Money is Killing Canada's Game.

HOCKEY! Yeah I know, several other countries claim the game but BRING IT! Canada's dominance was because it was built from regular Joe's. Farmers. Factory workers, etc. They had work, family and hockey. Check it:



Bobby Hull recorded a shot over 100 mhp. Now there's SO much being made off of this game that those hard kids can't play. The only ones that can are those that have cash. $1500 minimum.

www.theglobeandmail.com...

WHY? We've got to get the money out of the game and put the game back in the game.

I hate to be a downer. I really was a diehard fan for years, but I like a passing and scoring game, a skill game only found in things like the Olympics nowadays. The regular NHL season contains much more raw brutality and violence, way too much. When the term Enforcer referred to a position on the team, it completely turned my family away from the game. Why spend so much money to watch your kids looking up to those who pass as injurious brutes? We don't watch it any more.

To make matters worse the NHL released its report in which it claims the following about the back yard rinks melting.

A new report from the National Hockey League documents global warming’s impacts on even the neighborhood ice rink – a concern for an organization that depends on future pools of skating talent. The report, released Monday, is the most extensive sustainability report ever produced by a US sports league, according to the NHL.

link

a reply to: aboutface

I haven't watched the NHL for years. Just junior hockey and we ARE starting to lose an edge. Not the stars but look at the # of Canadians on Stanley Cup winning teams. It used to be about 3/4 Canuck. Now 50%. That's because of our development of young talent and money is screwing a lot of those kids.

hell yes, man! i've been saying this for years. i grew up playing hockey, most of the boys in my neighborhood were the same. the great players all came up from humble beginnings, money shouldn't ever decide who gets to play and who doesn't, cause money doesn't mean anything when it comes to talent and hard work.

don't football-ize hockey! canadians need something to watch/do, and if you take hockey away from us it only leaves curling! i'd rather watch my toenails grow.

originally posted by: ATODASO
hell yes, man! i've been saying this for years. i grew up playing hockey, most of the boys in my neighborhood were the same. the great players all came up from humble beginnings, money shouldn't ever decide who gets to play and who doesn't, cause money doesn't mean anything when it comes to talent and hard work.

don't football-ize hockey! canadians need something to watch/do, and if you take hockey away from us it only leaves curling! i'd rather watch my toenails grow.

At college, I used to watch inter-college women's curling as it was the only program on the late night channel. Then after watching a whole season, I realized that the teams that really made it to the end were the ones with the chunkiest players It was the leanest players first who threw out all the curling stones, then the chunky ones would send out the spoiler shots that scattered their opponents stones away from the target and clearing the way for the killer shot to hit the target.

originally posted by: intrepid
HOCKEY! Yeah I know, several other countries claim the game but BRING IT! Canada's dominance was because it was built from regular Joe's. Farmers. Factory workers, etc. They had work, family and hockey. Check it:

Bobby Hull recorded a shot over 100 mhp. Now there's SO much being made off of this game that those hard kids can't play. The only ones that can are those that have cash. $1500 minimum.

www.theglobeandmail.com...

WHY? We've got to get the money out of the game and put the game back in the game.

Great to see NHL Threads,nice job OP.

You are absolutely correct in your assesment.I grew up living in a Rural Hockey environment which produced several NHLers, I was not a Hockey Player but I was a dominating athlete the Most Outstanding Male Athlete in my High School,I also Coached multiple Teams while I was Playing myself,all of the hockey kids also played on these teams and I was exposed to them as friends,teammates,and Players I Coached.

At 15 I was 5"5 and 175lbs I had Hockey Coaches offering to buy me Skates and Equipment and give me free Skating lessons if I would try Hockey but as unbelievable as it is I didnt like Hockey,it was the ONLY sport I did not like or play and it was because of the politics and the fact that i was one of the many kids whose family could not afford to play organised hockey,it has ALWAYS been prohibitively expensive,I in fact developed a Healthy taste for smashing Hockey players extra hard in every Sport because they were spoiled rotten,overvalued themselves , had elitist attitudes ,were generally undersized whelps ,and to a fiscally challenged poor-boy who happened to be a Beast with a Chip on his Shoulders these hockey kids were the best challenge.

At 17 I was rocking at 5"5 - 185lbs and had optimal body fat%, I had the Montreal Canadians Scout trying to get me to come and sit at his Table at a big Hockey Convention,he I was wearing a Dress-Shirt and he actually got up and walked over to me to chat and had the cojones to grab my arm to see what I was packing,he couldnt get his hand anywhere near half-way around my arm,ha ha ha, I was only 5'5 and had to buy huge shirts so they would fit me right because of my body shape and the shirts were always baggy in the arms,he got a surprise,then tried to get me to sit at his table.I quite seriously grew up doing exactly what you see in the picture,except I used to load square Hay bales and Straw bales using a Pitchfork,I cant see what Bobby has on his Pitchfork ,he looks like he is tourquing pretty good,it could be a bale.I used to walk with 2 5-gallon pails of water doing my chores when I was 9-10 years old,I had to shrug them up step by step to start,that was 40 lbs per pail and I didnt know it ,I wasnt looking to build muscles I was looking to do what the MEN were doing and I was driven by that alone.

In all my years as an amature athlete I never met a hockey player who I considered to be a threat to me,just one particular enforcer type I fought who was about 18 yrs old and was the full package ,they were always undersized and always had poorly balanced phisiques,the skating really screws them up early on and creates imbalances at critical growing times.In all fairness even in low levels of Hockey only the goons are really big,Hockey is really a Skill game and the value of big clumsy early growth kids is low until they hit 16-17 and real muscle and violence is needed to enforce on the ice.By then the skill players have entrenched themselves within the system and any huge men left are enforcer types,the coaching process leaves them behind because of cracks in the system.Think about it,if you had 5 x 6"3 - 230 lb Players with the same skill levels and acumen there is absolutely no doubt the big men would not just win,they would dominate.The problem is that these beasts develop at times that arent in synch with the overall Hockey Development System,they lose their roles and value at a critical development stage and then by the time they are done growing into their huge frames the process has left them behind,they are disadvantaged immediatly and are forced to try to break onto rosters as late bloomers which makes it even harder for them.

