This is probably tailored towards parents who are part of Fox Motors hockey, but could apply to other hockey organizations also.
The idea to write this came about when I had friends ask me about what I knew about recruiting and advisors and the like, since their sons in hockey were somewhat younger and mine is currently in 16U. I thought that I would have really liked to have had someone who had been through most of the experience give me some information before we began in the sport. This is some insight into what to expect, some of what my experiences were and maybe some advice along the way. I don’t know if you could apply any of this to other sports, as I haven’t really been through other sports. I know people who have but I am not claiming this to be useful for anything else.
Certainly everyone has a hockey story and by story I mean how they started, where they went and what experiences they had to the current point. I find that I love hearing everyone’s as there isn’t one that is the same. Ours (my son and our family) is a little long, and I say ours because our entire family has been involved in this process, not just my son who plays. Our family has had to spend lots of money, sacrifice other opportunities that we could have done and my younger kids had to go to games that they didn’t want to go to—there is a lot given up to play. But to understand us, you have to understand where we came from. With that, I will give my son Clayton’s story interjected with some words of wisdom 😊
Clayton was born in 2004 and sometime in 2008, my wife came home and mentioned that her friend took her son to hockey. I remember at that moment a light went on in my head and I remembered thinking that if someone wanted to play hockey, it was a huge help if they started skating at a young age. It honestly wasn’t on my mind until that moment. So I figured it would be smart to take Clayton to the rink and try skating to see if he liked it. I will say that I did not grow up playing hockey, as my home area didn’t have it available. I grew to love it from watching Hockey night in Canada on our black and white TV in the mid 80’s. It was one of the only channels we could get and so I watched Gretzy and the Oilers dominate and I learned the sport and started to appreciate it.
Anyway, we took Clayton and his friend to the rink. He had a bit of a rough time starting, but then at the halftime free skate break, his friend started taking off and so, not to be outdone, Clayton was determined to follow his friend’s lead and began to skate. He liked it.
The next logical step was to look into hockey as this interested him also. I remember calling the Kentwood Ice Arena and talking to the lady there (really wish I could remember her name) and she gave me some basic information. I think she recommended trying learn to skate first and then possibly learn to play hockey next. So after a few more open skates, he went to learn to skate. He did well and then they determined he was ready for learn to play.
I want to acknowledge George and Ron at Kentwood who were fantastic coaches for kids starting out. This leads into another really important thing I want to say. When you start out and your kids are small, you may have a tendency, especially when seeing older boys, to think that your son’s level isn’t quite as important. EVERY level of hockey is important. Let me say that again. EVERY level. Each team or group has a role to play in the success of a rink/organization and the city or region it comes from. Without younger players, you don’t have a future. That doesn’t mean that kids playing cross ice can expect to have the same higher grade uniforms as the older kids or their own locker room (which by the way cost extra money), but every level is important and you should never feel like you aren’t part of your organization.
Back to George and Ron. They were wonderful coaches and it is really important to have patient and encouraging coaches when kids start out for obvious reasons. These guys both have my gratitude for doing a great job. For organizations to be successful, every level should be treated as important and you need to have good coaches at every level, not just older tier 1 levels.
So over time, probably starting in 2009 until early 2014 we played learn to play, then Cross Ice, then house hockey for the Kentwood Falcons. We kind of figured Clayton might be a defenseman because he like to stay back from the scrums and get the puck when it squirted out. We enjoyed our time there even though we didn’t win too much. The families were great as was the coaching. I remember having potlucks and Christmas celebrations in the warm room and it had a real tight, family-like feel. Regardless of anything else, we are proud to have started at Kentwood.
Two things though. First, I remember thinking ‘Why don’t the coaches make these kids pass the puck?’ The last year of house (which is tier 3 hockey) I was tired of it as the kids had no desire or incentive to play team hockey—it was frustrating and I knew we needed to be done with it. It was fun and gave my son what he needed but I could tell he was ready for something else.
Second, and it is really too bad, but I don’t think Kentwood was managed very well (and yes, it no longer exists so this is mainly why). This isn’t a rip on anybody or any one person, but for probably a multitude of reasons, kids kept leaving the program every year and what started as a sheet of ice filled with 6 cross ice teams ended up being a pretty small program by the time we decided to leave. I think the main part was that people could see the organization wasn’t getting bigger or better and they just didn’t have the same offerings as other places did. Whenever you brought up travel hockey, which they did have a few teams, everyone there would always say “Oh, you don’t need to go to travel. It’s expensive, you have to go all over and what’s more, Mike Knuble played house his whole career”. It was always a bad thing that you shouldn’t think about. What they didn’t tell you is that when Knuble played, first of all Kentwood was a dominant program and things were very different—much like they were for anyone in sports back then. You simply can’t compare the two time periods. And yes, as coach Knuble has been my son’s coach for the last five years, I have talked to him a little bit and we have talked about this on occasion.
