'Selling the Dream'?

[badger_14 601]

So there's been a bit of talk about this new book by Ken Campbell, a longitudinal study of - I think 30,000 youth hockey players - called 'Selling the Dream'.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/01/20/year-round-training-and-320000-wont-guarantee-an-nhl-career-or-even-a-future-fan/#.UQbjBqTpY3w.email

It hasn't been released in the US yet, so I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy, but has anyone else seen it/perused it/read it? Thoughts?

[Law Goalie 147]

The premise of the book is a fine one, but the rhetoric is a little dubious, even for a promotional interview...

I defy you to find one player in the NHL under 25 who hasn’t had extensive one-on-one training and highly advanced dry-land training; who hasn’t played a lot of summer and spring hockey; who hasn’t been part of an elite program that’s cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Hmm.. I wonder who I could name... Hint: he's a member of this forum.

The problem with Ken's line of argument is that he simultaneously decries the mercantile nature of youth sports ("professionalization of play" is something of a misnomer) AND reinforces the necessity of it for an NHL career. That's just poor rhetorical technique.

He also grossly misrepresents the arguments of both Ericsson and his populariser Malcolm Gladwell -- at least in that interview.

I'm also somewhat more optimistic about the situation in minor hockey. I recently had a goalie I've been coaching since Tyke (all the way from 'power-skating in pads' to playing 'out' in scrimmages against his own players) go through *major* recruiting to make the jump to AAA as he moves out of novice. He had a stupid number of teams actively chasing him. His dad, fortunately, is a very well-educated and level-headed guy, and saw right through all the crap to select a team run by another goalie coach and his brother. Their response when asked about spring and summer activities: "Let him do whatever the hell he wants; that's NOT hockey season."

The fact is that anyone with a brain knows that athletes develop FAR better in multi-sport environments than single-sport ones. Christ, even the Soviets knew that, and they sequestered their athletes like commandos. Talent ID people for big-league hockey are not stupid. If they see a kid who's being flogged along in hockey to the exclusion of all else -- especially if he's got some sort of ridiculous pseudo-agent with him -- they dismiss and move on. They want to see rounded athletes with well-rounded minds who are *beginning* to specialise in hockey.

I'm not saying there aren't idiots in the system -- that kid's sister, still in Tyke, is *already* being recruited, FFS -- but that you will see exactly the opposite of what Campbell 'fears' in selling his book. The system is going to flush those turds, and it's already starting to happen in Toronto.

[wrangler 157]

It's interesting that the day I read your comments happens to be the same day I saw Walter Gretzky recommend multiple sports on the NHL Network. He strongly urged parents not to concentrate their children's activities in only one sport for 12 months. He advocates involving children in several sports, as he did with his son Wayne. I guess he's no Scarecrow.

[JR Boucicaut 3760]

Wow, and to think it's probably 10x worse in the US...

[Law Goalie 147]

It's interesting that the day I read your comments happens to be the same day I saw Walter Gretzky recommend multiple sports on the NHL Network. He strongly urged parents not to concentrate their children's activities in only one sport for 12 months. He advocates involving children in several sports, as he did with his son Wayne. I guess he's no Scarecrow.

Walter's a fascinating guy; he basically did by instinct, hard work, and a little Soviet Bloc reading material everything that is now considered high-end athlete development, including brilliant psychological management of a situation that could have become really ugly really fast. The only bad thing I've ever heard about him is that Keith and Brent, at times, felt a little short-changed in his attention and estimation, but that could be the same juvenile impression that so many siblings of famous kids develop. Just the fact that the backyard rink was there, ready to go, made all the difference; and the second Wayne got bored, he'd have another fun little way to break the game down. It was like the obverse of Guy Lafleur's 'inventing the game' on a bare sheet of ice, then having guys join the game gradually in permutation.

Evaluators in all sports are massively interested in both broad-based athleticism and in specific transferable skills. 'You scored 20 goals on your Peewee AAA team. That's nice. So did six hundred other kids in the country. Oh, but you also hit .400 in baseball... and ran track... and quarterbacked the football team... and you're a scratch golfer. So your ceiling is incredibly high. And both your parents were athletes. Let's get a tee time and talk.'

A really good example of where things are going is the quarterback academy setup. You take kids, scale the game down to their level, and teach them all the 'intangibles': play-reading, throwing mechanics, footwork, pocket movement, tactics and strategy, and so on. If the kid turns out to be 6'5" 250, the tools are already there, and he's a first-rounder; if he turns out to be 6'0" 210, he's still got a shot; if he's a hobbit, well, maybe he can be Doug Flutie, or maybe he becomes a very successful salesman who can impress people at tailgate parties. Lots of kids pay through the nose for that service; most of them will be good youth players who amount to nothing; some kids are given 'scholarships' because they're identified as physical prodigies or just extremely bright and capable.

Wow, and to think it's probably 10x worse in the US...

I don't know... at least you guys didn't deliberately and systematically hamstring your university and high school athletics with junior hockey. It's at least somewhat practical to pursue an education and hockey in the US; in Canada, it's theoretically possible but effectively discouraged.

