John Haeussler writes:
>From Sunday's scab paper
>(The Detroit New & Free Press)
...
>The CCHA, which is competing for top players with
>the Ontario Hockey League, apparently was threatening
>to pull some of its events, including the Great Lakes
>Invitational, from Joe Louis Arena if the Jr. Wings
>weren't evicted.
 
Two thoughts I had on this:
 
* Doesn't MTU run the GLI, not the CCHA?  And MTU isn't even in the
CCHA.
 
* I've never seriously considered major junior and college hockey as a
whole, never mind the CCHA, to be in competition.  Seems to me that
the better players usually go junior, as do the players who aren't as
interested in a college education.  Sometimes you get the odd player
who starts out in college and leaves for junior, but more often than
not those were guys who ran into academic problems.
 
I think if you drew up a list of kids who got serious offers from both
college and major junior, a large majority would be the ones who opted
for junior.
 
And, the NC$$ itself has done more to dissuade these players from
choosing college hockey than the juniors have done.  It is the NC$$,
not juniors, that has the rules about losing eligibility for various
levels of involvement in the other league.  It is also the NC$$ that
virtually forces a kid to choose early on whether or not he might want
to play in college, as some coaches have lamented.  The juniors
welcome college kids with open arms, but the same cannot be said of
the NC$$ with players from junior.
 
Note that I am drawing a distinction here between the "NC$$" and the
coaches, etc. who run college hockey since I've read or heard many of
them say that the current situation is not fair to kids with a tough
choice to make.  Were it up to them, the rules might well be different.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93
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