CCHL News

Consistent Competition Level Key To Development

Date: Jun 05, 2009

Of all the goals set out by the Central Division prior to its inaugural season in 2008-2009, one of the primary objectives was to provide an environment conducive to player development, one that would allow players to improve from a young age and would be considered an attractive destination for scouts and recruiters from the NCAA, CHL, CIS and NHL. Ask any player or coach firmly entrenched in the game and they will tell you a strong and consistent level of competition is necessary for players to reach their potential.

"Obviously good instruction, players being in an amicable position from a coaching perspective, a competition level that's high and getting a chance to play in critical situations," said Cornell University Big Red Associate Head Coach Casey Jones when asked what conditions he felt young players develop best under. "I think it's a combination of those things that help develop players over the years."

Jones, who has coached at the NCAA Division I level since 1992-1993, and the rest of the Cornell coaching staff followed Central Division action closely during the past season as the Big Red will welcome four new recruits (Nick D'Agostino, Erik Axell, Greg Miller and Jared Seymour) from Central Division teams for the 2009-2010 season.

As for the competition level, a scenario in which any team could beat any other team was the ideal outcome for the Central Division and when looking back at results from the first season of competition, it is clear that goal was achieved.

The Cobourg Cougars and Stouffville Spirit, finishing in seventh and eighth place respectively in the eight team division, beat six out of seven different opponents at least once during the regular season including three occasions on which the Spirit defeated the Central Division Champion Wellington Dukes. The sixth place St. Michael's Buzzers beat every opponent at least once.

Unlike in previous seasons where top teams would routinely walk over lower seeded teams putting up scores that would indicate a lopsided baseball game let alone a lopsided hockey game, there was no recourse on the schedule for the Central Division's top teams when taking on lower seeded teams. Consider that of Stouffville's forty losses, exactly half of those came by two goals or less; hardly a team that opponents could guarantee wins against.

Despite playing on that last place team, Spirit defenseman Patrick McEachen, whose exceptional play led him to a commitment to attend Clarkson University and play NCAA Division I hockey in 2009-2010, did not feel he was robbed of an opportunity to take great strides in his development.

"The competition level last season (in the Central Division) really mimicked the play at higher levels like college hockey and professional hockey because you were forced to play at a consistent level every night," said McEachen, who completed his second season with the Spirit. "That's what I was forced to do last year in the Central Division because there were no easy games like in past years in the provincial league. There were no slouches in this division as you could see, we were the last place team but we gave every team a run for their money especially in the playoffs with Wellington where the first three games were decided by one goal. I think just being forced to play consistently at your highest level every night really helped develop not only myself but all the other players in the division as well."

In McEachen's rookie season in 2007-2008, the Spirit finished fourth in the North Division wining thirty one of forty nine games; however, nearly forty percent of those victories, twelve wins to be exact, came by four goals or more. Playing in so many close games in the Central Division last season, McEachen said, helped him to refine his game, prevent bad habits from developing and become a more consistent player.

"I think the fact that if you have an easy game let's say every three or four games, it's not that you're trying to be less aggressive, you just have a tendency to play more nonchalantly," he said. "You may not be trying to but the fact that the competition is much weaker some nights, you can create bad habits because you are not playing to your highest potential; you sort of lower your play to your opponent's level of play and that will show up when you play the stronger teams."

McEachen's accomplishments last season certainly illustrate his improvement finishing the year with seven goals and twenty six assists, an eleven point increase from his rookie season. At just seventeen years of age, McEachen, a Stouffville native, was named captain of the Spirit midway through the season after Myles Gomes was traded to the Couchiching Terriers. He also earned a coveted spot on the Central Division Prospects Team that competed in January against the top prospects from the CJHL in the "Battle of Ontario" in Pembroke, scoring a goal in a CD Prospects 3-0 victory.

St. Michael's Buzzers forward Reilly Smith, who is ranked 158th overall among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting for the 2009 NHL Entry Draft and will attend Miami University to play Division I hockey with the Redhawks in 2009-2010, agreed that consistently strong competition is required to continue improving.

"Absolutely," said Smith on whether the guaranteed competition Central Division teams saw last year made him a better player. "It really made me focus on every game and you could not take a night off especially in the Central Division because you knew there was going to be competition every night. If you took even a second off, a team would comeback or you would give up a goal because every team had players that could score and turn the game around."

For the Buzzers in 2007-2008 as members of the South Division, they faced only two real threats in the Markham Waxers and Vaughan Vipers. Smith indicated that there was definitely a lazier atmosphere in the locker room prior to any game against an opponent other than the Waxers or Vipers.

"It was tough because getting up for those games is a real challenge especially since you always have the mentality to kind of play down to the level of your opponent and still pick up a victory just because you think you can win on talent alone," said Smith. "It was a lot different this year because you knew every game was a battle and you had to bring your best for every game."

Reilly Smith's season was rich with rewards as well, deservedly so after exhibiting marked improvement throughout the season. After getting into only thirteen games in his rookie season, Smith became a key player with the Buzzers in 2008-2009 scoring twenty seven goals and adding forty eight assists for seventy five points in forty nine games. He also competed along with Patrick McEachen for the Central Division Prospects team at the "Battle of Ontario", earned an invitation to the 2008 CJAHL Prospects Game in Summerside, Prince Edward Island and helped Team Canada East to a bronze medal at the 2008 World Junior A Challenge in Camrose, Alberta.

The competitiveness that existed in the Central Division also was beneficial to scouts, making it more likely for them to see a competitive game when using up one of their limited number of scouting visits. Due to NCAA restrictions on the amount of scouting visits that can be made, scouts and recruiters are always searching for games likely to be highly competitive in order to assess how players compete with the game on the line. More often than not, the Central Division was able to provide those types of games regardless of the teams' position in the standings.

"You are looking for the competitive games so that the players are going to be challenged in critical times in a game because you get such a limited view," explained Jones. "If you have a choice, you want to see competitive games that are played in important situations because you want the kids to have to make decisions under duress because that's what translates to the college game."

When scouting players, Jones added that seeing them compete in a variety of different scenarios is the goal but that the best possible assessment of a player comes from how they play in close, competitive games.

"You like to see a player that you're looking at have to protect the lead, have to play with the lead, have to come from behind and then face the risks of that but most of the situations where you want kids making good decisions under pressure comes from close games," he said. "Probably the best evaluation of a player comes from a competitive game, no questions asked."

Between himself and the rest of the hockey staff at Cornell, Jones estimated that they were able to watch each of their commitments from the Central Division at least twice. From the action he saw firsthand, Jones pointed out several specific aspects of competition from the Central Division that he thought were particularly beneficial.

"I did like the fact that the young kids were in the line up and I did like the fact that they took a player off the ice (dressing only nineteen players) because of the amount of shifts you are able to see from a scouting perspective," said Jones. "I like some of the things they did moving forward so I think the model and the ideas are exciting from our perspective and a scouting perspective."

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