Anyway, we decided in summer of 2014 to make the jump to the Michigan Nationals organization which was a growing club that had a single A tier 2 team that we were interested in trying out for. The gentlemen that ran the joint seemed to be really nice and gave me a good impression. We tried out for Coach Turcotte’s team and made it. It was a fun year and new level of play. We had some lows, including losing all of our games at the Bauer Chicago tournament. The thing I remember most was playing the Muskegon Chiefs many times during the year and getting our ass kicked at first but getting better each time we played them. We probably lost to them 8 times throughout the year but the very last game we played them we won and that was the highlight of the year.
The next year it was announced that first, Michigan Nationals was getting a sponsor and would now be called Fox Motors hockey club. Then they announced that they were forming a new AAA tier 1 team for the 2004 age group.
Because Clayton did pretty well in single A and I really liked Mr. Mike Slobodnik from my talking to him, I thought that this team might be a good move. My wife was not as convinced and wanted to go back to Kentwood, considering they were forming a single A team. It ended up that at the time of the tryout, Kentwood had decided not to have a team and we needed to pick, so we chose to be on the Tier 1 team with coach Slobo, as we had made the lineup.
Interestingly, a bunch of the kids that played on the Muskegon Chiefs that we played and battled with during the last year also decided to join us on the team. It was a little awkward at first, but was the beginning of a lot of friendships that last to this day. We have been lucky to have met a multitude of fine kids and parents on the teams we have played on. I really can hardly think of any that I think anything negative of.
So the first year was tough but we learned. Coach Slobodnik did a great job and Clayton really got to like him. The next year, with coach Knuble’s son deciding to move down to his birthyear team (2004) from playing up, we got Knuble as our coach. At that point, Slobo bowed out to coach the 2006 team.
Not everyone who plays over 1000 NHL games can coach. But Mike is a really good coach and we were very lucky to have someone of his caliber coaching our kids for the last five years. He and his wife Megan are really nice people and I am glad to know them both.
Clayton is one of only four kids on the original AAA team that are still on it and the only kid left on the team who played at Fox the year before the tier 1 team started. You will find as each year goes by that there is a certain amount of turnover as kids develop or not and the organization tries to improve each team (Slobo actually told us this the first night of tryouts the first year. He said only 20% of you will be left by 16U and he was right). Fox has always been transparent about that it doesn’t matter if you are friends with the coach, or how much money you have or how many years you have played on the team---if someone else comes along that is better, they may take your spot and you will be cut. Not every organization operates like this. Many ‘grandfather’ you in or if you have enough money or political clout, you can play over someone else.
I think the way Fox does it is the best way. I can honestly say I have mountains of respect for the way Travis and Slobo run their organization. They don’t break rules or cut corners. I have heard many examples of them turning down things like “free parking lot repave for ice time” and things like this. They simply make decisions based on the long term and not the short term. And you can see how their program has grown over the years to be the top destination for anyone in GR or West Michigan if you want to play on the best teams.
Of course, other organizations don’t necessarily like this but it is true at this point. No other club in West Michigan comes close. Not that they are perfect. Not that they are liked by everyone. Running a larger hockey club or any travel sports club is very hard thing to do. The time of year when teams are formed and players are cut is these guys’ least favorite time of the year. I think they have been yelled at so many times by angry parents whose kids have been cut that it hardly registers to them anymore. It isn’t an easy job and certainly isn’t for everyone or for the faint of heart, but these guys have a large amount of appreciation from me. Again, I am sure you can find some people who don’t like them or some decision they made. You are not going to please everyone in that spot. You simply do what’s best for the organization long term and it works—and I believe that is what they have done.
Back to our Fox AAA team. We have had our ups and downs over the years and we have been generally about the middle of the pack in the 8 team tier 1 Michigan MAHA league. But we have gotten better each year and this year so far we are in the top ten in the country with Coaches Travis and Coach Knuble. First, we are very lucky to have both those guys with that much knowledge. The highlight for this team was probably winning the Tier 1 Elite championship in Minnesota last spring.
