So many players right now are wondering what went wrong with thier plans to play junior hockey for free this year. I spoke to a family from California yesterday that spent over twenty thousand dollars going to team tryout camps this summer. Twenty thousand dollars and they have nothing but a few very expensive Tier 3 offers.
Hockey Talent Management has immediate openings to fill in Europe in Free To Play organizations. These same organizations can help you obtain European citizenship, and after two years playing in Europe, you can potentially be eligible to play for National Team programs.
So how does it work?
First, we look at your position, then your skill level, age level, and experience level. Once that is complete, we look at your family ancestry.
Poland for instance has some teams offering free to play opportunities for those American and Canadian players who have Polish heritage in thier families. Poland in particular has programming specificlly incentivising teams at certain levels to bring those players with Polish ancestry. The same can be said about teams from across Europe and Scandanavia.
Why would teams and leagues take this approach?
Olympics and the World Championships are the motivating factors for many teams and leagues. The IIHF requires players to play two seasons in their “home country” in order to qualify for these competitions. Your “home country” being the one where you hold a passport.
So, if you play in a country, and have heritage through parents or grand parents, or even great grand parents, many times, you can get a second passport and citizenship in that country to be eligible for their National Team programs.
Unless you are in the top one percent of players in the United States and Canada, you are not going to even be considered for any National Team. In Europe though, you could potentially become one of those top one percent in a small country.
Having a second passport within the European Union, also gives you free health care, free University, and the ability to work or live anywhere in the European Union. This citizenship can also be passed down to children you may have some day.
Hypothetically, you are an NCAA D3 candidate. With tuition averaging $40,000.00 and up, and zero prospects of making the NHL, why wouldnt you consider Europe? Free education, and the ability to play in a European University league, and then professionally afterward.
Maybe you are a late NCAA D1 candidate, who is not going to get scholarship money. One such player we helped make this transition to Europe a few years ago, would have paid $80,000.00 per year to be a third or fourth line player in D1. He paid less than $40,000.00 for four years in a private European English speaking university, has his degree and is now playing professionally.
He saved two hundred and eighty thousand dollars while becoming a marquee player in Europe. That is life changing money, and a life changing decision made solely based upon knowing the facts.
Players have also used Europe for a year or two to show the North American scouts that they did not get it right.
A bigger ice surface slows the game down for North Americans. Playing on the smaller ice for all those years, allows you to anticipate more quickly and leads to better point production. Scouts in North America seeing this can question what they missed before, and it creates new opportunities to retrun to North America being seen in a different light by scouts.
There are many good reasons for players to begin thinking outside of the box. To look at all options. If you dont look at all options, it is you who is limiting you, and no one else.
If interested in discussing the options, and countries looking for players, I look forward to hearing from you.
Joseph Kolodziej – Adviser