[JR Boucicaut 3760]

I agree with you, but here, if you don't have money you're not going to get anywhere, let alone far. It's too much of an elitist sport in the US.

I have someone I sharpen for here in town; kid is on a AAA team up north as a pee-wee. Parent pays the local travel team $3,000 so that the kid is on the roster for the local travel team so that they have a place to practice during the week; doesn't play a game for them. And every weekend, they fly up north for their games. I don't fault the parent for doing it - no competition here and they made the team, but that's just mind-boggling to me.

In the rink parking lot, you don't see the "Blue Goose" Walter Gretzky used to drive Wayne in, but Escalades.

[SydNap 25]

I'd be shocked if anyone were actually shocked by this. This is happening in every meaningful sport around the world....and yes money plays a role. The truth is that no matter how much money parents spend, if the ability is not there, then it amounts to nothing. Conversely, poor kids with exceptional talent will usually be "found". The slight difference in hockey, as well as "specialty" sports (which require a very particular skill set) is that skating is a necessity. This is not so in american football, minus the QB position to a degree. If the author's point is to lament how serious canadians take hockey, make sure he never visits a middle school in Texas, where nearly ever able bodied male (as in boy 13 or older) has class from 730 to noon, then eats lunch, lifts weights, and has a 3 hour practice with 150 of his classmates before going home at 6 pm to sleep and repeat the next day...all while most females spend several hours a day practicing their cheers, steps, or baton throws in preparation of that week's game.

[Law Goalie 147]

Now that, JR, is a good point: that in places where ice is relatively scant (by nature or by lack of infrastructure) the wealthy can 'outcompete' everyone for icetime, which means that less well-off kids are actually denied opportunities to play. The Blue Goose (great emblem!) is getting squeezed out. That said, this is not a problem in Toronto, and not in Canada generally, despite Campbell's histrionics. There is *tons* of ice; our problem is ice going unused because kids and parents have, to an extent, bought into rhetoric like Campbell's and come to believe that unless they're spending huge amounts of money, there's not only no hope of a future in the game, there's no point in playing at all. (For all that, I walked down to High Park on a random Wednesday night, and watched a couple hundred kids from Swansea and the Junction having a riot, including one or two who were clearly remarkable little athletes.)

I get the sense that most genuine talent evaluators -- and I'm leaving out here the kind of tin-pot tyrants who are trying to wring tithes out of families -- are actively disinterested in the kind of kid you're describing: that they finally have a sense that commitment is desirable, but overcommitment is worse than a lack of it. There used to be a by-word in scouting that kids who came from rough or disadvantaged backgrounds would be 'good soldiers' on the rink much as they would in the field: they'll know their role, do their jobs, and take the pay they're given, because they're all-in for the game. Those high-spending, time-wasting parents are attempting to show some version of this -- some sort of investment -- but it's not the same, and it doesn't fly.

Syd's also right that the baseline for skill AND (implicitly) money, and investment in the broadest sense, is comparatively high in hockey. For a family of mean income, it's a big deal to put a few kids in the game -- especially if they don't have knowledge or experience of it.

[Michzm 0]

If the author's point is to lament how serious canadians take hockey, make sure he never visits a middle school in Texas, where nearly ever able bodied male (as in boy 13 or older) has class from 730 to noon, then eats lunch, lifts weights, and has a 3 hour practice with 150 of his classmates before going home at 6 pm to sleep and repeat the next day...all while most females spend several hours a day practicing their cheers, steps, or baton throws in preparation of that week's game.

Is that a genuine representation of females in sport in North America? My experience here in Australia is that women’s sports.. and I mean sports, are considered the same in the same level as men’s. The reality of it here is most sports are done outside of school, unless you go to a sports high school that are very rare, selective and mutli-sports based.

[Law Goalie 147]

It's a genuine representation of females in American football, so far as I understand.

I'm really of two minds on the sport-in-school issue. As an addition to academics, it's wonderful; as a pervasive distraction from academics, it's a disaster.

[Michzm 0]

I think you are forgetting lingerie Football, Im sure thats not demeaning in the slightest....

We have sport high schools, but the reality if you aren't picked up by the institutes of sports either state based or the highly coverted Australian Institute of Sport, typically you don't have a bright future but this only applies to the sports they do cover.

AIS has had 35 Olympic Gold Medalist since 1984, which is where 75% of all gold medals have come for us in that time. To bring it back to the topic, is that a better or worse thing to: Have a large amount of the training paid but is completely based on merrit but is a true image of elitism or is a system that has reflexablity but at a monetary cost?

[goblue9280 33]

Evaluators in all sports are massively interested in both broad-based athleticism and in specific transferable skills. 'You scored 20 goals on your Peewee AAA team. That's nice. So did six hundred other kids in the country. Oh, but you also hit .400 in baseball... and ran track... and quarterbacked the football team... and you're a scratch golfer. So your ceiling is incredibly high. And both your parents were athletes. Let's get a tee time and talk.'