Now let me transition to some of the general stuff that I have learned.
Whether you like it or not, every team has what I call a ‘totem pole’. The best kids are at the top and the least talented are at the bottom. Every team has one so let’s get past the ‘everyone wins’ thing and acknowledge that before we go any further. Pretty much all the players and coaches know the pecking order also. I subdivide the totem pole into 4 groups. Your team may or may not have all 4:
1. The top kids that have it all that are either getting outside attention or could pretty certainly move up to the next level, depending on their age group
2. The kids that maybe have a single flaw in their game, may not get outside attention but are very good and could possibly move up to the next level
3. The kids that are solid but have some flaws but contribute to the team success. They may or may not be able to move to the next level
4. The kids that made the team but probably won’t be on the team next year.
Saying this, any kid who plays travel hockey for a decent team is at least a decent player. Sometimes I forget that even the lowest kid on our team’s “pole” is still a very good player overall. But for purposes of discussion, we need to be realistic and say that some kind of hierarchy exists on every team.
This one pains me to admit somewhat, but if your kid plays hockey, and particularly at the tier 2 or tier 1 level, because of the rules in Michigan which I don’t really like, you will likely have to sacrifice sports like football, basketball and wrestling. Anything that goes on from the fall to about March. I am not saying it is impossible to do, but as the kids get older, you simply run into so many conflicts you simply can’t do other sports with hockey. It is a long season and you can’t do it well if you miss practices, nor will you develop like you need to. If you’re playing house, it may not be that big a deal. I like how Minnesota does this, where during school hockey season, all clubs stop and kids play for the schools for a short season, then when this ends they go back to their clubs, much like they try to do with baseball here. But that isn’t the case in Michigan. So just a word of warning if your son likes football, for example, you will likely have to choose at some point.
Also, for anyone who isn’t familiar, if you don’t want to leave the friendly confines of greater Grand Rapids, then travel hockey is not for you. I go to Detroit most years so many times that I feel I should rent a house there. We have been to Toronto, Philadelphia, Columbus, Minnesota, Phoenix, Nashville and many other places. Tier 2 isn’t quite as bad, but if you think a trip to Fort Wayne, IN is a big deal, you are going to be in for a surprise. I think of the 65 or so games we play about 15-17 of them are home games.
So it goes without saying that you want to have a good organization with good coaching and families on your team. One of the things I didn’t understand initially was the importance of being on a winning team. From what I have seen, colleges/scouts/recruiters tend to watch and look at the more highly ranked teams a lot more than ones that are lower ranked.
In our age group, Honeybaked Ham out of Detroit is usually the premier team. They have been ranked in the top ten at least every year. I won’t go into all the reasons that contribute to this, but they are a good team. In the last few years, many or most of their kids have received attention from outside entities—even the ones that are tier 3 on the totem pole. In my opinion, some of that attention comes from what team they play on. There are other teams that are not as successful with better players that don’t get close to the kind of love those kids do. But that is the big pull and reason that everybody wants to scramble to be on the best teams.
Also, there is something else I call the “hype train”. In hockey at least, if you can get people talking about you in a positive fashion and people generally think you are good, you are on the train. Once you are there, you are getting attention and you are getting looks that others don’t. I have seen many examples of kids that are on the hype train and getting attention that I have no idea how everyone thinks they are that good. Don’t get me wrong, I have seen many kids too that I can readily acknowledge that they deserve what they are getting, but there are some that you shake your head on.
Another reality of sports in general and it applies to hockey very much is that if you are connected, you have an advantage. I know of a good number of examples, and I am not going to say what team or whom, where kids have gotten attention or special consideration or drafted in junior hockey drafts due to being connected to someone in charge of the drafting for a particular team. If you are a kid without connections like my son, you just have to work harder and impress with your play.
And last but not least, in some organizations (not Fox), if you have money and are willing to spend it freely at a club, this can buy your kid hype, ice time and opportunities. This isn’t nice, but I am very sure that this happens, particularly with Detroit area clubs.
I know I sound like I am sour grapes, but I am not. I am simply trying to be realistic for everyone that may not have seen this or gone through it yet and I want you to be prepared.
