BearcatSA Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 I watched TSN The Reporters with Dave Hodge this morning and the first topic inevitably dealt with Canada's World Junior victory over Sweden yesterday. In discussing the foundations for our success Steve Simmons gave much credit to Hockey Canada and its leadership and proceeded to describe how all the other countries' programs, particularly the United States, are run like the Canadian Soccer Association, with their internal politics, regional divisions and jealousies. I had a good chuckle when I heard that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeta Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 I would love to see that clip. If it gets up on YouTube (or something) let us know and we'll be sure to get it on the Home Page with a zingy article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SouthAfricaOrBust Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 It's true.. The various U.S. developmental programs in hockey don't compare to the rediculously sucessful junior CLUB system that we have in place. Major Junior 'A', Tier 2 Junior 'A', and Junior 'B', 'C' and even 'D' all thrive in Ontario. That's a recipe for sucess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free kick Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 quote:Originally posted by BearcatSA with their internal politics, regional divisions and jealousies. I had a good chuckle when I heard that! On another recent talk show ( involving media personalities), a discussion involving Steve Nash's declining to participate in Olympic qualifying evolved into talks about the cultural, regional divisions and petty jealousies amongst within the basketball community in Canada. A close follower of the basketball scene in Canada alluded to the fact within basketball circles, people Vancouver hate Toronto as do people Montreal; the folks in Toronto think people outside dont have clue, and that everyone collectively dispises Basketball Canada. The whole discussion was very much a deja vu in that they could have been talking about soccer in this country, judging from what we have seen and heard throughout these forums. How Hockey Canada has managed to steer clear of these conflicts is real mystery to me. And, it is its biggest accomplishment and reason for its success IMO. I suspect that $$$$ is at the root of it. when you have a lot of $$$, it gives you a lot of benefits including getting people to tow the line and shut up. Plus the over the top media exposure for its events means that there enough money for everyone ( including media), so no one will dare rock the boat. For example, you never hear complaints that some Junior A player in say, Ottawa, was overlooked for the Nation junior team. Nope, everybody understand and believes that this is tourney for CHL players and some college players so no one dares complain. Similarly even if, the national junior team has no representation from Quebec, no one from RDS ( a right holder) will really raise a major stink; only occasionally, a minor stink and it will be done quietly. Also, you wont hear a peep about the hefty representation of WHL talent on the junior sides dispite the fact that at the next level ( NHL ) the WHL talent fall behind the other Jr leagues in "star quotient". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearcatSA Posted January 6, 2008 Author Share Posted January 6, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Cheeta I would love to see that clip. If it gets up on YouTube (or something) let us know and we'll be sure to get it on the Home Page with a zingy article. Hodge always advertises on the program that they are available in podcast form at tsn.ca, so you can check there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BearcatSA Posted January 6, 2008 Author Share Posted January 6, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Free kick How Hockey Canada has managed to steer clear of these conflicts is real mystery to me. And, it is its biggest accomplishment and reason for its success IMO. I suspect that $$$$ is at the root of it. when you have a lot of $$$, it gives you a lot of benefits including getting people to tow the line and shut up. Plus the over the top media exposure for its events and means that there enough money for everyone ( including media), so no one will dare rock the boat. Just for comparison sake, I wonder how much $ the American equivalent to Hockey Canada has in its coffers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanadianSoccerFan Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 quote: I suspect that $$$$ is at the root of it. when you have a lot of $$$, it gives you a lot of benefits including getting people to tow the line and shut up. I totally agree. I subscribe to the theory that money solves most problems when it comes to national sporting organizations. It's easy for Hockey Canada to fund their teams when they've got corporate Canada lining up at the door to give them millions in endorsements. You can be a complete idiot like the folks at the CSA but with massive funds it becomes a lot harder to mess up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Beaver Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 yeah, but keep in mind that Hockey Canada benefits from a very strong, extant CLUB system. Exactly what SouthAfricaorBust refers to in his/her post above, though he/she fails to recognize that our strong junior programs are deeply successful right across the country, not just in Ontario. What impresses me most about Hockey Canada is that several years ago it reinvented itself, highly aware that we were not developing the sort and number of skilled players that Europe had started to produce. The shifted and implemented effective programs across the country, and the results have been pretty damned convincing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ault Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 quote:Originally posted by The Beaver yeah, but keep in mind that Hockey Canada benefits from a very strong, extant CLUB system. and that friends is the major difference between hockey and almost every other team sport in this country. Add in the cultural significance and while even hockey would say it isn't perfect it is tough to replicate in other sports. Having said that a strong, truly club based program would go a long way to solving many of our ills but that would be tough under the current structure. Hockey has a fairly strict residency structure and although many would argue against it - it may may be soccer needs to look at something