I’ve often joked that if you look hard enough, you can find a game in Minnesota 359 days a year.  There are six sacred days a year: Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas.  Other than those six, it would not be hard to find a practice, a skating treadmill or probably a decent game.  Here’s how it looks for a typical elite 12 year old player:

October 15 to March 15: Association Practice, Dryland, Pond Hockey, Games, Scrimmages, Tournaments and Hockey Homework.

March 15 to May 15: Finish Association Season, AAA practice, AAA scrimmage, Elite Practice, Super Series/Selects practice, Elite Games, and Super Series Practice, AAA Practice, Off Season workout, skating instruction and 3 on 3 games, and AAA tournaments.

May 15 to August 15: More AAA games and optional practices, North American Tournament in Winnipeg, off-season training, shooting pucks, AAA scrimmages, and Caribou Cup.

August 15 to October 15: Pre-tryout training, AAA tryouts, Velocity 3 on 3 tournament, and Association tryouts. Note: not all elite players choose to do all of the above, YHH is simply stating they are all readily available.

While covering the state high school hockey tournament this past March, I was looking for a story that tied back to youth hockey.  Watching Edina win and tying that back to their youth program would be like writing an article about how important Michael Jordan was to the Bulls in the ’90s. On Thursday afternoon, I saw Duluth East beat Moorhead in a first round game.  During the post game press conference, Duluth East Head Coach Mike Randolph was asked a string of question by the press corps. “What was the turning point of your season?”, “How important was it to get the first goal?”, and so on. Meanwhile, while answering a question, Randolph said, “these kids are playing year round…”

Upon hearing that, I found my story.  So I asked him what his take was on playing year round (having no idea what he’d say).  Instead of “it’s a competitive world out there, they better play year round” or “I don’t care what they do after the season”…he looked at me and said, “whether I like it or not, there are so many off-season leagues and so many people asking these kids – pointing at the players accompanying him at the press conference – to play…after a while you just can’t say no.”

He went on to say that all three players sitting at the podium were scheduled to play in the USHL following the state tournament. Randolph said, “it’s crazy, these kids should be playing baseball, going to Prom and hanging out with their buddies.” After the press conference I asked him, at what age should a kid start to specialize in hockey, to which he said, “never.”

Concentrating on one sport at an early age is sometimes a difficult decision for a player to make.  Ask five “experts” on the topic and you will get five different answers.

Tony Says: I played golf with former Gopher Hockey Coach Doug Woog a few years ago and he said to me, “Tony, the best all around hockey players were always the best all around athletes…”