The Rise Of American Hockey

 
The beautiful jersey above is what Team USA wore to the inaugural Canada Cup tournament in 1976. Only 82 United States citizens were professional hockey players back then, most in low minor leagues long since gone by. Only 29 of those players were invited to training camp. The Americans won only one game in that tournament.

My how things have changed.


I've been harping on this since at least the World Junior Championships and especially since the Olympics: Look out world, the era of American hockey dominance is almost upon us.

The Americans are the Olympic silver medallists in both men's and women's hockey. Both teams featured many great young talented players, such as Patrick Kane, Zach Parise, Bobby Ryan, Hilary Knight and twins Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux.

More importantly for the development of hockey in America, the U.S. is currently the champion of every world junior tournament - U20, U18, and U17. That coming wave of elite Yankee talent is going to swarm the hockey world.

What is perhaps most impressive is these talented young Americans are relying less and less on coming to Canada for elite development. The U.S. National Team Development Program is now in it's 14th year, and the results are impressive. 166 players drafted from 1996-2009. In the 2010 NHL Entry Draft this weekend, a record 11 U.S. raised and trained players were taken in the first round. 59 Americans were drafted in total, just shy of the record of 62 set in 2007.

And what is scary is these kids aren't just coming from Minnesota, Michigan or New England like in the past. Increasingly we are seeing more and more kids from non-traditional hockey markets taking to the ice. California, showing off the Gretzky effect 20 years later, is a hot bed for hockey talent. Heck, a kid  from Las Vegas (Jason Zucker) went in the first round!

Need further proof that the National Development team model is working? Since it's creation the Americans have produced 2 Olympic silver medals, 2 U20 WJC gold medals (including the last one), a world's best 5 U18 WJC gold medals (including the last two) and 3 U17 WJC gold medals. (It should be noted that Canada does not send a national team to the U17 but rather 5 regional select teams).

And all this is just the beginning. There will be further waves of great young American talent coming in future years. The Americans already own all the junior titles, and were one shot away from Olympic gold.


The rest of the world has been put on notice: The future is very, very bright for American hockey.