The British Columbia Hockey League has been on the tipping point of showcasing elite junior hockey players to higher levels of the game for a few years now and every season it seems to be getting more so. The amount of players that are attracting the attention of NHL scouts and American colleges has reached seemingly new heights lately. Perhaps it's only my awareness of something that has always been there, but I can't ever remember rolling into a rink and seeing almost every NHL team and so many schools represented as I have this year.
At the end of September there were 29 players with school commitments in their pockets. One month later that number has risen to 41. If that isn't impressive enough, how about the recent NHL Central Scouting rankings? Two years ago you would have only found one name on the first watch list and last year there were three; this year the NHL Central Scouting watch list starts with eight players from the BCHL and that number is expected to grow.
With the third installment of the World Junior A Challenge going on in Camrose Alberta, another six players can expect to have their names added to the list as well. Being selected to play at the WJAC is an adrenline boost to a player's stock and having a full week to perform in front of and spend some time meeting the scouts, as the Mastercard commercial goes, is priceless.
The teams should thank the fans, for it was the fans that stood behind the BCHL and encouraged the teams to go out and recruit higher skilled players. The goal became to create a team that was as strong as possible and to create an environment that bred competition and provided opportunities for the growth of a player's skill set and physical abilities. As teams got stronger, they attracted more highly-skilled players and so on and so on; to where we are today with players that would otherwise be able to play elsewhere, choosing the BCHL.
The players should be credited for recognizing the need to push themselves harder, to compete at a higher level and to achieve more with every shift. Depth in a team is not just more important today, it is more evident on every roster. Sure there are character players and players with different skill sets, that's what will still make a team better. To say that a player is a true fourth liner in the BCHL is becoming rarer. In fact it isn't uncommon to see a team give a star player the night off simply because someone has to be a healthy scratch.
The league itself should also be congratulated for a decision it made a number of years ago to adopt a “skill first” approach to the game and crack down on the thuggery aspect that used to be prevalent around the rinks. Sure there is an argument that there is a need for team toughness, I don't argue that; in fact I think that the skilled players have had to learn to bring that element into their game. No skater is going to be able to go coast to coast very many times without paying the price somewhere along the line.
I have the good fortune of being able to watch the Prince George Spruce Kings on a nightly basis do battle in the tough Interior Division; one player that continues to amaze me is the slight Sam Muchalla. Weighing in somewhere around 150 pounds on a 5'8″ frame; Muchalla is hit more than most players and hits more than most as well game in and game out. His fierce determination has allowed him to lead his team in scoring and keep up in the top ten around the league. On every team there is a player like this and, in some cases, more than one.
Now this isn't about Sam Muchalla, although I thank you for allowing me to use him as an example. No, this is actually about the fear that other areas of the game are having trouble keeping up. All I want to say to end this is that I encourage the league, teams, coaches, players, broadcasters, volunteers and even the fans to recognize areas that need to be improved upon to keep up with the accelerated growth of the skill level that is evident in the players.
