I'll go on record saying 21 year olds playing against players as young as 15 years old at the beginning of the season is not a good idea. This is a developmental league and the players that are in the league as true rookies (15 and 16 years old) are the ones with the highest ceiling.
It really shouldn't be.
Yeah I can't see it happening. Sucks for the OA's but the OHL isn't going toI'll go on record saying 21 year olds playing against players as young as 15 years old at the beginning of the season is not a good idea. This is a developmental league and the players that are in the league as true rookies (15 and 16 years old) are the ones with the highest ceiling.
Let's be honest - there's probably a lot being discussed that... a) wouldn't normally... and b) few of us will agree with. They're not doing due diligence if they don't.
Guess they have all summer to kick the can down the road...
unreal feedback and insight as always.
And yet he really isn't all that far off based on the past 12 months....
The league plans were finalized. The can has been picked up and tossed in the bin. Discussing 2000s coming in next season isn't kicking anything down the road at this point. It's literally an idea to talk about. Now, if they say "we'll have a decision by August" and THEN say "we're not sure yet".....
That being said, if they did something like "you're allowed three 2000-born and three 2001-born", I'd be okay with that. You're still going to get plenty of 2002-2005 borns who could fill in the rest of the rosters.
The league plans were finalized. The can has been picked up and tossed in the bin. Discussing 2000s coming in next season isn't kicking anything down the road at this point. It's literally an idea to talk about. Now, if they say "we'll have a decision by August" and THEN say "we're not sure yet".....
That being said, if they did something like "you're allowed three 2000-born and three 2001-born", I'd be okay with that. You're still going to get plenty of 2002-2005 borns who could fill in the rest of the rosters.
I don't think it's a great idea for the league. For me it has nothing to do with the talent/age gap, as OMG67 the difference between playing a 20 year old and a 21 year old can't be that huge. If they were that much better they would be in the AHL.
I think the OHL's biggest focus needs to be getting the 2004s and 2005s in the league and playing. Teams can only sign 4 16 year olds, so there are going to be probably a couple of 2004s being added to each team that they couldn't sign this year, as well as the ones they had already signed for this year and up to 4 2005s. Allowing 3 2000s to come back takes away 3 spots from 2004s/2005s who have for the most part not played any real games since March of 2020. After watching everything unfold this year, I would be hesitant to sign in the OHL for 2021-22 as is. If you told me I'm going to be the 15th forward because they are allowing the 2000s to come back for a year, I'm all the way out.
The league plans were finalized. The can has been picked up and tossed in the bin. Discussing 2000s coming in next season isn't kicking anything down the road at this point. It's literally an idea to talk about. Now, if they say "we'll have a decision by August" and THEN say "we're not sure yet".....
That being said, if they did something like "you're allowed three 2000-born and three 2001-born", I'd be okay with that. You're still going to get plenty of 2002-2005 borns who could fill in the rest of the rosters.
And yet he really isn't all that far off based on the past 12 months....
It would come down to how they define it. I truly cannot see more than one 2000 born player per team on average. Most of the decent 2000 born players played some Pro this year. Mitch Hoelscher was unsigned by the Devils and was poised to be a top 10 OA forward in the league. He got 5 games in for the Belleville Sens as a free agent and he signed pretty late. I’m not sure a guy like that will be the type of player the league will want to have return and will make some rules to kill that type of roster add. I can’t see the league allowing all 2000’s indiscriminately. It wouldn’t make sense. That is why I say expand OA’s from 3 to 4 and allow a max 2 being 2000 born players. Three plus three would be just plain silly. A team looking to challenge for a championship would have six stud OA’s rolling over all the other teams. Bad competitive balance for sure.
Teams focus needs to be on getting their 2004’s in the lineup as 17 year olds. Typically they would have four of them as 16 year olds with only two of them playing much in their first season. They’ll then need to add the depth 17 year olds as well and prioritize ice for them too. The average is about 5 players each draft that play as 17 year olds and this year all of those guys will be rookies. I really can’t see teams prioritizing 2005 born players outside of their top 2. That would be 7 rookies as is on starting lineups. Expand that to four 16 year olds? Ouch. 9 rookies? That’s a lot, even if 2 of them sit in the press box eating popcorn.
I think keeping it to three rounds is more than reasonable. It is also rational.
Average team breakdown on an age balanced roster:
2000 - 2
2001 - 2
2002 - 5
2003 - 5
2004 - 5
2005 - 3
That’s 22 players and matches the common number of roster players held. Two of the rookies sit as usual. No sense requiring more rounds in this draft and having more players signed to sit, especially when teams aren’t confident in their scouting/picks past the 3rd round. Heck, it can be a bit of a crap shoot in the best of years past the 3rd round. This year will probably be a crap shoot outside the top 10 picks, let alone 3 or more rounds.
