College? Major Junior? Or A Life?
Posted by jtbourne on November 10, 2009 · 13 Comments
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For junior-age kids, choosing a route to pursue hockey can be tough. College or Major Junior? Heavy stuff, man.
That choice looms for the young bucks of puck every off-season. That whole “predicting your growth spurts, size, intelligence, time needed to develop, importance of education and exposure to scouts” thing is tough to wrap your 16 year old face around.
But isn’t it time we look at the third one? I call it the “holy-crap-warm-American-Universities-are-sick, why-are-you-still-playing-hockey-at-all” choice.
My college teammate Charlie Kronschnabel and I were road roommates. Many a night after a 20 hour travel day to somewhere miserable (read: North Dakota, Michigan, or worse, Fairbanks, Alaska) we’d sit in our room and daydream about a normal college life. We’d joke about quitting WCHA hockey and going to play club hockey for Arizona State University.
We figured we’d easily be the best players in the league (so partying the night before games would be no problem), and it would be hotter than Marisa Miller so we could chuck around a frisbee in shorts and hit on girls. But nooo, college hockey is sooooooo cool, heaven forbid we make that choice… idiots.
Lets say you love hockey enough to be a college walk-on (no scholarship, but play on the college team). Theres about a six percent chance you made the right choice, and Charlie is almost in that six. He walked on, earned a scholarship after his freshman year, became someone the Anaheim Ducks loved, and is taking his shot at “making it”. But that’s the good side of the story.
The "fear the fork" hand sign is perilously close to a shocker.
For most people, the best advice is take the mone you’re spending, and go to school somewhere vacationy.
If you’re a college walk-on, the only person getting less powerplay time than you is the janitor, and one turnover by you and he’s in. That’s not a dig. I’m saying regardless of who’s the best player, scholarship guys get the first chances. Less opportunity equals less success, equals less playing time, equals the chance to pay for the right to not have as much college-style fun as you would somewhere warm. Good luck digging up a career from the bench (I know, it does happen occasionally).
In talking to guys at our school, they thought we got all the girls. All we saw was that the “normal” students went out whenever they wanted, partied on Friday nights, and had two day weekends (as opposed to one or zero). I missed more parties in college than you went to. Oh, and from 18 years old until this upcoming year, I HAVEN’T BEEN TO A NEW YEARS EVE PARTY (that didn’t come with a 12:30 team-imposed curfew, anyway). Pretty solid nine-year run.
I have zero regrets about my own career choices, I’m just saying, with the experience I have at this point, I’m passing along an idea.
What about that third option? Be in the student section in Madison, Wisconsin. Be at the ASU tailgate parties. Would that be more fun than being on the team? I don’t know, but my guess is that it isn’t far behind.
And so, Saturday, I had my very first big college football game tailgate-athon. And as I suspected… it was a pretty. good. time. ASU 9 USC 14 — that’s my ranty advice to the mid-level-talented up-and-comers. See ya tomorrow!
Lesser in size, larger in “sweet”.
Behind us, USC fans aka gang members were cooking some form of flatish meat. Me: “What’re you cookin’ there?” Cook: “Flat meat” Me: “Makes sense.”
“Come back later for the picture, it’ll look better!” Really? Better than “GDEV?” I’m skeptical it could.
Obviously I don’t run the camera, or it’d have been a football – not marching band – pic, but that’s how close we sat. Thanks Unc.
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Get a mba degree online to further your career after college.
I'm a hockey player turned writer. After playing for Alaska Anchorage in the WCHA (NCAA), I carried on with an NHL tryout (New York Islanders in 2007) before spending a couple seasons in the AHL/ECHL (last year was 2008-09). My father, Bob Bourne, won four Stanley Cups with the Islanders in the '80's, as did my fiancee's dad, Clark Gillies. I'm now the web editor for theScore's hockey blog "Backhand Shelf."
“Lesser is sizer”? Hee hee.
Funny timing of this entry…I just picked up a buddy of mine from the airport yesterday who was down in AZ visiting a guy we went to high school with that actually does play hockey at ASU. Based on the stories recapping the trip, I think the guy is preeeetttty happy with his decision. I’ve always kind of been envious of the prototypical big US college life i.e. tailgating for football games on Saturdays, the frat parties with the red beer cups, and all the rest of that stuff the movies portray. Now if you could have all that and still play hockey, and where shorts to the rink all year? Now you are in business.
Nice thoughts…
Would be interesting if this is a hockey-only-train-of-thoughts or if it is similiar in baseball, football, whatever.
Two more aspects
a) how does MONEY influence “the” decision (in hockey, in football etc.)
b) what happens if a pro-to-be (does this word exist?) faces a serious injury that forces him to stop his plans he decided before (independant from College or Major Junior or whatever league)? Is it easy to get a “normal” college live?
And looks like you had a nice Saturday.. (shorts, sunglasses and t-shirt in November.. damn I’m on the wrong side of the world.. at least when it comes to the wheather
).
Greetings f.G.
Kerstin
Justin! Glad you had a badass time at the game. Arizona suits you. Welcome home.
PS ~ Don’t call North Dakota miserable…. no place better to play hockey. Weather may suck but the Ralph is nicer than most NHL arenas. You may be able to notice it better if you took off your helmet during the National Anthem
I suppose the bottom line is – what’s more important to someone? Partying with shorts on, or playing hockey at the highest level you can reach?
