In Part 2 (click here), we examined how one former Boston collegiate standout found greener hockey pastures for his family in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Many paths to success
Former Boston University strength trainer Mike Boyle has raised two hockey players himself: Mark, a freshman at Reading High; and Michaela, who started her career with Clarkson but didn't find the match — or ice time — she was seeking, ultimately taking advantage of the NCAA transfer portal to become the leading scorer at Division 1 Robert Morris.
Mike Boyle’s ability to disregard today’s conventional wisdom while raising a scholarship athlete is a tale Massachusetts hockey parents should heed.
“My daughter didn’t do what everybody else said, and still became an elite player,” said Boyle. “Assabet Valley had the big rep. Everybody’s saying, ‘I play for Assabet.’ ”
Boyle, who lives in Reading, Mass., frequently was asked why his daughter didn’t play for Assabet.
“What are you, insane?” said Boyle. “Why would I drive to freaking Concord for hockey? Route 128 at five o’clock in the afternoon to get to Concord.”
Boyle shakes his head.
“The parents are shelling it out because they are all seeing the dream. The kids are playing on the illusions — delusions — of parents, that their kid is going to get a scholarship or their kid’s going to play in the NHL or whatever. In reality, the numbers are decreasing.”
Pity the parents in today’s world of Massachusetts youth hockey. If they listen to the chatter, generated by hockey entrepreneurs and spread by other parents, there always will be more attractive — and more expensive — options for their child to get on that elusive hockey fast track.
“The last thing a parent wants to hear is that their kid is going to fall behind,” said Boyle.
A former NCAA champion from the Boston area finds himself occasionally in arenas managing youth hockey development, and he is extremely disheartened. He spoke on the condition of anonymity: “I find the money grab in youth hockey very distasteful. Parents are blindsided by false prophets selling a dream that the best kids would fulfill anyway.”
This individual laments the plight of the kids who serve as fodder for the travel stars, players whose parents write enormous checks to triple-A clubs. Junior gets to wear the tie and team windbreaker simply to fill a spot on the bench. “Collateral damage.”
The last of a breed
Thirty-six-year-old former BU defenseman Dan Spang finally has retired. He enjoyed a 14-year professional career that saw his suitcase smattered with 16 team stickers from Syracuse to Sweden. But it is not the million miles traveled after leaving BU that makes Spang unique. It is the route he took to Commonwealth Avenue that makes him one of a kind. If you check his profile on Elite Prospects, you’ll see that in the year 2000 Spang came to BU directly from Winchester (Mass.) High School. He didn’t take a postgraduate year at prep school, no gap years in the USHL, just a straight shot from the Middlesex League to Division 1. No one at BU has done that since.
“I remember I was two or three years into college and people would tell me that,” said Spang, currently starting a new life in Dallas as a medical sales rep. “I just figured it would happen to someone else along the way.”
But it never did, and unless there is a drastic change in Boston’s hockey landscape, it never will again. Spang places his high school experience at the very top of his memory collection, and acknowledges what a crucial factor it was in his development as a man.
“Those were the best, most memorable hockey days of my life,” said Spang. “I was fortunate to play high school with two brothers as well. You realize what it means to care for a team, care for your teammates, care about the results, to try and have a goal, and build on that year after year.”
Spang spent a few minutes reminiscing about a huge game between Winchester and Arlington, the sheer excitement of playing in front of everyone he cared about in his life. He contrasted those days, being a part of something much bigger than himself, with the life of today’s prospects, teenage hockey mercenaries.
“When you start being sent all over the U.S. or Canada, changing teams every year trying to find a way to make it, you’re kind of playing for yourself, missing out on your childhood,” he said. “There’s still a lot to learn; you’re still falling in love with the game at that point. Players that don’t go through that path (high school hockey) are missing that amazing opportunity.”
Spang has taught his 5-year-old daughter to skate and recently has put a stick in her hands for the first time. “I’m making sure my daughter learns the game. Values learned in hockey are great for life,” he said.
Spang made a point of sharing another memory. “I remember playing one year, and as soon as it ended it was, ‘OK, what are we going to do for next year? Let’s all meet down at the field in Winchester and train for next year.’ We were just a bunch of high school kids, going out there and making up things, like running around the field to get better. Maybe it’s not the right way to train, but you’re trying, you’re all pulling on the same rope. There’s a lot of growth, young kids taking accountability. It helps you grow from a boy to a man.”
Stanley Cup-winning coach and nine-year NHL veteran Dan Bylsma and his father, Jay, authored a book, “So You Want to Play in the NHL.” Their message is simple: Get your competition close to home, ideally in your own driveway and in your neighborhood. Travel hockey should be a last resort, not a first.
Harvard legend Billy Cleary echoes those sentiments.
“Why do we have to go all over the world to play a hockey game?” said Cleary with his signature passion. “The ice is the same in Boston as it is any other place.”
