Hey kids, its another glorious Monday morning isn’t it! So I spent the weekend doing some scouting since the boss was overseeing our big website redesign launch, which I think looks freakin awesome by the way.
So yeah, I go scouting the NAPHL down in Troy Michigan this weekend. Now I am no expert but this league has come a long way in the last few years. Its not the Tier 1 Elite or HPHL, but its definitely getting better.
Anyway, it was sure interesting to watch all the “scouts” and wanna be “scouts” from all the expansion teams that were creeping around. Yeah, I said creeping because they were talking the whole scouting game but they weren’t wearing scout passes.
So yeah its amazing what you can pick up in while actually trying to watch players. I stood next to a few of these wanna be’s who were talking about their new teams and how they were going to try to win a championship in their first season.
What was funnier was to listen to them talk about how, and don’t spit out your cheerios now, but how their new pay to play team would be as good as any NAHL team! Yeah, they were saying it like it was supposed to sound serious! I almost laughed right in their faces.
But it got better. These guys were actually talking about some of the top players in the NAPHL that they were going to go after and the “scholarship” money they had! Yep, that’s right apparently they missed all the memo’s on illegal scholarships at the junior level.
But just incase these guys are reading this morning, lets just look back at last year and see how well all those expansion teams did. Yep, filling rosters was a bigger challenge than they thought, come to think of it some previously well organized teams were tossed away with the trash too.
So, I wonder how all of these new, by my count about 20 pay to play teams, in the United States are going to do at filling their rosters? It might be pretty hard winning a championship in your first year when the pay to play market is stretched just a little thin.
See I did a little actual research here. The player pool graduating out of Midget hockey isn’t growing at nearly the same rate as the pay to play market. And here I thought I wasn’t going to have a lot to write about this summer. Then again I should have known there is a new idiot who thinks they can make money on pay to play every year who is willing to pay a franchise fee.
Thanks boys! I mean it. Thanks for being there. My life would be pretty damn boring without you guys.
David Wagner – The Angel Of Death – For Those Who Live Stupidly I salute You
*The Death Pool is a mix of comedy, and satire in connection with recent events. It is not an official report of current events although it may look as though the news is so accurate that it could one day happen or may be happening.