As far as scouts, you will see a few in some bigger tournaments in 14U but you will see lots of them in 15U and 16U. From what I have seen there are mostly junior teams watching kids and not colleges, but colleges can also get involved too if they think the player is good enough. In general, they are looking at only specific kids, although there may be some others that catch their eye if they are spectacular. There is simply no way that a person can watch every kid on each team. How do you get on their list? One way is the hype train or word of mouth from others. It may be that the scout has asked your coach or hockey director who is good on your team. The best way to go about it as a player is to be excellent all of the time as you never know who is watching you. Last word on this…if scouts know that a parent of a player is a pain in the rear, they will mark this against the prospective player, not necessarily disqualifying him, but it is factored in.
Another thing that people will ask me is if I have put together “tape” or video of my son playing. In many other sports like football, this is absolutely necessary, but in hockey in my opinion it really isn’t. The scouts tend to come and watch the games so they see kids first hand. Plus colleges typically get players from junior hockey teams so they don’t need to be quite as involved in younger ages as they do in other sports. If anyone has any other info on this, please share it though.
What about TPH (Total Package Hockey)? This is the school that functions within Southside arena during the year. I am not an expert on the school. I have not heard any negatives about it and the kids that go there seem to like it. The positives are that you get more ice time by attending the school and also the kind of learning environment that they have can be appealing and actually better for some kids than traditional schooling. The negatives here are that it costs about 9-10K per year. And despite the fact that you have a local affiliate high school, where you can attend events like prom and things like this, it isn’t the same as the traditional school. There are simply things that you are going to miss out on and there is no way around it, particularly socially. The environment is simply not the same. It’s good for some kids and for some not as much. Clayton is someone that needs as much social interaction as he can get, and so traditional school was best for us.
I have not seen any favoritism towards any players that play with TPH simply based on them attending here. I believe that Fox decided to do TPH because first, it makes them some money, and secondly, it allows them to promote their organization to kids around the country. Kids aren’t forced to go to a community school and can do school at the rink. This is a smart move and indeed our team has a number of players that attend TPH for school that come from a long ways away. Basically, you have to decide if it is right for your son.
So the two main junior organizations in the U.S. are the USHL which most consider the highest level of junior hockey and the NAHL which is one step down. There are other junior organizations too, but these are the primary ones for the Midwest/East. The USHL has a spring phase 1 entry draft for players when they get to the 15U level. If you get picked from this, you are property of the team picking you and you will most likely attend their summer camp. If you are good enough you could make the team, but this isn’t common or even always recommended (although usually the very best 15U players in the country end up playing in the USHL the following year). The team will hold your rights as long as they think you have a chance of eventually making their team in the following years. USHL also has a phase 2 draft a day later where they pick kids not previously claimed from 16U and higher and also from the NAHL or possibly other junior leagues. The NAHL has a draft also later that summer. They can take kids from 15U but most of them from what I have seen were USHL castoffs or 16U or older kids.
There is also a draft for the OHL, which is the Ontario league. This one is different in that kids going here get paid and lose their eligibility for college. Usually teams will contact kids beforehand to ensure that they are good with going to the OHL before drafting them so you will see some kids not drafted first who are better but the teams can’t be sure those players will actually join their teams.
When it comes to USHL combines, there are a few things to pass along here. Realize of course that things can change with how they do things. Right now, they run two combines out of Chicago in the spring. The first one is more of a money grab and isn’t really necessary to attend. The second one is a little more important. Yes, the USHL makes some decent money on these. However, if you can get an invite to this when your son is at 13 or 14U (can’t remember), and you attend, you will get invites to go again the following years. There isn’t much that teams are going to care about when your son is in Bantams, but I will say that we skipped a year of the combine and did not receive an invite the following January for the next one. I tried to register and see if we could get invited, but I don’t think we would have. The event was canceled due to COVID, but this is something to know and keep in mind.
Does going to the combine mean that your son is going to get drafted? Nope. There will be some people that watch the kids for sure, but there is no guarantee that yours will receive attention. As with all things hockey, though, the more you are in front of coaches and people in hockey, the better (within reason of course). Your son’s good play over time is the best thing that will get him attention.
What about all the emails and invites we get to attend this camp or that camp? Realize that the places that put these camps on make a LOT of money off doing these things. If they didn’t they most likely wouldn’t do the camps. Most of these things are straight money grabs. I mean, if they see a really great player that stands out, then bonus, but they aren’t basing their scouting heavily on who comes to their camps. Some camps are better than others. We decided to go to one in Waterloo, IA that the USHL team put on there. It was a good experience and I really enjoyed coach O’Malley’s talk with the parents. It was an eye opener about how hard core their team is and what they expect. We went for the experience and it was really good, but we didn’t go again, although I thought they ran it very well. If you aren’t sure, you can always talk to Travis or Slobo and they can tell you. Mostly, they will say don’t bother with the exception of the USHL combine.
