Early Tremors Part 4: The downstream impact of an NCAA reversal
The likely reversal of the NCAA’s ban on Canadian major junior hockey players will revolutionize the hockey environment in North America. In previous posts, we’ve discussed how we think this will play out for Canadian major junior leagues, NCAA teams and the USHL. In this entry, we’ll turn our attention closer to home: to the […]
Early Tremors Part 3: A watershed for U.S. hockey
In previous blogs in this series on the likely reversal of the NCAA’s long-standing ban on allowing Canadian major junior hockey players, we looked at the impact on player choice and on Canada’s Tier 1 leagues. In this blog, we’ll turn our attention to how an NCAA reversal will impact the U.S. hockey ecosystem. How […]
Early Tremors Part 2: Canada’s major junior leagues may never be the same again
In Part 1 of this series, I talked about the seeming inevitability that the NCAA will reverse its long-standing ban on allowing in hockey players from Canada’s major junior leagues and about how that will open up new paths for aspiring young Canadian players. But the ripple effects will be felt everywhere in the hockey […]
Early Tremors: The CHL, The NCAA, NIL Legislation, and the Changing Face of Hockey
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen“ The above quote is often attributed to the founding head of Soviet Russia, Vladimir Lenin. While we certainly aren’t here to discuss politics, we may well look back on the landscape of hockey in relatively short order and decide that this quote […]
Five Examples of Off-Ice Success
There have been many very highly successful hockey players over the years. There have been countless very successful people in arenas other than hockey arenas. But succeeding at both is exceedingly rare! At SkateGuard, we want to position players and their families to be winners in all aspects of their lives. So, today, we thought […]
NIL is not nothing
One of the great things about playing sports at a high level is that it gives you options. Career-wise, it could set you up for life as a professional, of course. But even short of that, it can open doors for you in marketing, business, coaching, sports management and other vocations. On a personal level, […]
Off-Ice Performance Sessions
So far at 3/8ths of a Thought, I have talked a lot about how I think about the world of hockey and what I have observed in 30-odd years around the game. I’d like to spend a little bit of time in this post talking about what we do at SkateGuard and how we think […]
Oh The Places You Will Go
There are lots of great things about growing up in Canada. If you’re reading this from the Great White North, then healthcare, education, and a strong and stable democracy are all things that we should be thankful for. And for the most part, we are. We should also be grateful for the resources that we […]
Moving Away From Home Part 2
In the previous blog post, I began a discussion of a challenge that nearly all elite hockey players face but very few people in the industry talk about enough: moving away from home. A new town, a new team, a new coach, a new living situation – these can all be hugely disorienting realities for […]
Moving Away From Home Part 1
One of the topics with the widest discrepancy between the impact on a young player and the amount of dialogue it gets is the process of moving away from home. If a player is going to advance past youth hockey, he or she is almost always going to have to move away from home in […]