Gap between nhler's and cream of crop local league guys?

Question

alright imagine all the guys whose parents could not afford to send kid to best travel leagues where they would have had a shot to get noticed they are all in peak conditioning put them on a team give them a good coach how do they do?

in my opinion they do very well for themselves

hockey being as expensive as it is i think alot of great players get left behind

still pretty elitest in my opinion

what do you guys think thx

how about other sports what gap you think is smallest ,largest?

Answer 1

That gap is probably bigger than any other sport, along with soccer.

Answer 2

You may find some guys with raw talent, but the gap would be huge.  Not only havethe privilage kids played in travel leagues, they have also most likely spent tons of money on clinics and camps along with summer ice time that would just put their training in whole new world than the underprivledge.  Hockey is sort of elitist in that it is an expensive sport.

And to the guy saying that the gap between the ECHL and local beer leagues being fairly small, he is 100% incorect.  That gap is pretty d**n huge considering ECHL guys are professional hockey players.

Answer 3

There is a huge gap between the NHL and local leagues.  Thats why we have the AHL and ECHL.  

The gap between local and ECHL would be fairly small.

Answer 4

Is there a poorer country then the Dominican Republic but that's where alot of Major Leaguers come from and I know its not very expensive for baseball equipment but they learned it with very meager sources.If you have talent you will be noticed.I'm not sure but I would think alot of Hall of Famers have played when their parents didn't have a pot to p**s in.

Its a good question though but who knows with alot of sports if kids had the money can they get the top training.Like tennis,not all kids can afford the best coaches that money can buy but that's just the way life is.If you have money you can buy the top lawyers and get away with crimes.Money however doesn't buy a kid heart and or competitiveness and fire.

**Everyone in the Domincan Republic plays baseball so its extremely hard to pick a diamond in the rough.Japan another tough place to pick out winners.Ichiro and Matsui are two but alot of busts so far.I know they play professional in Japan but the States are the best in the world.I played semi pro and there were a few instances where a scout came to a game and a guy had a tryout the next day.Me being one of them so it does happen to nonwealthy families.

Answer 5

Want a comparison? Drive around your neighbourhood and find the biggest fanciest house. Fly to hollywood and find the houses of the rich and famous. That's the gap. hard to imagine isn't it.

Another example take the greatest athlete to ever play a specific sport say like basketball. Maybe Michael Jordan say and give him a year to try and play baseball. What did he do hit .200 in AA ball. LOng way to the majors.

There is a golf ad that shows pro golfers doing their thing the punch line is "yeah they're that good".

Hockey players are the same each of these guys was good in other sports as well but for some reason hockey was the one that stuck.

I was a pretty fair athlete growing up. Played a lot of sports at pretty high levels. Actually held a Canadian high school track record at one time. When I was in my forties I was playing hockey in three leagues and was selected to play against a team of NHL old timers to play a charity game to raise money for our local Bantam team that was going to a tournament in Finland. We had a number of our great local heroes on this team. Norm Ullman was with the old timers. He was 50 something. He scored 8 or 9 goals before we asked for mercy. A number of the kids from our team were good. Three of them just won the Allan Cup. But an old washed up ex Pro was the best guy on the ice that night.

Oh yes three of the Bantams that night went on to the NHL. Two of them played long illustrious careers.

Edit : Obviously you don't understand the mind of a hockey player. Every one of us was trying to impress. I never went on the ice waving at a puck at half speed. My ego is to great for that to ever happen. I quit the game only after my leg was so badly broken at 50 that the doctors told me never to play again because I might never walk again if it were to happen again. Even so I continued coaching and refereeing.

Answer 6

The difference between an NHL player and a local league guy is HUGE.  I watched helplessly as Jeff Harding threw a saucer pass from behind his goal line to the far blue line and hit his teammate on the tape.  I watched helplessly as Joe Watson, over the age of 40 at the time, swat a puck out of mid-air with his stick and in the same motion take a shot and score.  Attend a free-agent camp hosted by a scout, agent or team and you can really find out how drastic the difference in skill level is.  Even the gap between the ECHL and men's league can be pretty large.  In some of the smaller A leagues such as the MAHL and the SPHL, the gap is much closer but even then, it can be significant.

I am sure that there are people out there who have never touched a hockey stick, but had they been given the opportunity to play hockey at an early age, would have made it to the NHL.  The point you make I feel applies more heavily to areas of world where kids do not have access to free ice throughout the year.  Hockey is an extremely expensive sport to play in most parts of the US and the majority of the country does not have access to natural skating surfaces.

With that said, I don't think that the number of people who missed that opportunity is not as big as you might think if a kid gets a chance to play at all.  If a kid is lighting it up in house league, he/she is going to get the attention of the local travel team.  If they are lighting it up for the local travel team they are going to get the attention of the local Tier 1 team and so on down the line.  If a kid gets on the ice and has ability, people will take notice.