Michael Hage is a very fine young hockey player. At the just-concluded World Junior Championships, he led all players in scoring with 15 points in seven games. He was named to the media-selected WJC All-Star team. In his second year at Michigan State in the NCAA, he's sixth overall, with 28 points in 20 games.
Even better than his stats, however, is the impression he's making on his teammates, his coaches, the jealous fans of other teams and the management of the Montreal Canadiens, which made him their first-round pick in 2024, at number 21 overall.
"He's a special player," lauded Team Canada teammate Cole Reschny. "He has played college for a year and a half now and I think he has learned to play hard against older guys, and now when he comes to play against his own age group he showed up. He's a dialed (in) guy."
"He's Canada's best player in the tournament," praised the IIHF's Tim Austen.
Teammate Zayne Parekh said "I just think he wants to be the guy. He loves the spotlight. He embraces it."
And Team Canada coach Dale Hunter noted "It's in his nature to begin with. Whenever he's playing, he's driven."
"He's been the best player in the tournament that I've seen," said TSN's Jeff O'Neill. "I have no idea how he wasn't named one of the top forwards for Team Canada. He's been the best player in the tournament, he's unreal."
🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒
O'Neill's question is one many people in the hockey world, especially among the Habs' faithful are asking. Why wasn't Hage named by his own coaching staff as one of the top three forwards?
Despite the points and the praise, Hage missed out in favour of teammates Tij Iginla, Parekh and Sam O'Reilly. The decision seemed odd, considering Iginla and O'Reilly had only eight points each, while Parekh had 13 as a defenceman, while playing with Hage on the powerplay.
One of the most obvious differences between the three players chosen and Hage is that they all play major junior hockey in Canada, while Hage opted to play university hockey in the NCAA instead.
The coaching staff who chose the top three players are also all junior coaches or alumni. Hunter is the London Knights' head coach, Misha Donskov is now an NHL assistant coach, but was an associate to Hunter in London for three years. Brad Lauer is the head coach of the Spokane Chiefs of the WHL and an alumnus of the Kootenay Ice in the same league. Gardiner MacDougall is head coach of the Moncton Wildcats of the QMJHL.
There's a long-held belief in Canada that major junior hockey is the best route to the NHL. Proponents, including NHL star Nathan MacKinnon, cite a tougher game schedule...believed to be better for skills development...and more frequent exposure to pro scouts as reasons for junior's superiority. Those who've been through the junior system and made it to the pros believe they took the better path. The same people also believe the 34-game college season, the requirement for full face protection and the significant punishment for fighting in the NCAA produces "softer," less aggressive players. So it's no surprise that a group of junior hockey coaches would pass over a college player, no matter how many points he puts up.
🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒
College hockey, while it definitely does provide fewer game opportunities, also offers a quality education, more time for off-ice training and a longer runway age-wise (up to age 25) to develop pro skills, which is great for late-bloomers.
Junior, by comparison, ends at age 20 and provides a year of post-secondary tuition for every year spent playing. The problem with that is the playing years are also high school years. Players travel and play on school days and weekends, leaving little time to keep their grades up high enough to be admitted to a college or university. Too many times, a play hits age 20 and doesn't have the marks for higher schooling so he's basically out of luck as far as a career goes.
The other, more devastating effect of playing junior is the exposure of teen boys to a culture that often features fighting, drinking and sexual abuse. Junior players are usually away from home for the first time as 16-year-olds and their first formative life experiences are within the world of bro-style hockey. They're worshipped in small towns as heroes and learn a sense of entitlement that doesn't serve them well in real life. Hockey Canada, as we know, is famous for covering up the scandalous behaviour of junior hockey players and has shown little interest in seriously moving to improve the current toxic culture.
Of course, some of those things happen in college as well. But the players there are legal adults. Their schedule leaves time for study, and grades matter to their status on the team. They live in dorms where their behaviour and that of those around them is out in the open.
In junior, players are paid an honorarium while owners keep the bulk of the money generated by their work. Junior players can be traded, which uproots teenagers from a secure environment and shunts them off to a group of strangers, sometimes mid-season. Juniors often live in billet homes, and not all the billet families have their best interests at heart.
🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒
That brings us back to the WJC and Michael Hage.
The coaches of Team Canada are chosen by Hockey Canada. This year's head coach, Dale Hunter, had an undeniably successful NHL career, although he amassed the second-most penalties in NHL history, and as a junior coach. Many of his charges made it to the big league, including Rick Nash, Patrick Kane and John Tavares. However, Hunter was also infamous for his dirty play in the NHL (remember the terrible hit on Pierre Turgeon that got him a 21-game suspension). As a coach, he's been suspended for bullying officials (twice) and for sending players out to fight. He touts toughness and grit as vital hockey qualities. In a preliminary game of this year's WJC, Canada under his leadership got in trouble for refusing to shake hands with their opponents.
Other than that, this year's Canadian team was fine. They won the bronze medal in a tournament that used to be nearly a guaranteed gold. They played well, if not brilliantly. That's because the rest of the world is not only catching up, but producing players from youth programs that are much, much healthier for teenagers than Canadian junior.
In Sweden, which won this year's tournament, the focus is on community and fun. A player signs up for hockey at five or six and usually stays with that group until he's ready to go pro.
"Until I was 14, there were no "tryouts," says NHL defenceman Victor Hedman. "If you're born in O-Vik, you play for MoDo or one of the other local teams. In fact, the Sedin twins and Markus Naslund played for a team called Jarved, on an outdoor rink. There are different levels, but you are never cut. When people talk about Swedish hockey, they often mention the 'chemistry' of the players. But really, it's a total philosophy of community that starts when you're young."
Czechia, this year's silver medalists, have a similar, community and club-based system with an emphasis on inclusion, skill development and fun. Other European hockey nations do the same. The years of Don Cherry calling Euro players "soft" are over as they're showing as much, often more, hockey skill and sense as well as competitiveness than Canadians.
In the North American comparison, the US players join high school or prep school teams. The elite players are then accepted into high-level development programs where they're scouted by pro and NCAA talent hunters. This system produced Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson, among many other NHL stars.
Canada still supplies the highest number of players to the NHL, but last year 42% of all players went through the NCAA to get there. Currently, 30% of NCAA players are Canadian. Families are choosing the focus on skill, structure and safety, as well as the opportunities available to monetize the player's name and image and the high level of education provided. College is offering them a whole lot more than junior.
So, if Hockey Canada wants to compete in the future, it's going to have to get with the times. Dale Hunter is no longer the model most parents want their kids to follow, and his dinosaur concepts of what makes a "complete" player are reflected in his snub of Hage as a top Canadian on this year's team.
The Canadiens will be only too glad to take the kid off Hockey Canada's hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment