Team BC Selections and Playing Your Game

Someone sent me a link to the selections to Team BC on the BC Hockey Web Site, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to congratulate those players that made Team BC.

That being said, in the eyes of college coaches, making Team BC, or not making Team BC, will not make a difference when the college coaches scout and evaluate you.

I have had had 14 players that played for the Steelers that have gone on to play Division 1 hockey, that were cut from Team BC.  This includes players that ended up playing for schools such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Minnesota.

College coaches are tasked with finding the best players possible.  Quite frankly, their jobs are on the line if they don't select the right players. 

If you, in their eyes, are a good hockey player, who they think will help their program, then they will take you, regardless of whether you make Team BC or not.

In addition, college coaches generally will only base their evaluations on what they see on the ice, and particularly at the upcoming NAHA Labour Day tournament.  They do not base evaluations on off-ice testing.

And evaluating hockey players often is a largely subjective process.  One coach might like you, another coach might not .  I remember at the NAHA tournament two years ago, one of my players who was a bubble Division 1 player, had probably what I thought was the game of her life.  I knew there were two college coaches that were seriously interested in her and I approached both coaches during the course of the game.

One coach was sold, and was willing to offer an official visit.  The other coach "wasn't that impressed with her".

This illustrates that different coaches look for different things.  Some like stay-at-home defencemen that play tough, make good decisions and do not make high risk plays.  Others like flashy Ed Jovanovski type defencemen who are flashy, high risk, high reward type players.

My best advice to players is when you go to the NAHA tournament, just play your game.  Obviously you were scouted by the Steelers coaching staff this year, and selected to play for the Steelers at the NAHA tournament. 

This means that we obviously felt there was something in your game that stood out.  If you play to the strengths of your game, you will be successful.

And for the record - just for fun, I made up my Team BC Predictions this year, based on what I saw at the BC Winter Games, as well as the 3 games that I attended at the final Team BC camp.  I only successfully predicted 13 of the 20 players that made Team BC.