Prep school hockey in New England has come a long way from 1970-71.

In 2014 there are dozens of prep schools playing hockey at a high level and school size doesn’t seem to matter.  Look at the current rankings of the top prep-school hockey teams in New England,  and you will see in the Top 20 names of schools that I’m pretty sure never showed up on the high-level ice hockey radar in the early 1970s.

Schools like Dexter. And Rivers.  And Brooks.  I know they’re nice small schools with pedigree, but hockey powers?!

Making a prep school hockey roster in 1971 required some native talent and growing up in a town that had a rink and a decent youth hockey system.  Your town and high school program could take you a long way. You didn’t need much money till you got to the PG or college level. and then you hoped for scholarships. 

Making a prep school hockey roster in 2014, how much money does it require?  Money for way more ice time, year round,  way more travel, hockey camps, private coaching, private dry-land training, private academic tutors, recruiting advisors, etc?  

Whatever it requires, it involves competing with kids from all over the place to get a spot on a prep school roster.  Here’s the breakdown of the 2014 NMH boys hockey roster, in order of kid count, versus the 1970-71 roster:

1970-71 MH Boys Varsity Hockey Team

Eastern Mass: 7

Western Mass: 3

Maine: 2

New Hampshire: 1

Minnesota: 1

Rhode Island: 1

2013-2014 NMH Boys Varsity Hockey Team

Ontario: 5

Eastern Mass: 4

Connecticut: 3

Maine: 3

Florida: 3

Western Mass: 2

Vermont: 1

21 kids on this year’s team; 15 on the 1970-71 team.

From a 1971 perspective, you would ask about the 2013-14 NMH roster:  5 Canadian kids versus none in our day?  And since when did they start playing hockey in Florida?

It’s great that kids from all over the place are playing good hockey and then convening at places like  NMH. But  I don’t envy today’s players, because as good as they are, they’re contending with much crazier odds than we did when it comes time to make a college hockey roster, whether D1 or D3.

And that’s partly because an even greater number of Canadian kids now come down looking for US college hockey roster spots.   In the 1970s, while many big D1 schools recruited Canadians,  it was very rare to find Canadian kids in what was then D2 and D3.  You had a guy like Vigneron at Bowdoin, but otherwise schools like Middlebury, Williams, Bowdoin and Hamilton relied mostly on US high-school and prep players.

But today hundreds of Canadian kids from Canada’s leading Junior A (NCAA Eligible) leagues like the BCHL and AJHL play on US college rosters, from D1 to NESCAC.  How a kid playing in the BCHL  for the Cowichan Valley  Capitals in Duncan BC ever hears of places like Middlebury, Amherst and Williams is beyond me.  

Again, there’s nothing wrong with this.  I have Canadian citizenship and I think it’s great that Canadian kids are getting chances to get these great American collegiate—and prep school—educations.  Some will stay, some will go home, some will hold real sway, like late Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Princeton hockey) and former Liberal Party MP Ken Dryden (Cornell hockey). 

So why do I feel ambivalent about how serious prep school hockey generally and NMH hockey have evolved? 

Maybe it’s because the sport now stops being local at a younger and younger age.  

In 1971, most kids stayed local through high school and then PG’ed.  And even the PGs were somewhat local. At Christmas most of the team got in cars and headed home on Route 2 to Boston or down 91 to Springfield.  Some guys’ dads could even make Wednesday afternoon games.  They were that close by. 

There’s little that’s local about NMH hockey these days.  But it can’t be if it’s going to be serious.