similar to progress (I know it is done in some jurisdictions). We have too many clubs at the youth level pulled in too many directions - residency and a strict divide between elite and developmental clubs might be two places to start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SouthAfricaOrBust Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 I don't think it would be possible for the CSA or just canadian soccer in general to ever match or replicate the junior hockey system in Canada.. It's pretty simple, even the big junior 'c' teams can rely on 2 or 3 grand per home date from gate receipt alone.. I played low level junior hockey for a team who's annual operating budget was over a hundred grand.. I think the Lynx woould even be jealous of that. It's an uphill battle all the way in this country a far as soccer is concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SouthAfricaOrBust Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 It's right across Canada for sure! Sorry, I didn't include the rest of the country.. I'm a guy by the way.. hahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 You can’t compare the Canadian junior program and the Canadian soccer. The model won’t fit. Canadian hockey has many things in its favour and it has done a good job of using all of them to their benefit. In Saskatchewan the top 160 14-year-olds are identified each year and play in an eight-team tournament based by region. Then the best 14 and 15 year old players in each part of the country are identified in the O, Q and dub Bantam drafts. By time these kids hit high school, Hockey Canada has a rough idea of who the best prospects are in each part of the country with major junior clubs doing a lot of the scouting for them. Then these guys get into the major junior ranks. Not only do we produce some of the best hockey talent in the world, we produce more depth of talent than any other country. And nearly all of these guys (a few exceptions like Toews or Turris) play in comparable leagues — so it’s an apples to apples comparison rather than having a guy playing a little for TFC vs. a guy playing reserves for an English Div 2 teams vs. a guy on the U18s for a major club in Holland. Next the tops players in the Pacific, West, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic are all picked for the U17 World Challenge. This is their first taste with the Hockey Canada program and international competition. . . they get a taste of the system, how things are run . . . the tournament is around the same time as the WJC . . . so now 100 players are being looked at seriously over the next two years for a spot on the WJC team. In the meantime they will pick teams for the IIHF World U18 Championships and the Ivan Hlinka Memorial tournament. Two U18 tourneys at different times of the year help them judge that U17 talent from a year previous even more closely. Then of course they have a WJC summer evaluation camp and a pre-tourney training camp. And despite all of these steps, all of the progressions in this process guys are still missed. There were at least three or four guys on this WJC team who had never been part of the U17 or the U18s. Evaluating talent at this age group is hard and guys slip through the cracks. The U.S. residency program is a good one and is very similar to what they do at Bradenton for the soccer team. The problem there is that it does a lot to develop a small number of players and puts the emphasis on the national body and not a club system. But I don’t see many lessons to pull from Hockey Canada. They’re in an entirely different system. I think the best lessons to learn is that they tried to cast a wide net and then slowly whittle players down and use what benefits they had to the best of their advantage. And that even as good as their system is IMO, guys still slip through the cracks, so we should maybe be a little more forgiving when we do something similar. I think it happens everywhere when evaluating teenagers. cheers, matthew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
argh1 Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I just did a quick check of attendances. Last night in Atlantic Canada there were 12 games played in Q, AUS, and MJAHL. Total attendance was 25,000 this in an area of no professional hockey. It's because people will pay to see hockey at any level. Local communities also feel the teams are part of the community. Folk can see how players develop and where they move too, there's a natural progression onto the next level and secondary levels in the same age groups. In my home town the tier 2 Jr A team has a budget of $200,000 for operating costs and $40,000 in an education fund. Then you throw in Major or Minor Midget plus High School and Jr C. Soccer just can't get that kind of support or buy into CSA being the Ruler of Soccer like Hockey Canada can. Soccer is making up ground but except in rare cases communities don't identify Soccer teams in civic pride like they do hockey. Junior hockey Major or Jr A has teams but not clubs in the Euro sense. More franchises in the NA sense. Players enter Major or Jr A through 16 year old entry drafts based on regions and can and do get traded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Soccer is perceived by the vast majority of Canadians as a recreation. Hockey is perceived as a way into the NHL (now US based just lime the USL and MLS) and automatic millionnaire status. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vic Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 There are a lot of great things about hockey in Canada. There are also a lot of bad things you find when you pull back the covers, and there are a lot of things the CSA would not want to replicate. And for starters, before deciding that Canada has the best and/or most efficient hockey development system in the world, and one to emulate, measure the results to the apparatus: 2008 Junior Hockey Gold medal FINAL: Canada 3 - Sweden 2 (OT) PRELIM: Sweden 4 - Canada 3 PRELIM: Canada 2 - Slovakia 0 PRELIM: Canada 4 - Denmark 1 Registered Youth Players CAN: 441,307 SWE: 47,810 SVK: 6,765 DEN: 2,338 Indoor Arenas: CAN: 3,000 SWE: 307 SVK: 40 DEN: 19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeta Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Don't put too much weight onto the registered player rolls. Don't know enough about the structure of the game in other nations to judge those numbers in context. That and the fact it doesn't matter if you can field 10 star teams. You'll only ever get to send one. One advantage football does have over ice hockey; The playing surface is basically uniform in all parts of the globe. As are the rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ault Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Yes don't start talking registered players - according to FIFA we rank 10th in the world when it comes to registered players.... 