I dunno – If I had the God-given talent to be a great athlete, I kinda think I’d regret throwing it away for the chance to get drunk every weekend. Hell, you can do that for the rest of your life. But maybe that’s just me.
Hey! There’s nothing wrong with marching band!
I have been reading your blog for about 2 months now and have greatly enjoying your sarcasm, wit, and the like. Not to mention I think you bring up quite a few valid points that I wish I saw more of on places like TSN (gotta watch it online in the states, what a crock) or Versus (…. No comment…). I usually don’t post to blogs or what have you mostly because I don’t have much to say; however, this topic stirred me enough to type up this little ditty.
I grew up in the far north of New York State right along the Canadian border (and Islanders fan… thank you Sports Channel) and my dream growing up was to some how, some way play college hockey. I knew I wasn’t ever going to be gifted enough to consider anything past that. I grew up going every Friday and Saturday night to Clarkson University in Potsdam NY to catch the best that the ECAC had to offer from roughly 92-06. I realize the ECAC kind of sucks, but still… it was my dream to throw on the Green and Gold and play for the Golden Knights. Flash forward about ten years to me realizing I’m never making it off the Third line of my very public, very small, very untalented high school team, I figured I’d finish my varsity “career” and be doomed to getting my ass pounding in our local Beer League until my knees gave out or something.
Then I got an opportunity to relocate to Springfield Missouri… At first I wasn’t a huge fan of this situation; the deal maker though was that I could play club hockey at Missouri State University. I was lucky enough to play a year and half of college club hockey… though it wasn’t the Division 1 NCAA stuff I dreamt of, it was still what I had wanted, I was representing my school; going on road trips; making friends; and I’ve got more memories from that year and half than I ever would have imagined. To me this equates to guys that are trying to get to the NHL and find themselves playing in Sweden or something…not quite the show, but still pro hockey.
Now to sum this all up is easy for me. I didn’t have a chance in hell at making a choice between major junior or NCAA college hockey; I did however have a blast being a great little city, with a warm climate (and great looking girls) and I got to play some hockey to boot. If I was ever in a position to offer advice up to some kid trying to make this decision my advice would be this… you only get to do college once, make the most of the time you get.
Too bad you didn’t play for the Seawolves back in the day Justin. My favorite roadtrip to watch the guys was – a 2 game series in San Diego, followed by a 2 game series in Tucson the next weekend! Much better, in February, than North Dakota and Minnesota. If the Pac 10 would just go DI. Oh well, its off to Madison this weekend….
The grass is always greener, Justin….and I know first hand that if you are majoring in a science/engineering discipline and want to graduate with a decent GPA and get a job after school….you can’t party much either (even on the weekends). But you guys certainly had it worse than we did….and I would argue you guys had a much easier time getting women than nerdy engineers.
I do have to say that attending Texas A&M football games as a student was always a good time. That is one thing I miss about living in the southern US.
You are correct on the engineering degree thing…I used to watch all the political science majors drinking their faces off on the weekends while all of us geek engineering students sat and did homework all weekend…but then I reallized I could always do that when I got out of school. And with a good job, I could afford good alcohol, not the p water they were drinkin. Good job on the blog Justin. I love opening it up every night after work and reading it.!
I’m with Char and Ozzie.
I think it kind of depends on your goals. I did music, from like age three for FOREVER and it ate my life, 24/7.
I’m not a musician now – at all – which is hilarious considering the sacrifices I made and how much of my youth/fun years/etc got sucked up by it.
Thing is, my goal wasn’t “be a famous musician or nothing.” My goal was “do awesome music,” which I more than succeeded at, until I finally went on to other things. I played at a level few kids play at. I had ensemble experiences that I would *never* trade, and got to compose pieces that were performed in public and yeah, I missed out on some regular stuff but wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything.
I think Ozzie’s approach (hi, Ozzie!) is the right one. What screws people up is setting outrageous goals (or their parents setting them), where it’s “play NHL or fail.” Excellence itself can be its own reward, and that’s not a bad thing to learn. I have more discipline and more drive than most people, and I’m sure there’s traits and benefits that Ozz is carrying forward too, whether or not he plays.
If hockey isn’t enough of its own reward, then that’s one thing. But if it is, then why not, you know?
“For most people, the best advice is take the mone you’re spending, and go to school somewhere vacationy.”
Couldnt agree more on this subject. I know I spent one season in college hockey in Saskatchewan playing for the Briercrest Clippers of the ACAC which is the top college level in alberta. But the weather was minus 40, my half scholarship forced me to shell out about 15 grand for one year and then I decided to try my luck in Idaho, with the steelheads. I noticed you ended your career there last year. Boise is a good place but the dream of playing ECHL at 30 years of age isnt that cool. I ended up playing UHL, long beach ice dogs and finished in the LNAH in quebec. Good decision for you to become a writer cause you will go far in this bracket.
Very cool site and I just logged into it today, will be following your signatures in the future.
Paul Braaten, Grande Cache Alberta. Safety Inspector in the Oil/Gas Canadian fields.
Been reading a little while of what you have to say. I like this article the most, being a current junior player in canada and having to decide whether or not you really want to give up the little free time you get in schools is hard decision. I’m glad you voiced your opinion.
Thanks
Sam