Because I maxed out my own potentials,I honestly have no mercy for men who do not,I dont blame the ones who were simply never supported properly it is what it is they are all trying their best as they define it it isnt their fault no one has given them the vision to optimise themselves. I ended up being effective at 5"5 - 195lbs running a 4.5-6 40 yard sprint.I used to work out with a member of Canadas Olympic 4x100 relay team and members of Canadas National Rugby team.

This is a cold hard fact but none of the top tier Athletes I met were Hockey Players,and the recruitment and coaching process is off-beat on a National level and responsible in part for this fact.

When you MONTETISE organised hockey and everything involved with it you create an elitist environment, when you make team committments in hockey there is a massive drain on MONEY first then time and energy tremendous travel and other drawbacks which force young athletes to specialise in Hockey to their developmental detriment,kids get pigeon-holed into the system and because it is elitist it is attractive to them for many reasons especially peer group attraction,and because MONEY is such a HUGE factor in everything about organised hockey the rich parents always had control over who coached or who got ice time and opportunity which is the critical thing for all athletes.

Anyone can push themselves and become a Beast,ANYONE,you dont need to be special,I was a chubby little short kid until I decided I could do what the MEN were doing and ACTUALLY TRIED.When I was walking around at 5"5 and 200lbs with no fat hanging off of me I could do what most men could not,and there was nothing special about me as a kid or now,it is all about what you decide to do and what you decide to do about that.

I will say this,SIZE MATTERS,and SPEED matters, the rest of the package can come in any form you choose and still be DOMINATING in any sport including hockey.I am 5'5 and used to KNOCK people out with hits unless I pulled up,and my center of gravity was so low no one could hit me on the sweet spot and most who tried got ROCKED back instead.But I had to operate at high speed to be most effective,Yakupov reminds me of myself,he will likely be very physical in his career more than expected.I used to love guys over 6'2 they were so easy to drop and weight wasnt a factor unless it was Football and then it was not because I could drop them but it was the CRUSH factor,only in Football do you get 300 lb elephants in PADS falling on you and that injures KNEES which means no sports at all.A 195lb rocket coming in full speed in a 5"5 package is devestating in any contact sport,and impossible to catch and stop as an offensive force.To put it in perspective at my height//weight ratio another man at 6"3 would need to weigh the equivilant of 3 lbs per inch of height to generate the same center of gravity maximum impact,he would need to stand 6"3 and weigh 225lbs to equal what I had cooking,THEN we can talk technique and other factors,like speed.Just being big enough to generate that impact doesnt mean an Athlete can optimise themselves and situations to be a human bomb.The overall point is that Hockey as a sport burns up a lot of calories and skill players dominate all levels so these kids are never put in the proper long term dynamiclly anerobic environments to optimise themselves.Once you get to the Junior levels of Hockey you are working at an elite Athletic level ,this means men dont just slap on 15 lbs of muscle or lose 15 lbs of muscle without being punted right off of the roster,the line is that thin at the elite level,so if the KIDS arent being properly brought up to optimise themselves during the times that organised hockey monopolises then they will not be bringng that type of optimal and dominating weight forward in a usable manner or in functional muscle mass that doesnt prohibit elite speed.

Finding young humans who WANT to optimse themselves is the trick,as we all have seen by history many top level ELITE Athletes in ALL sports have personal histories which include some type of external driver like abuse of some type or form.This type of inner drive is very hard to find in a person who has not been so motivated.Pressure from Coaches,parents and Peers is not enough to OPTIMISE most peoples inner drives.Trauma or experience are natures keys for unlocking this level of ability in ALL of us.

Most Hockey Families have lots of MONEY and this means they are in a better financial group and suffer less of societys worst traumas and experiences.many top level ELITE Athletes come from poor homes where social ills are rampant,they are MOTIVATED and they do OPTIMISE themselves,but they have A SNOWBALLS CHANCE IN HADES of ever being involved in organised hockey.

I am not saying Hockey families do not experience the same things to some degrees as all of us,simply that there is a template we can look at to see there is an obvious dynamic imbalance even if statistics do not show it.Hockey Players come from Vanilla Homes and environments and they put forth Vanilla efforts unless motivated externally and it usually needs to be with a reward baiting them and their mentality.This is why so few make it to the top.They just cannot find rewards they deem big enough to enable themselves to dig deep enough to optimise themselves.

Well I turned down many opportunitys to have people pay my way into organised hockey, but i had pride and I was from the other side of the tracks,my loyaltys run only one direction.I wanted the Hockey parents ALL AROUND me to know that I DOMINATED their sons,and I did that to an epic degree and I did it in part on behalf of the many many poor kids like me who didnt get the chance to kick spoiled butt but had the ability to do just so.To be honest the first time a Hockey Coach tried to bribe me into playing I asked myself who was going to pay for my siblings to play hockey as well?The answer I came up with was NO ONE naturally my answer was also NO.

There is in fact MAJOR problems with how hockey is promoted and how it is organised and operated on every level in Canada,money has definately damaged the game on every level.


Statistics are the only thing I can think of that have damaged Hockey more than money and its influences on the process,but the two go hand and hand because Statistics and their supporters are artificially pushing up NHL salaries and everything else about the game.


Great thread OP .