8th in the number of clubs and 9th in the number of officials http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/bigcount/registeredplayers.html it's not how many you have it's what you do with them that matters... and frankly we don't do mcuh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MM2 Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I wonder how they get the numbers for unregistered players. According to those numbers Canada has twice as many unregistered compared to registered players. quote:Originally posted by Bill Ault http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/bigcount/registeredplayers.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ault Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 ^ Statistics Canada publishes something called the Statistics Canada's General Social Survey which has some of this information although it would not have the 2006 numbers (I don't think). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vic Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 The original post talked about TSN reporters commenting how all the other countries development programs are botched compared to Hockey Canada. Watching Canada go tow-to-toe with Sweden and barely beat countries like Slovakia, and listening to the gamecast crew whup it up like we just won the World Cup always cracks me up. For every game of hockey going on in Slovakia, we have 75. If those countries ever ran their programs like Hockey Canada they would be totally screwed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpg75 Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Instead of comparing the results of the top 20 teenagers relative to the base of total players, why don't we look at the overall ouput of each countries infrastructure by comparing the number of professional hockey players that are produced by each country? And since you're making qualitative comparisons i suggest we compare the number of NHLers produced and their respective point totals + minutes played + etc. to compare the two. Then we divide the aggregate value of professional output by the number of elite players between the age of 14-19 which gives us a better indication of the development opportunities for each country. Eg. Sweden has X number of players in the NHL, X number of points by Swedes, X number of games played etc. which will give us a value. Then we do the same for Canadian players. Then we do the same for Canadians and Swedes playing in the AHL and Euro 1st Div. Then we compare the ECHL/Euro 2nd Div players and Swedish 2nd Div players. This will give us a quantitave comparison, then divide that number by the number of elite youth players and that gives us a rough idea of the mass qualitative comparison between the two countries elite player development. Anyone with alot of time on their hands want to give it a crack? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ault Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 American perspective on the Canadian hockey approach http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=3184907 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Bill Ault Yes don't start talking registered players - according to FIFA we rank 10th in the world when it comes to registered players.... 8th in the number of clubs and 9th in the number of officials http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/bigcount/registeredplayers.html it's not how many you have it's what you do with them that matters... and frankly we don't do mcuh. Agreed. We have more Youth registered soccer players than hockey players in Canada. What is missing is a club in Canada to develop them as Canadian soccer players. In Europe players are picked up by professional clubs at age 10 (or around) and they are developed by the club until the best players are weeded out and become professional players for that club. No Canadian clubs as of today have that system so all Canadian players can do to develop and go on to play professionally is in Europe. If we started to have academies for the Whitecaps, Impact and TFC. More players would stay and be developed in Canada, and would therefore stay in Canada. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free kick Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 quote:Originally posted by The Beaver What impresses me most about Hockey Canada is that several years ago it reinvented itself, highly aware that we were not developing the sort and number of skilled players that Europe had started to produce. The shifted and implemented effective programs across the country, and the results have been pretty damned convincing. Well I have theory about that. I suspect that the improved success ( in terms of results) enjoyed by Canada in has less to do with improved programs and better skills ( though it didn't hurt) and more to do with a serious drop in quality of the competitive field. The Swedes, Russian and even the Czechs are just not what they used to be. And as the Finns and Americans wer just never really in our class anyways. The only ones who have recently improved are the Americans. The others have fallen behind, in part, because they lost controll of their development capabilities. too many are comming North america to develop and their talents are getting wasted . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
argh1 Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Bill Ault American perspective on the Canadian hockey approach http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=3184907 Go to any hockey board and read American responses and tell me if it doesn't sound like us about soccer. Hockey may not be a "world" game, but it is the "Canadian" game and most don't care if the world cares or not. CSA doesn't seem to able to make soccer a "Canadian" game. We don't need "Acadamies" or "Clubs". What we need are the 200 plus communities or businesses to operate the Jr clubs that hockey has as "franchises" in hockey. The Euro "club" model hasn't worked. Let's try the NA "franchise" model that works in U-20 hockey. 62 Major Junior "franchises" 151 Jr A or tier 2 "francises" Do we wanna compare Canadian soccer U-20 "clubs" to that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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