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It all depends. It's not like many players get a choice. The USHL is a pre D-1 college league and for the most part the USPHL is a pre D-3 league so figure-out how far the kid wants to (or can) take it and decided. For most potential D-1 kids the college coaches will have a say on where the kid should or will be playing junior hockey.
Obviously if you're a Hockey East commit the coach would prefer to see you play in the better league and to develop some maturity by living away from your parents. The exact same things they look at when recruiting kids from the USHL. Similarly if your hope is to play D-1 hockey and you don't have a commit, pack your bags; this won't change.
If your kid's dream is to lace them up for a NESCAC school or some other local liberal arts D-3 school, or parents can't stomach the thought of the kid moving away just yet or has very little college contacts then by all means stay local and try your luck. But right now it's apples to oranges.
Interesting points - but you could also make a case that Hockey East coaches want to keep tabs on future recruits and they can watch them a lot more playing in the USPHL since they are closer. Not sure its great for kids to gain maturity at 16 or 17 living out in some boonville town in the midwest playing hockey - how about school?
No, D1 coaches want the kids to play at the highest level possible so that they can step right in and contribute as a freshman. The USHL is the top choice, BCHL and NAHL are also viable options. If you can find a Division 1 coach that will advise his recruits to play in the USPHL, they will not have their job very long.
To the original quote above, some great points made. Only thing I would change would be that if a player is headed for NESCAC or that is his ceiling, he should play Prep School. Once he's done playing prep school, he should PG at another prep school and then head in. The difference between the USHL, BCHL, and NAHL versus these leagues out east is that those three top leagues actually make the players better while exposing them to the highest level of play possible in preparation for college hockey; whereas the leagues out here simply just give the players another year of growing, 60 more games, and more hockey experience than they had before.
Not being a debby downer on the new USPHL, but to compare it to the USHL, BCHL, or NAHL is absolutely nuts.
It all depends. It's not like many players get a choice. The USHL is a pre D-1 college league and for the most part the USPHL is a pre D-3 league so figure-out how far the kid wants to (or can) take it and decided. For most potential D-1 kids the college coaches will have a say on where the kid should or will be playing junior hockey.
Obviously if you're a Hockey East commit the coach would prefer to see you play in the better league and to develop some maturity by living away from your parents. The exact same things they look at when recruiting kids from the USHL. Similarly if your hope is to play D-1 hockey and you don't have a commit, pack your bags; this won't change.
If your kid's dream is to lace them up for a NESCAC school or some other local liberal arts D-3 school, or parents can't stomach the thought of the kid moving away just yet or has very little college contacts then by all means stay local and try your luck. But right now it's apples to oranges.
Interesting points - but you could also make a case that Hockey East coaches want to keep tabs on future recruits and they can watch them a lot more playing in the USPHL since they are closer. Not sure its great for kids to gain maturity at 16 or 17 living out in some boonville town in the midwest playing hockey - how about school?
No, D1 coaches want the kids to play at the highest level possible so that they can step right in and contribute as a freshman. The USHL is the top choice, BCHL and NAHL are also viable options. If you can find a Division 1 coach that will advise his recruits to play in the USPHL, they will not have their job very long.
To the original quote above, some great points made. Only thing I would change would be that if a player is headed for NESCAC or that is his ceiling, he should play Prep School. Once he's done playing prep school, he should PG at another prep school and then head in. The difference between the USHL, BCHL, and NAHL versus these leagues out east is that those three top leagues actually make the players better while exposing them to the highest level of play possible in preparation for college hockey; whereas the leagues out here simply just give the players another year of growing, 60 more games, and more hockey experience than they had before.
Not being a debby downer on the new USPHL, but to compare it to the USHL, BCHL, or NAHL is absolutely nuts.
Just goes to show how broken NCAA hockey is. Kids should be graduating high school or prep school and going right into college. This crap about having to play juniors is ridiculous. I know its common but it doesnt make it right. No other NCAA sport requires a year or two of junior level play before college. Its COLLEGE and college age kids should be playing. Kids go right from high school to Alabama and Clemson football and that sport is doing fine.
The sport that is broken is basketball. I'd rather see a kid play Juniors for a year than see them in college for a sham year before they are draft eligible.
And the truly elite hockey players aren't playing a year of juniors, at least not post-HS. So maybe hockey is only partly broken.
