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2025 Draft


Sébastien is right. People have complained about how organized hockey in Quebec has been mismanaged and politicized for literally decades and like most corrupt entities in that province, nothing ever really changes. And now they are reaping what they have sown. A provincial hockey infrastructure that is only good at producing scrub NHLers and career minor leaguers.

His suggestions about how to fix it make way too much sense for them to ever be implemented, especially when he talks about hiring American coaches and bypassing the ti-gars who all have the mentality of Therrien or Perron.
 
Fixing hockey in Quebec will be easier said than done. Kids/parents are opting for other sports and the province has been reasonably successful in their development.

Other winter “olympic” sports, obviously, but also football, soccer, tennis and basketball.

I read something about retired NHL players saying the current generation isn’t willing to pay the price to be elite hockey players. I think they are missing the bigger story…

Anyway, it may well be that the backwards good ol’ boy system in hockey is turning people off and pushing them to other sports. So, there’s justification for reform. Problem is, Jocelyn Thibault was given a mandate to do so and gave up. This little mafia is well ensconced.
 
Fixing hockey in Quebec will be easier said than done. Kids/parents are opting for other sports and the province has been reasonably successful in their development.

Other winter “olympic” sports, obviously, but also football, soccer, tennis and basketball.

I read something about retired NHL players saying the current generation isn’t willing to pay the price to be elite hockey players. I think they are missing the bigger story…

Anyway, it may well be that the backwards good ol’ boy system in hockey is turning people off and pushing them to other sports. So, there’s justification for reform. Problem is, Jocelyn Thibault was given a mandate to do so and gave up. This little mafia is well ensconced.
In the US youth hockey is very clearly become socioeconomic - elite programs consist of rich kids and in most cases ultra rich kids, as in dads flying kids in from California, Texas, Arizona on their private planes for games & tournaments.

That doesn’t include the additional private skills coaches being hired year round at $200 / $300 per hour to work with Jr
 
In the US youth hockey is very clearly become socioeconomic - elite programs consist of rich kids and in most cases ultra rich kids, as in dads flying kids in from California, Texas, Arizona on their private planes for games & tournaments.

That doesn’t include the additional private skills coaches being hired year round at $200 / $300 per hour to work with Jr
And next to that, how will a Quebec system run like a mafia gang out of the back of a pizzeria compete? The answer is it won't. Any Quebec parent with money will send their kid to an elite academy outside Quebec while the future Hudons and Harvey-Pinards will be groomed for life in the AHL, ECHL, or Europe.
 
In the US youth hockey is very clearly become socioeconomic - elite programs consist of rich kids and in most cases ultra rich kids, as in dads flying kids in from California, Texas, Arizona on their private planes for games & tournaments.

That doesn’t include the additional private skills coaches being hired year round at $200 / $300 per hour to work with Jr

That’s fairly extreme, but you see the same thing in all competitive sports. I know people who bought into a private coop for cross country skiing (it owns a tract of land) and others who splash out bigly for x-country/off-road bike racing.

One of my kiddos is a competitive athlete in a “cheap” sport (low gear costs), but travel is no joke, that’s for sure.

Anyway, I think the point is that people in QC are paying for their kids’ sports, but less so for hockey.
 
That’s fairly extreme, but you see the same thing in all competitive sports. I know people who bought into a private coop for cross country skiing (it owns a tract of land) and others who splash out bigly for x-country/off-road bike racing.

One of my kiddos is a competitive athlete in a “cheap” sport (low gear costs), but travel is no joke, that’s for sure.

Anyway, I think the point is that people in QC are paying for their kids’ sports, but less so for hockey.
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Some people might cringe, but the fact remains that hockey is still seen an Asshole Sport by a lot of people. That sentiment still persists.
 
In the US youth hockey is very clearly become socioeconomic - elite programs consist of rich kids and in most cases ultra rich kids, as in dads flying kids in from California, Texas, Arizona on their private planes for games & tournaments.

That doesn’t include the additional private skills coaches being hired year round at $200 / $300 per hour to work with Jr
Been that way for years.
 

Top 20:
1. Matthew Schaefer - D
2. Michael Misa - C
3. Caleb Desnoyers - C
4. James Hagens - C
5. Porter Martone - RW
6. Anton Frondell - C
7. Victor Eklund - RW
8. Roger McQueen - C
9. Kashawn Aitcheson - D
10. Jake O'Brien - C
11. Jackson Smith - D
12. Radim Mrtka - D
13. Carter Bear - LW
14. Justin Carbonneau - RW
15. Joshua Ravensbergen - G
16. Cameron Reid - D
17. Daniil Prokhorov - RW
18. Lynden Lakovic - LW
19. Brady Martin - C
20. Braeden Cootes - C
 
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