World Jr Hockey Championships

Canada Opens with 1st Game against arch rival Russia.

I hope we get a chance for some revenge against the USA after losing to them last year.

For some reason, I'd rather us lose to the Russkies than the Yanks. If we lose to the americans then they go thru the whole "We(the USA) invented hockey, we're so good at it, we beat Canada at their game etc. Sucks! It's nice when we beat them especially since they have 10 times more population than us, so that much more players in the pool to choose their team from.

This tournament needs another couple of nations to make the leap up to the top tier with us the US and Russia. It would make things a lot more interesting and we would get to watch more exciting games.

This tournament needs another couple of nations to make the leap up to the top tier with us the US and Russia. It would make things a lot more interesting and we would get to watch more exciting games.

And just think - because of the arbitrary cut off dates used for registration in minor hockey every nation (including Canada) basically excludes 50% of their kids (those born after July each year) from ever getting the chance to develop into top level players… So if the European nations really wanted to get into the top tier, in theory they could get a jump on that process by having a parallel minor hockey system that would allow those kids born later in the year to play against and compete against kids closer to their own age (6 - 8 months is a big difference at 7 - 9 years old - the age when kids start getting selected for rep teams and exposed to better coaching etc).

To give you an idea this years Team Canada roster has only 5 players that were born in August, September, October, November and December combined - and 7 players born in January alone. Of the 22 players on the roster 17 of them were born before August 1st.

Running parallel minor hockey systems until the age of about 15 - 17 could potentially double the talent pool for the U20 tournament - because by the time these kids reach their mid to late teens the adavantages gained by being bigger [HTML_REMOVED] stronger (and therefore "better" in the minds of the Coaches [HTML_REMOVED] Scouts) at the young age of 7 or 8 have all but disappeared.

Imagine how much better the tournament would be if there was half a dozen or more Countries with a valid shot at the medals… It's still the best hockey we'll get to watch until May/June.

That is a very good point but I am not sure that would increase the competivenes of other countries. It wouldn't even require a parallel league to achieve that; all you would have to do is change the brackets for each division. For example, players born after a certain date in a year are held back a division. We already have some parents do that in our league. Incidently, the ages where the difference between a player born at the beginning of the year and one born towards the end of the year is greatest seems to be from 11-14 (peewee and bantam divisions) and in the very beginning (3-5 year olds). In between and after those ages genetics plays a greater part than physical development.

It wouldn't even require a parallel league to achieve that; all you would have to do is change the brackets for each division. For example, players born after a certain date in a year are held back a division.

That only shifts the problem, as now people born later in the year have the advantage. We had a similar system in secondary school, where people born after Sept 1 were put into the lower age group. This sucked for me, as I was born in August, but was competing against people born in September the previous year. Parallel leagues is the best solution for equity. Then kids will be competing against others 6 months older at worst.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this in his book "Outliers". One league he studied was the NHL, and noted that more players were born in the first three months than at any other time of year. It's not just hockey though, kids born in the first quarter of the year are more successful in just about everything. That's because our school system uses the same cut-off date: Jan 1.