I love the idea of multiple sports. Although not really being a good athlete, I played soccer, baseball, hockey and swimming from age 7 to about 13, when I cut back to just hockey and soccer before dropping soccer in late high school. Unfortunately, multiple sports is almost not doable thanks to the "selling the dream" mentality spilling into almost all of them.

I have 4 kids, and my experience is due to overlap in seasons, it's very hard to get my kids into multiple sports. Here in Houston, there really aren't any sports that play over the summer months. Hockey seasons starts at the end of August, and lasts into March. Baseball is during the fall or spring, football during the fall, soccer fall or spring. It's nearly impossible to play any of these sports along with hockey due to conflicting schedules. All of the sports are so competitive, that they demand you be there for all practices and games... plus with the high cost of youth sports, you're throwing money away if you rarely attend. And all the sports work hard competing against each other for your kids as they know it's hard to play more than one or two at the same time.

Luckily, lacrosse fit perfectly into our schedule (M,W - Lacrosse, Tu, Th - hockey) so we were able to add a sport this winter. The end result is my kid plays hockey year round. I could pull him out for the summer, but there are no other sports going on due to the heat/humidity... so I'd rather have him at the ice rink a couple times per week.

[Law Goalie 147]

It is tough -- especially if the kid is gung-ho and only wants to play the one sport!

I don't even mean, though, necessarily organised sport, and certainly not high-end competitive versions of those sports. Just playing club tennis, or long-distance running, or sparring, or similarly relaxed stuff is fantastic for athletic development. Think how much better footwork in corner battles would be if a kid did a little judo or wrestling, for instance.

Lacrosse is a good example: it's very hockey-like in the way the game is structured, but it develops some interesting skills that don't appear in traditional hockey training.

There was even a really neat piece of Jonathan Drouin recently where his parents talked about him playing hockey in boots and learning to stickhandle before, one day, turning to them and saying "OK, now I'm ready to skate." Basically, he learned to play bandy or ice-hurley, then added skating to it.

[Chadd 916]

Organizations like Little League run leagues that generally don't conflict with hockey season. Basketball, volleyball or swimming at the local YMCA or community center are usually an option for most people. Indoor soccer is also available in most major metro areas as well. Just because someone participates in a sport or athletic activity doesn't mean they need to do so at the highest possible level in every sport. I'm not telling you what to do, just saying that there are other options available for most people.

[goblue9280 33]

Organizations like Little League run leagues that generally don't conflict with hockey season. Basketball, volleyball or swimming at the local YMCA or community center are usually an option for most people. Indoor soccer is also available in most major metro areas as well. Just because someone participates in a sport or athletic activity doesn't mean they need to do so at the highest possible level in every sport. I'm not telling you what to do, just saying that there are other options available for most people.

Exactly, and I agree 100%. Part of what I meant to get at was many of those options for non-competitive leagues are disappearing. When I was a kid, I played a lot of the sports through our cities rec dept. It was low cost and low commitment. At least down here, rec departments are scarce. So the void is filled by private non-profits and for-profits that often are too focused on development in their particular sport... not to mention they have to operate at higher costs often due to the lack of publicly funded facilities.

[badger_14 601]

Exactly, and I agree 100%. Part of what I meant to get at was many of those options for non-competitive leagues are disappearing. When I was a kid, I played a lot of the sports through our cities rec dept. It was low cost and low commitment. At least down here, rec departments are scarce. So the void is filled by private non-profits and for-profits that often are too focused on development in their particular sport... not to mention they have to operate at higher costs often due to the lack of publicly funded facilities.

I have to agree with this, at least from my own experience (anecdata ahoy!) - when I was in adolescence and burned my previous experience with sports/teams and looking for something new, and laid-back, I found that most rec programs went up to 12/13 at the most, and then the next 'recreational' type leagues were for 18+ adults. Indeed, the kids I coach now come from 2 or 3 different towns because while they didn't want to give up hockey, they didn't feel like they wanted travel (for whatever reason - cost, pressure, wanted to stay with friends), and our town was the only thing going locally. (and this is in a reasonably well-off suburban area with many rinks).

[adam14 182]

My dad who has been around hockey for over 25 years now, was a big believer in the multi sports. He told me that when he played in the OHL the season would end and he would return home and wouldn't touch his skates til august or september. Sure, he'd work out and stay in shape, but he was also playing baseball and getting away from the game. He still thinks (as a high level coach) that the players that look best in training camp in august are the ones who don't play hockey all summer because they come back hungrier and want it more because they missed it.

I agree as well that even in canada hockey is becoming a white collar sport, and that's a shame. I remember when I was 16 playing midget triple 'A' (as little as 5 years ago) excluding sticks, I could be fully equipped for under $1000.00. Today, skates alone put you in that category.

[Leafsrule16 5]

So from what I gather from what I've read (not actually reading the book), it's another typical Ken Campbell article. Well written but full of questionable facts voiced in a persuasive way about something controversial. No thanks. I skip the last pages of The Hockey News for a reason, I couldn't give less of a crap what the guy has to say. A month ago they had a nice piece with Aaron Ness and a few other Minnasota kids who credited the free ice time they got as what made them the players they are today along with the same question Ken poses except it was written by a more credible writer. Read that instead.