With all the turmoil concerning the firings, and resignations at USA Hockey recently, one very important item has gone unnoticed or simply has not been talked about.
Multiple sources are reporting that the NHL has stopped or greatly reduced its funding to USA Hockey to “grow the game”. That funding was an Eight Million Dollar cash cow for USA Hockey, and if true an Eight Million Dollar hole in the annual budget will not be getting filled any time soon.
USA Hockey is a big business. Too big for most people’s liking. A whole lot of money going in, membership fee’s being raised year after year, and members simply have no real voice in the extremely large political body that USA Hockey has become.
USA Hockey has become an old boys club, and is largely an ineffective and expensive operation that is becoming outdated and is living beyond its usefulness.
While the game has grown in the United States, so has the funding, and so have salaries and hiring at USA Hockey.
Layers upon layers of political roadblocks exist that in many cases keep real information from being acted upon. Reference to this political mess can be found in the sexual abuse coverup allegations being made toward those in positions of power in USA Hockey.
Local USA Hockey representatives, State representatives, District representatives and the National Offices. Layers upon layers, with the individual who is paying the bills having no say in who is actually running the program they pay for.
Now, Eight Million dollars. Gone. Why?
How do a few people leaving make up for that sizable hole? They don’t.
USA Hockey needs downsizing. Much like the rest of the United States corporations have been forced to downsize, USA Hockey needs to be forced into becoming a lean operation. The fat needs to be cut.
Every business, and USA Hockey is a business, needs to be efficient. USA Hockey in many instances is the definition of non efficiency. It’s political process’s are outdated, inefficient and those inefficiencies lead to infective administration.
The idea that the USA Hockey Junior Council is made up of its own member junior leagues, and those leagues determine if another league gets membership approval, and if approved, what level the league is labeled is simply a laughable way to allow a monopoly to exist within an organization.
Changes are coming. They have to. When money runs short, hard decisions have to be made. Unless……
Maybe someone from USA Hockey wants to pick up the phone and call the United States largest ice hockey organization the USPHL and beg them to bring their business back to USA Hockey? Nah, that would actually make sense, and when was the last time a political body made a decision that made sense?
Joseph Kolodziej – Adviser
