
> from the older ex-Junior hockey players, and it's not surprising. Kids
> coming straight out of high school (or being younger) have spent less time
> playing hockey where such violent play is not nearly as tolerated as it is
> in the Juniors. I don't think this means that Junior players are more
> "violent;" rather, they've had more exposure to it, and therefore are more
> acceptable of it and possibly prone to participate in it.
 
First off, I would expect that the majority of "goon" penalties come from
Junior hockey players since I would expect that the majority of all college
hockey players come from either US or Canadian juniors.  I really only have
sufficient knowledge of Hockey East on this, but this would be my impression.
All Canadian players you get have been through juniors and the majority of US
players don't make the jump direct from high school.
 
Even those who do make the jump from high school without juniors are often
older since so many come from the Preps which feature repeating a grade and
a post-graduate year as possibilities.  Although I must admit, that the issue
of younger players being "less exposed" is lost on me.  If you've been playing
the game for ten years, then somehow an eleventh year suddenly exposes you to
shocking new bad things?  I don't get it.
 
Putting the age issue aside (for now at least) and returning to the issue of
juniors...
Although various high school organizations may be able to
control their players with suspensions during the official
season, high school players still play during other times.  If I had
a dollar for everytime I had a team in a spring league and the schedule was
behind by half and hour or more "because of a brawl in a high school game" I'd
owe a lot less on my Visa.   If a kid gets tossed from a spring league game,
he figures all he's lost is $100 of (possibly) his parent's money.
 
But beyond that, a lot of the better high school kids -- namely those that
will go on to college -- play in summer AAA tournaments, some in Canada and
some in the States.  I've gone to these tournaments for the past three years
with a younger son at the 1984 level.  My son's team also has a team, coached
by the same coach, at the 1980 level (15 year olds) and many of the younger
kids and I like to watch the older team.  In short, I've seen a *lot* of
summer games at the older age level.
 
And the fact is that although this is the best hockey you can get in the
entire year, it also sports the ugliest incidents, primarily because the
tournaments have much less leverage over the players than either a high
school organization *or a junior hockey organization*.  For example, if you're
in the third period of the finals and your team has clearly lost (and
especially if you're not planning on coming back next year) then all they can
do is toss you from the game.  This was the exact scenario at the Ottawa
Capitals tournament last year, which had incidents that would have easily
taken the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals for Ugliness.   (Sometime over a
few beers, we can talk about the huge defenseman who threw his stick at me
in the stands as he was being tossed and then, after changing, came up to
join me.  Thank God people confuse me with Arnold Schwartzenager!  :-)  )
 
So to say that Juniors somehow sullies the more-pristine high schoolers seems
to ignore what the vast majority of the high schoolers do outside of the
official high school season.  Most high school kids who are moving on to the
collegiate level have been exposed more than you'd assume.
 
(BTW, I want to make clear that the vast majority of summer AAA hockey is
simply great stuff, the best hockey around.  I wouldn't miss it.  But sometimes
the dirtbagging happens.)
 
(Greenie continued with something like the following -- I accidentally deleted
the rest of the message.):
 
> The real question is whether college is a place for talented athletes to
> play while they get a good education or is it a stepping stone to the pros.
 
Although the question seems a bit slanted in its wording, I would argue that
there is nothing that is mutually exclusive about "getting a good education"
and "using collegiate hockey as a stepping stone to the pros."  If a kid can
go after the NHL dream and get a good education in the process, I see no
contradiction.  The kid has balanced his schooling and his hockey up to that
point, why not have the best of both worlds?
 
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