Well we’ve got some time on our hands these days, don’t we? Truly hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy. I'm always up for good hockey conversations and always available! So feel free to connect with me on Twitter. 

I’ve really reflected on some of the conversations I’ve had with coaches, players and parents this season, and now may be a great time to share some thoughts I’ve had. Hopefully this can spark some constructive conversations as we creep towards the offseason and serve as learning opportunities for all of us.

There’s one pretty consistent belief that almost every coach I spoke with shared that’s really got me dwelling on those conversations, and I want to get to the bottom of it...

“We don’t get the players that other programs get.”

Literally, anyone from outside the Top 100 in the state to teams inside the Top 10! There’s this general belief in our hockey world that the grass is greener. So it got me thinking if everyone believes that the next guy somehow has it better, what does the next guy REALLY HAVE that’s so enviable? Does the next guy really have resources at his disposal that others don’t? If yes, how? If no, what is he doing that the others aren’t?

In a poll of programs from across the state, I asked for player backgrounds of where and what level of hockey these kids came from before they started playing high school. Is it an embarrassment of riches for the top teams where they’re loaded with AAA talent, as people perceive? Are struggling programs really patching holes with local house players? Consider it a blind study of what these teams are made of and how these programs are built. I’ll refer to teams in general terms, as revealing the true identity of each specific program would be missing the point altogether.

Take a blind look at Team A and Team B and decide for yourself which program was handed more raw talent when the kids put on a high school sweater for the first time. Where do you think Teams A and B ranked respectively in the state?

One AAA-level kid and a fistful of AA travel kids, rounding out the lineup with a few 16U and Bantam A players. Overall, safe to say it’s a decent pool of talent but nothing egregious or overwhelmingly rich. The folks on Twitter seem to be right in line with that as well, with 56.8 percent of voters ball-parking this lineup 26th or lower.

Now for Team B...

Quite a few more weapons at Team B’s disposal with nine AAA players, two 16U kids, a few AA and A players including both goalies. Fair to assume it’s a gifted bunch, and a bonus characteristic: double digits in seniors. Twitter peeps almost in unison that it’s a Top-25 team.

Now that we’ve digested what components make up Teams A and B, I’ll give you a rundown of their resumes from this season.

Before we go any further, let me just say that I think very highly of both teams and what they’ve achieved. If the conclusions you’re drawing involve pointing out flaws or shortcomings, you’re completely missing the point I’m trying to illustrate. To me, this blind comparison is more about what Team A achieved as a Top-10 program than Team B’s rank or record against top opponents. 

After taking a straw poll of rosters, some findings were pretty in line with what people might assume. Teams in the 76-100 range with a pocket full of AAA players and a load of Tier 2 and House-level players. Top-25 teams with eight AAA players and a couple AA travel kids thrown in as well. What might come as a shock though, are things like Houghton with a top D-man who was picked up playing pond hockey. Top-25 teams averaging just three AAA players apiece. I asked one coach in the Top 10 for a background on his players, looking for breakdowns as far as AAA, AA, Tier 1, Tier 2, etc., and he laughed at me. “Let me save you the trouble,” he said. “We don’t get AAA players. They’re all AA guys.”

Having an All-AA roster is still probably coveted by some programs out there. I’m not naive to the obvious. There’s a decent amount of coaches who are hurting to even get bodies, surviving with 15 or 18 players on the roster, who would say, “Sign me up!!” for all AA-level kids. When you analyze and break down some of these rosters like Team A, my hope is that there’s a lot of similarities coaches could draw to their own squads. I just look at a roster like Team C…

...and think if this group can go to back-to-back State Finals, what’s stopping 50 or 60 other teams around the state from achieving the same thing? There’s nothing about this group that would blow you away from a talent standpoint on the surface; 41-of-77 people on Twitter ranked this team OUTSIDE the Top 25! Yet they won 20 games — four against Top-15 teams — and have one of the best lines in hockey with one of the leading scorers in the state, and they’re in the Final Four again in 2020. I might’ve let the cat out of the bag on who this particular team is, but I don’t think coach J.J. Bamberger will mind.

The point I’d like to illustrate in all of this, is that it’s more what you do than who you get. Having good, talented players certainly helps and may make the process a bit more streamlined. However, there are plenty of teams outside the Top 25 with more “talent” and “better” players than what the vast majority of top programs have in their lineups. 

Raise your hand if you have a AA player on your team…

So was Tyler Irvine before getting cut by Livonia Stevenson (twice), scoring 120 points in two seasons for the Spartans, winning a State Title as a junior, playing in the USHL and spending four seasons in the ECAC with Merrimack College. 

So were Marshall Bowery and Max Harper, as they navigated their way together from the Rochester Rattlers to Rochester United to the Topeka Roadrunners and the Air Force Academy.

So was Tim Erkkila from Brighton, long before his four-year varsity career, back-to-back State Titles and most recent verbal commitment to play NCAA hockey for Northern Michigan.

Calumet’s Tanner Rowe, who’s arguably the best player in MI-HS today with an NAHL tender agreement from the Maryland Black Bears as a third-year junior, is yet another AA player.

There are dozens of these types of stories from the top programs in the state every year that are quickly dismissed by this belief that high-profile teams seemingly “get the top talent.” 

We all have AA players — some, maybe more than others. We all have the same grass, regardless of what side of the fence we’re on. The difference is who waters it the most and whose willing to spend the most time tending to it. Coaching is no different than playing. If you want to be better, you’ve got to put in the extra work. Kids who want to be a stronger skater or better shooter go to summer camps, shoot pucks in the garage and take a couple buddies to play stick-and-puck, committed to getting better every day. If the goal is for your team to be better, can’t we put together summer camps of our own, assemble off-season training programs, actively stay in touch with players throughout the year and take your staff to coaching clinics? It doesn’t need to be 24/7, 365, but there’s always something we could be doing to better ourselves, our kids and our programs.

Would love to hear from coaches and parents on Twitter about what your programs do to get better throughout the year. What struggles do you face as far as limited player pools, talent deficits and implementing new strategies, and how you combat those challenges as a program.