Let me start with a statistic, share a story and then get into my point.

Mass Born Players on USA Men's Olympic Rosters. Past 20 years:

• 1994 - 8
• 1998 - 5
• 2002 - 7
• 2006 - 3
• 2010 - 1
• 2014 - 0

See a trend?

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Story time:

From the time I was 12 years old, I’ve taken part in a tradition that I look forward to every Friday night. It is an event that I credit most of my hockey knowledge to.

It is… (Drum roll) playing pickup hockey with 60 year old men. Let me explain.

A former coach of mine (Mike Sokolski) runs a pick up skate every Friday night in Lexington Mass. The teams are made up of veteran players ranging from 35 to 65. I was lucky enough to be close friends with Mike’s son, Jon, and we would get the invite to skate with the older guys.

We got to see the game from a completely different perspective at a young age. It is a much different style than what we would see in our regular seasons. It is less about speed, tenacity and fore checking and more about puck movement, filling lanes, possession and cycling. It is like a chess match.

We got to experience having a little more time and space with the puck and learned how to move it through the neutral zone without the game moving a million miles per hour.

The best line they used to tell us was this. “In the d-zone play your position, but once we cross the blue line there are no more positions.” We learned how to read off of the other players on the ice and occupy the right areas at the right time. We learned about timing and how to skate flat into pucks with speed instead of catching long distance passes at steep angles.

They taught us that you aren’t looking to pass to a teammate; you are looking to pass to an area that a teammate should be filling.

My point:

Today, Mass youth hockey is so fast. Skating is getting more and more advanced at younger ages. Watch a pee wee game and the kids are all buzzing around. There is no time and space on the ice.

With players now choosing youth programs based on their track record, coaches are more focused on winning than ever before. The emphasis is north/south, aggressive fore checking and dump and chase hockey. You will rarely find a forward who can slow the game down and make a hockey play. You will never see a bump back pass in the neutral zone to a player coming through with speed.

If you aren’t deemed “elite” by age 8, you never will be in our system. The problem is, at that age the best skaters ARE the best players. We don’t know how many kids with that god given hockey sense are left behind each year because their tools haven’t arrived yet. The kids with the tools are considered elite players even if they don’t have the tool box.

That same group grows up with all of the best coaching and makes connections with all the right people. Lose your “elite” status and you are all but screwed. That isn’t a system that fosters real hockey players with hockey sense.

As a State, we are producing a lot of GOOD hockey players that are great skaters, but we are not producing as many true elite players who have that sixth sense on the ice.

Even a lot of our top talent are players with great physical tools.

Yes, hockey is growing and other states are coming on strong, but that is no excuse. Let’s stop blaming the players and start looking at our development system.