Reg Usher writes:
>I think the Minnesota tradition of only recruiting Minnesota hockey
>players is a "classy" practice.
...
>To complain about such an honorable tradition as homegrown
>recruiting just because the Gophers are off to a slow start this year seems
>to me to be the epitome of short-sightedness.
 
I'm certainly not trying to prolong this or pick on Reg, he just
expressed something I have seen and heard many times...while my personal
opinion is that schools should recruit who they want from where they
want (as long as rules aren't broken), I think it is dangerous and
unfair to label the way Minnesota has recruited as "classy" and
"honorable".
 
It is nice that Minnesota has been so successful for so long by
recruiting the way they have, and it is perfectly okay by me if the
folks there are proud of having maintained this tradition.  But
calling the practice of recruiting only in-state players "classy" and
"honorable" implies, intended or not, that nearly every other program
in DivI is not classy or honorable because they recruit out of state
or out of the US.
 
After all, few programs have had the kind of easy access to local
players that Minnesota has had.  The next closest comparison I could
make here is Boston College which had a similar type of access to
Massachusetts kids until recently.  In fact, for a long time, I heard
it said that "BC doesn't go to kids; kids go to BC".  For the other 8
DivI programs located within 45 minutes of BC, if they were going to
remain competitive, they had no choice but to look out of state and to
Canada.  That doesn't mean they gave up on the local kids.  And we
shouldn't forget how much time and effort the coaches put in to try to
bring in the best players possible.  I think Merrimack assistant Stu
Irving, for example, has done a pretty darn honorable job of
recruiting the last ten years by not only spending days at all the
local HS games but also spending so much time away each year, driving
across Canada to see games in remote places and find the kids that
were overlooked.  And giving a chance for a good college education to
kids who might not have otherwise had it - kids who helped Merrimack
place more players on the HE Academic Honor Roll last season than any
other HE school.
 
Now, partly because of the efforts of the people at BU and Maine for
example, BC is not able to grab as large a percentage of the top Mass
players as they used to.  They've looked out of state more and are
even starting to turn to Canada.  And BU, which used to be dominated
by out-of-state players & Canadians, seems to have more and more Mass
kids every year.  There's more of a competition for local players, and
I think that is good for this area.
 
Either way, I don't believe that Minnesota folks are in the right to
criticize other programs for recruiting differently than they do, nor
is it right to criticize Minnesota for sticking to its tradition.  Or
even if they decide to alter that tradition.  I forget how this
started, but I have seen shots taken from both sides, and I don't
believe either view is accurate.
 
Now, if Minnesota people want to question that tradition, I suppose
that's okay - in-fighting is fine with me. :-)  It is not necessarily
true that the way they did things for X number of years is the way
they should always do it; times change.  That's something Minnesota
will have to work out on its own.  All I can say is, if the tradition
is strong enough and the people there feel strongly about this, then I
hope they won't bow to pressure and abandon it just because of a rough
start this season.  After all, look at how they started last season -
and where they finished...
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93
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