Now the actual tryout camps for the various USHL or NAHL teams are different. Those are the camps that they use to decide who is on the teams for the coming year. They are typically invite only. We were able to go to the Muskegon one in 2020 because we weren’t drafted and coach Knuble put in a word for us to get into the camp. This was Travis’ suggestion to go. Our goal wasn’t to make the team, but rather to go through the camp experience so that if in following years we are trying to actually make the team, we know what to expect. You can tell also that there is a contingent of players that are there to pay the fees and really have no hope of actually making the team. In our case, we knew this and were ok with it because we wanted the experience. The camp was a series of games over the course of a number of days. There were a couple other USHL teams that invited us to come to their tryout camps, but since it was in the same capacity (my sense was no real chance of making the team but paying the fees), we politely declined and said that we were attending Muskegon because it was only an hour away. (My thought here was if you wanted him that bad you should have drafted him. I did like the personal non-bulk email from the Omaha GM though).
Now a word about high school hockey. I have nothing against high school and I am very glad that they have teams. I wish Michigan would allow club kids to play some high school (as I mentioned before). But since they don’t that’s the way it is. There are some very good high school teams for sure, but in general, higher level club teams could handle most high school teams in my opinion and in the opinion of most hockey people in Michigan. I am not talking about prep schools that specialize in hockey like Shattuck or Culver but normal schools. There are kids that get picked from high school, but from what I have seen, it is very few. If you want the best chance to play in junior hockey, you should be playing at the most competitive level which is AAA. Again, there may be some kids in tier 2 that are good enough to get picked and it does happen, but it just doesn’t happen very much from what I have seen.
On the subject of advisors, which starts to be a thing around 14U, I had always wondered about this topic. We were told early on that if you choose one, be very careful who you choose and get references. Travis has always told me not to pay for one. If they are willing to help you for free and possibly get paid later, then they are ok. But if they ask for a bunch of money up front, stay away. I have also read other sources that say the same thing. There may be situations where getting one could help you get over the hump, but those situations aren’t common and with the risk involved, most say to just let your play do the talking. We have got emails from advisors and Clayton has received texts, but they have always been money guys so it isn’t something we have done.
Back to our situation. My son is probably a tier 2 totem pole player. He did not get drafted in the USHL phase 1 or 2 drafts or the NAHL draft in 2020. We have not been contacted by any colleges or any teams (other than some general camp invites), although I have been told that junior teams don’t always contact their draftees ahead of time. We are hoping this year that we get selected in one of the two drafts. But you also have to make the team by attending the summer camp for that team and being good enough to be selected for their next season team, as I mentioned before. Like many, our goal is to try to eventually play college hockey somewhere and get part of our education paid for with sports, but things and goals can change.
I hope each kid on our team reaches whatever goal they have and I root for each one of them like crazy. It is not likely that every one will be picked for juniors though and then you have a choice to make. You can probably continue to play at Fox at the 18U level or you can play high school hockey. 18U players do sometimes get drafted also, especially late bloomers. The challenge in the whole thing is to try to figure out if you should stick it out and still hope, or if you think it isn’t going to happen and then just bail to high school where you will likely be a star and have fun during your last year.
I think you have to rely on the honest opinion of your hockey directors and coaches or advisors if you have one, who should be able to tell you what they think your chances are.
In the meantime, I always say enjoy the crap out of every game and tournament that you have. Don’t look ahead very much—it goes so fast you can’t even believe it—be happy with where you are at. Occasionally I will find myself watching some small kids in cross ice at some rink somewhere and it hits me really hard that my son was this small at one time and not that long ago. I wasn’t aware of how special the early years are either. Enjoy every puck touch, shot, pass and hit. Don’t be an asshole parent of course. Give your kid an equal blend of encouragement and critique but this depends on the kid too. Is 16U hockey fun to watch? Oh yeah it is very fun to watch, but it also comes with a much higher cost to play and all the stresses that come with trying to get to the next level and worrying about all of that.
I hate to simply end all of this, but our story isn’t completely written yet.
All in all, I love the experience we have had. My son had to sacrifice playing football and hockey isn’t a cheap option, but I wouldn’t trade it. The friends we have also made are incredible. But I hope this document can help someone with expectations or decisions in some way. My opinions are only mine and everyone has a different experience as I have said but maybe it helps someone.
Thanks
Chris Senti
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