Yeah right but how many 'truly elite hockey players' are there per year? By that I think you mean players that are locks for the NHL. So they show-up at 18 and move onto pro hockey at 20 - college coaches rent these kids for two years and bid them farewell otherwise they would greatly prefer to have a freshmen 20 year old man rather than an 18 year old kid who will give them 4 years.
Hockey will remain broken as long as the Canadian Junior beast continues to need be fed and the US Juniors and colleges play along. Screw it and just say a college kid will 'age-out' of college hockey on their 23'rd birthday (or whatever # you want).
The sport that is broken is basketball. I'd rather see a kid play Juniors for a year than see them in college for a sham year before they are draft eligible.
And the truly elite hockey players aren't playing a year of juniors, at least not post-HS. So maybe hockey is only partly broken.
24 year old players in football are a rarity. Most are out by the time they are 22 like normal students. Some redshirt - Ezekiel Elliott is 21 years old, Goff is 22...thats INCOMING players for NCAA hockey.
All this talk of D1. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a D1 student athlete?
Many make it sound great, but your daily life is planned out for you and there is no time for other things, I know this because I lived it not to long ago.
You parents throw it around like if your kid dosent make it he is less of a player. I went D1, my cousin went D3, now that I look back on it and our experiences, he definitley had the better experience. While I was in the weight room, or doing some meaningless PR for the school, he was doing normal college things, and while I was taking a summer class because of hockey, he was at the beach with our friends and family.
Dont get me wrong, I worked my a$$ off from the time I was 15 years old to get the opportunity to play D1 and I am proud of it, but some of you need to check into reality here. Now that I am helping some local programs I cant beleive how many parents truely believe their son or daughter has what it takes at 12 or 13 to make it and they are offended when I tell them to slow down and enjoy the time now. My parents didnt spend all of this extra money on skills and multiple teams for the entire season, I had to beg to go to 1 spring tournament and a few skates in the summer and I did just fine.
If your kid has it, he will be fine, if not, there is no amount of skills/tournaments that will change that.
Many of these parents ask about genetics, and the truth is it does make a difference 99.9% of the time. Both of my parents are 5"10', I grew to be 6"0' and I was considered small. If genetics shows you are only going to be 5"9' then i would honestly set your goals realistically, D3 is where you will belong.
1 last thing to remember is that all of these schools are finding players from all over the world who want to come and play here, so it may seem your player is right up in the top bracket of talent for your small area, he is most likely not even on the radar of most of these teams.
If you are lucky enough to be in a draft like this, enjoy it, love every minute of it.Good luck to your kids.
Many make it sound great, but your daily life is planned out for you and there is no time for other things, I know this because I lived it not to long ago.
You parents throw it around like if your kid dosent make it he is less of a player. I went D1, my cousin went D3, now that I look back on it and our experiences, he definitley had the better experience. While I was in the weight room, or doing some meaningless PR for the school, he was doing normal college things, and while I was taking a summer class because of hockey, he was at the beach with our friends and family.
Dont get me wrong, I worked my a$$ off from the time I was 15 years old to get the opportunity to play D1 and I am proud of it, but some of you need to check into reality here. Now that I am helping some local programs I cant beleive how many parents truely believe their son or daughter has what it takes at 12 or 13 to make it and they are offended when I tell them to slow down and enjoy the time now. My parents didnt spend all of this extra money on skills and multiple teams for the entire season, I had to beg to go to 1 spring tournament and a few skates in the summer and I did just fine.
If your kid has it, he will be fine, if not, there is no amount of skills/tournaments that will change that.
Many of these parents ask about genetics, and the truth is it does make a difference 99.9% of the time. Both of my parents are 5"10', I grew to be 6"0' and I was considered small. If genetics shows you are only going to be 5"9' then i would honestly set your goals realistically, D3 is where you will belong.
1 last thing to remember is that all of these schools are finding players from all over the world who want to come and play here, so it may seem your player is right up in the top bracket of talent for your small area, he is most likely not even on the radar of most of these teams.
If you are lucky enough to be in a draft like this, enjoy it, love every minute of it.Good luck to your kids.
Fair points but you didnt mention you had $0 college debt and your cousin is probably still paying off his $250,000 in loans.
Not the previous poster, but has a similar college experience (but baseball). You miss out on a lot of experiences if you choose the athlete path. It's a big cost to pay. Maybe not $250K (or more like $125k when I went), but it's a significantly different college experience than normal.
