First, to respond to several comments:
 
1) I never implied anything about the 'dumb jock' syndrome.  I never even
said that I thought anything resembling a majority of players were
unconcerned with an education.  I still think it's a problem if it's not
close to half of them, though.
 
2) Walt Olson managed to state some of my objections quite well.  We seem
to have made it very difficult to be a student and an athlete at the same
time.  I question that our priorities are in the right place.
 
3) I'm the last of the defenders of a broad liberal-arts education it often
seems. I'm not a fan of engineers coming through the universities with a
narrowly-tailored professional program as undergrads, either.  Once again,
I'm tilting at windmills.
 
4) I re-emphasize that I don't think the problem of academics is any worse
when looking at Canadians.  My hunch is that it might be the opposite,
since you are dealing with people who have actively bucked the trend of
Junior Hockey.  I assume they left their country for a reason.
 
5) I guess I'm more suspicious than Mike Machnik.  Part of that stems from
growing up around big time football and basketball; the stench of sickness
is overpowering.  Hockey manages to avoid a lot of this by either (pick
your view) not involving as much money (despite the NCAA's best efforts) or
having an established route to the pros that doesn't involve the
universities.  But it would be unique among college sports for it to avoid
all of these problems.  Miami (Fla, not Ohio) just had its baseball team
put on probation.  The wrestling program here at Minnesota was a mess for a
while, but I've not been following enough to know if it still is.  Small
sports are full of shenanigans too.  I just don't think that hockey has
managed to avoid them.
 
I didn't mean for this discussion to spiral off in this direction (one
never does).  If I could, I would like to go back and ask if anyone could
give me the reasons why they don't approve of Canadians playing in American
college hockey.
 
Also, I should clarify that, in addition to apparently being wrong about
Tom Nevers, I don't mean the term 'wash out' as harshly as it sounds.
Anyone who can sign a pro contract in a sport is mighty good at it.  Based
solely on the statistics, I doubt that Nevers will make it to the bigs, but
he's done very well at baseball.
 
J. Michael Jackson
 
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