The coaching component
Boston Advantage director Tim Lovell, whose own son, Tim Jr., soon will embark on a hockey career at Boston College, stresses that quality coaching is massively important, no matter the age, talent level or organizational structure.
“If you have a good coach, it changes your life where you move in sports, in any sport, if you get a good one,” Lovell said. “If you get a bad coach, growing up, developmentally, you’re really in trouble if you want to move on in that sport. It depends on your coaches.”
There are success stories coming out of the Massachusetts club hockey scene — the EHF, EHL and USPHL are advancing talented players to greener hockey pastures — but it's largely just a few programs producing talent. As NEHJ's Jeff Cox reported last October, half of the full-season Midget alums currently skating in Hockey East are from the Boston Advantage.
The South Shore Kings can lay claim to helping in the development of current Boston Bruins forwards Chris Wagner (Walpole, Mass.) and Charlie Coyle (Weymouth, Mass.), as well as recent Hobey Baker Award winner Jimmy Vesey (North Reading, Mass.), now with the Buffalo Sabres.
The Junior Bruins can boast an impressive group of alums, including Sabres star and another former Hobey winner in Jack Eichel (North Chelmsford, Mass.). Knowing which teams, leagues and programs are worth the money, in it for the right reasons and a good match for a family can be challenging and requires serious research and effort.
“I think that people who aren’t in the business, they all think it’s a money grab,” Lovell said. “If you’re really doing the right thing, how good your camps are developmentally, how tough you are on the kids. … Are the kids having fun? Are they working hard to get to the next level? It depends on your camp. There is some waste. Are the kids at a daycare camp? Just buying time for the parent? But there’s other camps that are really, really tough that make the kid way better. Depends on where you go.”
Kevin Kavanagh, executive director at Massachusetts Hockey, the state's official governing body under the USA Hockey umbrella, told NEHJ prospects analyst Jeff Cox, "Club hockey has expanded significantly in the past 10 to 15 years. I don’t like the idea of labeling something as 'good' or 'bad.' I prefer to encourage families to find the program that meets their needs. Do you like the coach and his development philosophy? Does the practice and game schedule commitment fit with your family’s schedule? There are 'good' teams in 'bad' programs and there are 'bad' teams in 'good' programs. The expansion of club hockey has created opportunities for families to make decisions as to what model works best for them. That is a good thing.
"I believe that oftentimes, at the younger ages, we have seen the game get ultra-competitive. Sometimes, the cost combined with the commitment can create the feeling that a team needs to win. I think that is a negative byproduct of having so many club teams in the marketplace. I think if there were one other 'negative' that I could point to that has been caused by the increase in club teams is that you rarely see the 'hometown hero' that so many of us became accustomed to growing up in the early years. When you had to play for your town program in order to play for your club team, it created a lot of great rivalries and memories for most kids who were never moving on to play beyond high school. The golden age of Massachusetts hockey players born in the late '60s and early '70s all played town hockey before moving on to club and prep hockey as they got older. I am not sure that we see as much of that any more."
Hope for Massachusetts hockey?
As the number of Massachusetts players playing Division 1 and making the NHL continues to dwindle, hockey insiders who are not chasing profits discuss possible solutions.
“I had meetings a couple of years ago to see if we could fix it,” said former BU player Mike Sylvia, referring to travel players jumping to different teams every year. “If the two leagues combined (E9 and EHF), you’ll still have kids jumping team to team. Fear of missing out, FOMO, is the biggest challenge."
Boyle’s concern is the incredibly narrow pyramid of Massachusetts hockey due to prohibitive costs: “It’s more like an obelisk.” He thinks the only solution is for hockey in urban Boston to get subsidized, to bring back the city players of Charlestown, Dorchester and South Boston that once defined the Hub of Hockey.
“You’d have to see Bauer and CCM and these people willing to fund hockey in these lower-income areas in the cities to get kids playing again,” he said. “The amount of regulation you would need is significant, because as soon as the kid does well in the town, some select team is going to come chase him.”
Out in Gardner, Mass., there is a faint beacon of light. The North Central Mass. Youth Hockey Association has built a community-based program called The Sting that appears to be thriving. NCMYHA vice president Jason Pelavin is making hockey affordable and fun for a group that numbers 250 and counting.
“Price point is important to us,” said Pelavin. “It’s for parents that want a less-expensive experience but still have a nice time with quality kids and instructors.”
There are two developments that have caught College Hockey Inc.'s Mike Snee’s attention all the way out in Minnesota: Several players who have left the Sting for travel hockey have returned, and Sting teams have won championships in both boys and girls youth divisions.
Snee finally has found a Massachusetts hockey category in which to put a check mark inside his “good” column: “I’m rooting for them.”
Raised in Cambridge, Mass., Tim Rappleye played for BB&N, Lake Forest College, the Sun Valley Suns and the St. Nick's hockey club in New York. He has authored two books: "Jack Parker's Wiseguys" and "Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review." Rappleye currently lives in Traverse City, Mich., where he referees youth hockey between writing assignments for FloHockey.TV and NEHJ.
