College Hockey:

This Week in Hockey East: Jan. 25, 2007

Dave Hendrickson is unavailable this week because he is playing the part of a corporate rendition of Cinderella, meaning that he is failing to get home before midnight and increasing his resemblance to a pumpkin.

Age-old Issues

Looking at Chris Heisenberg’s excellent college hockey recruiting website recently, I was struck by the number of 1986 and 1987 birthdates among the incoming Class of 2007. In other words, quite a number of college freshmen will be turning 20 or even 21 before they play in their first collegiate games.

I decided to run a Question of the Week on the USCHO home page and found that 35% of our readers think that there should be a more reasonable age limit, as it’s unfair to end up with a player of 25 playing against someone who is 17 or 18. Twenty percent thought that the situation was “kind of a joke” but that nothing could be done about it. About 44% of our readers thought that it wasn’t a problem and maybe even a good thing that players had more time to develop.

In Hockey East terms, the reality of this is Maine’s outstanding forward Michel Lveill — who will turn 26 three days before the Frozen Four begins — facing off against BC’s Ben Smith, who turned 18 last July. Is that really fair? Should anything be done?

“Well, the NCAA has made a mess out of it,” Boston University coach Jack Parker said. “The truth was that if you played a game after your 21st birthday, you lost your eligibility. So it would be one thing if a kid came in at 21 and it was his first year but he was a junior now or a sophomore now … but now he’s still a freshman.”

Asked if he sees a problem having a Chris Higgins or Dan Bertram playing against a guy six or seven years older, Parker indicated that it’s something the NCAA would have to address rather than the teams. “I just think that it’s an NCAA problem,” Parker said. “The don’t know how to keep lawyers out of it. Because that’s all it is: ‘You can’t keep me from playing.’ The league has gotten older and older. BC and BU and Harvard around here have been pretty good about recruiting 19-year-old freshmen, maybe — a kid who plays an extra year after high school, maybe.

“But this idea of graduating high school and then going to play two years in the junior league … We’ve had guys like that come in — Tommi Degerman was an older guy; Matt Gilroy is an older guy. You do some of that, but we’re not going to tell Chris Higgins we want you to wait another year, and they’re not going to tell Danny Bertram, ‘Don’t accelerate — wait till you should graduate.’ ‘Hey, if you don’t want to take me, I’ll go to Michigan State then.’”

Parker made clear that he would prefer to get a younger, better player with a presumably higher upside. “Chris Heron was a 17 year-old freshman. We’re going to take the best players we can get. We’d prefer them to be around 18 or 19. I don’t need a 21-year-old freshman; I’d rather have a real good 19-year-old freshman.

“But we have the chance to do that, some other schools don’t get that chance; they don’t get the best players. They get a guy who can offset the best players because he’s played a little longer and got a little better and bloomed a little later. I don’t have any problem with that. It’s not the school’s fault; it’s the NCAA’s fault. They should not allow this to happen.”

Northeastern coach Greg Cronin points out that the recruiting age situation is a curious one on both ends of the spectrum. “What’s Lveill?” Cronin asked. “What’s he, 25? Unbelievable. I guess I’ll give you two angles on this. One is the recruiting angle. You’ve got teams who are taking kids at such a young age that it’s ridiculous; it’s absolutely absurd.

“But if teams do that, and they have good faith that 15 year-old is going to translate into a good freshman two or three years down the road, more power to them. I’m just shocked that that goes on. I guess all the power to the teams who can take the kids that are no-brainers. The sad thing is teams that take kids who are very good at 15, and they backpedal from them two years later. That’s wrong.

Just as Parker pointed out that BU and BC and Harvard don’t engage in recruiting older players as frequently, Cronin cited “name recognition” as a factor. “Number one, recruiting has put a precedence on younger players, particularly with the schools that have great name recognition. They take the great kids, and the rest of the schools that don’t have that name recognition, that splash and that sparkle — and I don’t mind being in that position — they will wait and find out which kids emerge coming out of their second or even third year of juniors. By the time that kid emerges, [the other teams are locked in with the younger guys] and you can take that kid who emerges later.

“And hey, I don’t give a crap if a guy is 20 or 18 as a freshman. They’re all freshmen. Is an 18-year-old kid going to have a higher scale of development; is he going to get better? Is he going to improve more than the 20 year-old kid? Everybody thinks that, but I’m telling you as a former Director of Player Development in the NHL [for the New York Islanders], that a lot of the development takes place between 19 and 24. The Sidney Crosbys and the Jordan Staals of the world are few and far between. So if I’m shopping for a player, I have no problems taking a 20-year-old freshman, because just because a kid is two years younger doesn’t mean he’s going to get better.

Cronin says that there is even scientific support for his perspective. “When I was at USA Hockey, and I was a Director of Development there as well, I had the luxury of working with the U.S. Olympic Program down at Colorado Springs, and I was privy to some scientific data. A lot of the motor skills in athletes are developed — and this is an unbelievable truth — between 9 and 12. Their athleticism is developed at that point.

“The psychological and emotional development that takes place from 13 or 14 to 19 or 20, and that’s what you’re gambling on. That’s a gamble. You can see that a kid at 16 who may have the requisite athleticism that may translate to college hockey, but what’s going on between his ears and what’s going on in his heart, emotionally, that’s the guesswork that’s going on. A 19- or 20-year-old is what he is at that point, and I think you’ve got a much truer read at that point.”

So perhaps there is greater risk — both positively and negatively — with committing to a very young player. And with only 18 scholarships to use, can you afford to commit early to teenagers who may turn into superstars but might have trouble cracking the lineup?

“The other side of it is there’s a rule, and it’s been there forever,” Cronin said. “You want to take a 20-year-old? That’s your prerogative. It doesn’t matter in college. Is there a significant advantage of a 25 year-old against a 20-year-old or 18-year-old? I’m sure physiologically there is. Mentally and emotionally, I’m sure there is. But until they put a rule in that says you can’t play after your 23rd birthday, what difference does it make?”

Hyping the Huskies

Speaking of Cronin, Northeastern is evolving into a team that no one wants to play. After struggling through a 4-10-2 start to the season while facing what undoubtedly was the toughest schedule in the country, they are now an impressive 4-1-2 in their last seven games, including a win against BC and two ties against BU and Vermont.

Now they’re just coming off a weekend sweep of Massachusetts-Lowell. In doing so, they showed one hallmark of a good team: On Friday, they played well and blew open the game late to win 6-2; more significantly, though, on Saturday they didn’t play so well but still eked out a 2-1 overtime win on Jimmy Russo’s goal. Good teams find a way to win even when all the cylinders aren’t firing to full potential, and NU is starting to do that.

“Lowell is a team that’s scraping and clawing for points,” Cronin said of the sweep. “I heard nothing but great things about Lowe