OldManRiver wrote:It feels a bit to me like you're trolling, but I'm waiting for the Wild to play so I'll bite - you're telling me that in your expert opinion, 85% of the players at the highest levels are there because of who they knew...unlike the top 15% who are there because of pure talent?
Even as a newbie, I call complete and utter BS on this.
You are putting words in my mouth and seemingly purposefully misunderstanding what I said.
I am saying that when it comes to junior hockey (USHL, NAHL etc..) and college hockey there are just as many players not getting opportunities to play in those leagues that are just as good as those playing in those leagues because they do not have an "in". There are literally hundreds of kids who are good enough to play in those leagues but because they didn't hire the advisor who directs players to the team they are trying out for they don't stand a chance. It basically creates a situation where really good players don't even try because the deck is stacked against them.
For further clarification I am saying a kid like Oliver Wahlstrom as an example, he is so unbelievably good he was going to likely get noticed and make it no matter what because his gifts are amongst the 0.01% so we aren't talking about him. We are talking about the "Adam Carlson's" of the world who obviously had and does have the skills to play at the highest level but he wasn't on the in crowd in Edina obviously so he never got a shot in Edina (I know how good Edina is but don't tell me a kid like this was not "good enough" to play for them if his dad had been say Jim Dowd, as opposed to "Mr. Carlson". Same thing when he went the junior route, because he wasn't on a varsity team in Edina the Tier 1 and Tier 2 junior teams basically just dismissed him as not being able to play regardless of how well he performed at their tryouts. I was scouting a NAHL tryout recently where there were atleast a half dozen kids who were not even close to being good enough for their all start game but made it to the allstar game over far better talent purely because those kids were clients of advisors who had "deals" with the coaching staff of that team.
Again lets be clear, I am not saying that 85% of players playing at the highest levels are there purely because of who they know. I said they have to be talented "enough" o be there but the thing that put them over the top compared to the kid who was just as good was who they knew and even in some cases they were not even as good but it was still who they knew that put them over the guy who was slightly better. If you call BS on that you are either uninformed or willfully ignorant.
That said, the point of the original post was refuting the whole "if you are good enough they will find you" nonsense. Because that is blatant nonsense. You HAVE to market yourself somehow, plain and simple you have to. I am not saying you have to spend money on a advisor or anything but you'd better have a respected coach, or a famous hockey parent, or rich parent, or something in your corner otherwise your only other miniscule slim hope is to have the deep deep resolve to go the route Carlson went. It happens but hockey is such a grind to begin with just to be good enough talent wise, that you throw that extra amount of rejection etc... on there it's no wonder so many talented players don't even try.