I do not see this supplanting USHL but I guarantee the will pass all the other Tier 2 leagues within a few years. 10-15 years down who knows.
Perhaps a local plays in the USPHL, features and then does a year out west.
Perhaps they combine leagues? RG pretty good with the exit strategies you know!!
Perhaps a local plays in the USPHL, features and then does a year out west.
Perhaps they combine leagues? RG pretty good with the exit strategies you know!!
"All the other Tier 2 leagues"? Here is the breakdown for junior in the U.S. for you:
Tier 1 - USHL
Tier 2 - NAHL
Tier 3- Every other league in the country
The USPHL announced that they would be moving to Tier 2 and granting free-to-play opportunities. Then they actually met with USA Hockey and applied. They were denied. So now, they are leaving USA Hockey and going independent.
USPHL will never surpass or be able to hang with the NAHL, and it certainly will never be in the same stratosphere as the USHL, despite how desperately hard they are trying to paint that false picture in the heads of youth parents. News flash: Vesey, Eichel, Sanford, none of them ever played in the USPHL. They played in the old EJHL, which was a great league before the greedy owners blew it up for self-gain.
Perhaps a local plays in the USPHL, features and then does a year out west.
Perhaps they combine leagues? RG pretty good with the exit strategies you know!!
"All the other Tier 2 leagues"? Here is the breakdown for junior in the U.S. for you:
Tier 1 - USHL
Tier 2 - NAHL
Tier 3- Every other league in the country
The USPHL announced that they would be moving to Tier 2 and granting free-to-play opportunities. Then they actually met with USA Hockey and applied. They were denied. So now, they are leaving USA Hockey and going independent.
USPHL will never surpass or be able to hang with the NAHL, and it certainly will never be in the same stratosphere as the USHL, despite how desperately hard they are trying to paint that false picture in the heads of youth parents. News flash: Vesey, Eichel, Sanford, none of them ever played in the USPHL. They played in the old EJHL, which was a great league before the greedy owners blew it up for self-gain.
Perhaps a local plays in the USPHL, features and then does a year out west.
Perhaps they combine leagues? RG pretty good with the exit strategies you know!!
"All the other Tier 2 leagues"? Here is the breakdown for junior in the U.S. for you:
Tier 1 - USHL
Tier 2 - NAHL
Tier 3- Every other league in the country
The USPHL announced that they would be moving to Tier 2 and granting free-to-play opportunities. Then they actually met with USA Hockey and applied. They were denied. So now, they are leaving USA Hockey and going independent.
USPHL will never surpass or be able to hang with the NAHL, and it certainly will never be in the same stratosphere as the USHL, despite how desperately hard they are trying to paint that false picture in the heads of youth parents. News flash: Vesey, Eichel, Sanford, none of them ever played in the USPHL. They played in the old EJHL, which was a great league before the greedy owners blew it up for self-gain.
League wasn't better and if it was only because things have become diluted. I believe those aforementioned players stayed local because they were younger and playing up. They chose that route because it made the most dense for each of them at that particular time.
As for the NAHL. As things are constituted today, the top USPHL teams would be competitive in the NAHL. Now that it will be free, it will be free it assuredly will attract more talent and become competitive top to bottom.
"If genetics shows you are only going to be 5"9' then i would honestly set your goals realistically, D3 is where you will belong."
This is so true. Go watch a good D-3 team play and you will see some great players, some that look pretty old, some that can really skate, some that are pretty good...the whole gambit but one thing I noticed is almost every kid that can actually play he is undersized for his position by D-1 standards. Sure there are a few bigger kids but they have obvious holes in their game.
Well said. Sound like a NESCAC guy!
Sorry your kid got traded.
Draft is a futures draft for jr program. Following USHL and NAHL
Canadien jr leagues (OHL, etc) have been holding these type of drafts forever.
Draft is a futures draft for jr program. Following USHL and NAHL
Right, the difference though is those leagues have legitimate hockey players. These USPHL guys think they are going to sell tickets to their games
Draft is a futures draft for jr program. Following USHL and NAHL
Right, the difference though is those leagues have legitimate hockey players. These USPHL guys think they are going to sell tickets to their games
They aren't looking to raise money from ticket sales but from raising the tuition. Guess what? People will pay and so will you.