Since I was a kid playing this game, I have heard the same phrase repeated over and over for more than fifty years: “It’s all about the kids.”
So if it’s really all about the kids, why are so many junior coaches failing to act in the best interests of their players?
The answer is simple. In too many cases, they are not acting in the best interests of the players at all. They are acting in their own interests, or in the interests of their friends.
This spring alone, multiple people involved in recruiting players for European college hockey programs have encountered coaches steering players toward far more expensive programs in the United States and Canada that offer little to no realistic pathway to professional hockey.
What makes it worse is that, in several cases, coaches I once respected personally told me they had presented players with European university opportunities and that the players “weren’t interested.”
After directly communicating with those families through email, I discovered the truth: the European option had never been presented to them at all. Not once. Instead, the only opportunities discussed were programs connected to the coach’s friends in NCAA D3 and ACHA hockey. This has happened repeatedly over the course of this spring.
So I have to ask: why would any coach recommend that a family spend $40,000 a year on ACHA or a D3 hockey program with virtually no professional exposure, when there are European university programs costing less than half that amount while playing in front of professional scouts on a nightly basis?
What rational person honestly believes playing at “Old Smokey Dominion College” is a better hockey and life opportunity than competing in some of the greatest hockey cities in Europe? Only an idiot would believe that — and yes, I am absolutely calling out some coaches I know personally for this kind of thinking.
Now imagine how parents and players reacted after discovering their coach withheld information about legitimate European opportunities that could have saved them tens of thousands of dollars.
Comments like these:
“We committed to spending an extra twenty thousand dollars per year because we never knew this option existed. Now we’re financially locked in because our coach withheld information. We are filing a complaint with the league.”
“Our coach kept telling us several schools were interested in our son. In the end, the only offer presented was from an ACHA program coached by one of his friends.”
“Thank God we hadn’t sent in our deposit yet. The moment we learned about the European option and how much money it would save our family, we committed immediately.”
Families need to understand something important. If “it’s all about the kids,” then it should also be about honesty, transparency, and presenting families with every legitimate option available to them.
Coaches should be helping players make informed decisions — not limiting those decisions to repay favors, protect relationships, or funnel players toward programs connected to their friends.
Taking choice away from families is not putting kids first.
