Attention all 1st year U11/13/15/18 hockey parents!
I have big news for y’all
Your son or daughter – probably – isn’t making the team you might think they are going to make.
Around this time of year, my e-mail inbox is inundated with (essays) from 1st year parents who are (insert emotion here) panicking, worried, think the sky may be falling – because their son or daughter was an early cut from the AAA team. Some are requesting immediate fixes of evaluator feedback – from 1v1 skating lessons to private training to ‘how can I leverage AI to improve my stickhandling’ (kidding about the last one… but maybe not in 5-10 years).
My response to these e-mails is usually short and to-the-point. If university taught me anything, it was to keep e-mail responses short (and blog posts long obviously).
Your son or daughter is a year behind most of the kids who are making the top teams.
One year is a big, big difference. You might have a kid born in January 2012 trying out against a kid born in December 2013. That’s 2 years in the difference! Until kids stop growing (late teens/early 20’s), you will often see gigantic physical discrepancies between first year and second year players. Especially in U15/U18 (puberty ages) where you’ll see one male player showing up to training camp with a mustache, and the other showing up without a single stick of hair on his body. Size and strength plays a vital role in the top levels of hockey – from being able to win battles, to sturdiness on the skates, to shot power. If you’re a boy, it is hard to compete against a man. It’s Science. It’s why you see less than 20 16 year olds playing in the QMJHL each year (I think last year was 18 16’s).
Lets look at U15 male in 2023-24. The two “city” AAA teams had… if memory serves me right… less than 5 first year players total (goalies included; regular roster players, not AP’s). Off hand, I can only think of 4. 4/30 = roughly 13%. This may vary from region to region and some age groups are stronger/weaker than others. So that 13% might fluctuate to 25-30%. But still… 30% of 30 is only between 9 and 10 players. That is not very many, in the grand scheme of things. Even with U13/15 AAA expanding to 3 city teams in 2024-25, making and playing AAA hockey as a first year player is still very difficult.
Some kids don’t grow physically until later, while others grow so fast in such a short period of time that they show up to tryouts without their usual co-ordination/smoothness. By the time they figure out their new legs/body, tryouts have concluded. This happens all the time! If this is your son or daughter, this is ok!
What to Do – As a Parent – If Your Son/Daughter Does Not Make the Ideal Team
*** Let your son/daughter dominate the level that he or she makes. Let them build confidence, touch the puck more, learn leadership abilities, learn to deal with adversity. If you son/daughter played U9 Select this year but only made the U11 D team the following year, let them be the best player they can be at that level. Be a star for a season, and set your sights on higher levels when they’re a second year player.
*** Let your son/daughter develop at their own pace. Don’t go overboard with extra hockey. If skating mechanics are an issue, I’m not saying to avoid adding an additional power skating/private skating session(s) in to work on mechanics. But find a balance. I’ve seen kids who get feedback from evaluators to work on their skating, yet their skating mechanics are perfectly fine. The player just isn’t physically strong enough yet to keep up with bigger, stronger kids. There’s a difference. The player ends up doing so much extra hockey that he or she actually hinders their skating mechanics. I’m not joking (overuse injuries, burnout, I can go on).
*** Keep the joy in the game. I am so happy to have had parents that supported me in hockey, but let me play road hockey or backyard football instead of going to a 7th on-ice session that week. For the record, the BSHL (Botwood Street Hockey League) produced some high-quality hockey players too.
Colin Greening – NHL
Teddy Purcell – NHL
Mark Roebothan – NCAA D1
Scott Brophy- QMJHL/USPORT
Andrew Hill – Junior ‘A’
Sean Wadden – Junior ‘A’
Mike Stevens – Junior ‘A’
There are more. We played street (roller) hockey every day in high school (missed a scattered afternoon Chemistry class, but I digress). But that unstructured play was good for all of us. The crazy thing is – not a person who played in that street hockey league is out of hockey altogether. Every person still plays recreationally, or coaches, or has kids involved and is at the rink helping out in a capacity. Hell, up until 2015 we played a reunion series in August (yes, a bunch of 30+ year olds playing roller hockey on a tennis court). The point is – the joy was always in the game. Joy often comes from pressure-free situations, ones without evaluators/scouts/watchful eyes.
*** Play the long game. Be patient. I’ll use the example of Colin Greening here. AKA Baby G as we used to call him. Greening grew up on Kilkenny Street, which was just across the way from the neighborhood that myself and a lot of other hockey-playing kids grew up in. Greening was a phenom at the younger ages (U7/9/11). Greening was actually an exceptional status U11 player who was allowed to play U13A as a second year U11 (there was no AAA back then; A was the highest level achievable until U18). After U13, Greening went through a period where he stopped growing. Greening played 2 years of U15 (back then, exceptional U15 players were often granted exceptional status to play U18 which was only a 2 year age division). On our U18AAA team (what U18 was called back then – and there was only 1 U18AAA team in the city), we had 1 2nd year U15 and 1 1st year U15 player on our U18 team (goalie Ryan Mior was a double under-ager – Mior went on to have a very successful QMJHL career)…. but Greening wasn’t one of them. Greening played as a 2nd year U15A player and had a good season, but not a record-breaking one. Greening played all of his years of U18 eligibility (but was not a superstar at the level) when a lot of his peers were already off playing Junior in the Q or Junior ‘A’. Greening played the long game and was rewarded – he went from average height to 6 foot 2 in what seemed like no time. Greening went from Junior ‘A’ to the NCAA to the NHL in less than 6 years. Played over 300 NHL games. Not bad.
I’m not saying that playing the long game is a sure-fire bet to play pro hockey. But if you look closely, there are so many players on U15AAA Male rosters in 2024-25 who played lower than U15AA hockey in 2023-24 because they grew physically over the Spring/Summer, and continued to get better/improve their compete level/show a good attitude.
Be patient. Development is not linear. Encourage your kids to work on their game when they can, but in a constructive way. The player has to want it for them!
Until Next Time
AP