HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

What drives me nuts about threads and topics as this is that usually the OP is trying to suggest (some times subtle, sometimes not so) one or more of a few things:

1) Playing and training for hockey in the summer doesn't necessarily help your chances of making the NHL.

2) Year round hockey is evil.

3) Parents who pay for their kids to play hockey in the summer are misguided.

4) Kids are hurt by focusing on one sport.

ALL of which are COMPLETELY ludicrous!! While the chances of ANY young player actually becoming a future NHLer are extremely remote...virtually ALL NHLers will point out that they did a lot of playing or training for hockey during the summers of their youth.

There is nothing wrong with focusing on one sport if that is the only sport a kid likes to play. There is nothing wrong with a kid who doesn't like to play other sports. The wrong thing to do is to force a kids to play multiple sports if they don't have any interest in it.

Just because a parent is willing to spend the money for their kids to play hockey in the summer, does not mean they expect to get a return on their investment by their kids playing in the NHL in the future. I've been youth hockey for quite a while now and I have met very few people who have any illusions of their kids playing college or pro hockey in the future. Most kids and parents get involved because it's fun. Plain and simple. Some combine the fun with helping their child develop for the future dream of playing varsity some day, and there is nothing wrong with that, either.

Interesting. Y.E. Yang picked up his first golf club at 19.

Do you suppose he had a physical predisposition to be successful at golf even though he had never played the game until 19? Or, just hard work?

Are you insinuating that he picked up a seven iron for the first time on a Thursday morning and won a PGA event. Yang has been playing golf for 18 years. I would speculate that in those 18 years he has probably hit the driving range once or twice.