Naw. I was just sticking up for Windsor7. The league did make a lot of “kick the can” decisions to date. They finally squashed the can but I can see why Windsor7 would be skeptical about Branch’s comments regarding training camps for Labour Day weekend with no other real information. It does sound a lot like what we heard through last summer.
Let’s hope they are more transparent this summer leading up to the proposed start of training camps.
Dont think that will work at all.
Cant hold on to glory days for the 2000's
4 OAs with up to 2 2000s sounds intriguing. To your point about players like Hoelscher going pro, I wonder about the flip side. At age 21, how many players who don't have any professional offers decide that they are going to go the school route. I almost wonder if any players will actually come back and play as a 2000. Every day we see 2000s sign with USports schools, so it is clear that they are starting to shift priorities. If you know you are going to be going the school route, what does playing the 2021-22 season serve you unless you haven't played enough years to get all of your schooling covered (note that the OHL said they will be honouring scholarships for this year).
I understand the pessimism, but talking about the 2000s coming back isn't "kicking the can down the road." It's a new topic that's going to be discussed over the summer. Now, if they changed the camps to Oct or Nov, like they did this past season, then all bets are off on that.
It has nothing to do with "glory days."
If they said "sorry, 2000s, but you're done", I'd accept that. However, if they allowed two or three 2000s, no issues here. It wouldn't be forced or anything.
People are saying Windsor7 is the greatest poster on this board. I'm not saying it but other people are.
I understand the pessimism, but talking about the 2000s coming back isn't "kicking the can down the road." It's a new topic that's going to be discussed over the summer. Now, if they changed the camps to Oct or Nov, like they did this past season, then all bets are off on that.
It has nothing to do with "glory days."
If they said "sorry, 2000s, but you're done", I'd accept that. However, if they allowed two or three 2000s, no issues here. It wouldn't be forced or anything.
I didn’t interpret it that way. I interpreted it as him commenting on Branch saying they plan on training camps opening on Labour Day weekend. I didn’t consider the 2000 born players in the response.
I didn’t interpret it that way. I interpreted it as him commenting on Branch saying they plan on training camps opening on Labour Day weekend. I didn’t consider the 2000 born players in the response.
Why should the 00's take a larger precedent over the 04's who are going into their draft eligible year after not playing a single game in their OHL career?? A lot of these 00's have had 200+ games to build up a body of work for NHL scouts to see them. Meanwhile the 04's are going into their most important year never playing a game?? If an 00 is getting significantly more playing time than an 04 the system is broken and it's no longer a "development league."
I guess the RTP plan for 21-22 is underway.
I was wondering if some sort of age restriction changes would be warranted under the circumstances?
For the 2021-2022 season, shift the ages from 16-20 to 17-21. Make Overage 21. This would effectively push the 20-21 season to 21-22.
How to do it?:
1> Cancel the OHL Priority draft this season. Shift this season’s draft to next year and use the Under-18 draft as a means to draft what would have been this year’s eligibles.
2> Expand the under-18 draft to 10 rounds
3> Contract the 2022 OHL Priority draft to 10 rounds.
4> Move all picks between round 11 and 15 forward two seasons to ensure the integrity of existing picks in rounds 11 through 15 are respected. Teams that have extra picks keep their extra picks but since the 2021 and 2022 seasons don’t have those rounds, the picks move forward.
5> Utilize the Midget leagues as a means to develop the current 16 year old crop of players. Try to restrict the number of underage Junior aged players and allow the 21 year olds to also play Tier II jr A and Jr B.
I’d recommend doing something similar for the NHL as well. Obviously much more difficult than planned because of the CBA so probably not possible but it would be the “fair” thing to do.
Positives:
1> It would allow OHL teams to properly evaluate prospective players
2> Eliminates the double cohort of rookies this season
3> Also allows other tier II programs to offer options for fairness
4> Gives the current crop of 19 and 20 year olds an opportunity they missed out on this season.
Negatives:
1> Sets up a double cohort of rookies next season. Twenty rounds of two age groups as opposed to 15 rounds of one age group.
2> Potentially waters down the product for the 21-22 season. Teams will still see graduation to NHL/AHL while not having the 16 year olds coming in.
3> Would require buy in from all levels in Ontario as well as the CHL. The other member leagues of the CHL would need to do same otherwise the 21 year olds would not be eligible to play in the Memorial Cup.
Just spit-ballin’ here. The QMJHL did manage to get something going but is unlikely to play a playoff. WHL will fall short as well. Delaying everything one year and moving the ages seems fair for this cohort but it may hurt the future cohort to an extent. Just not sure how much or whether the future cohorts would be hurt more than it helps this cohort.
Of course, we could also have maybe a 3 round draft for 16 year olds and expand the under-18 draft. Maybe let two 16 year olds play per team? This may help soften some of the double cohort’ing that is inevitable regardless of what they do.
Thoughts?
Interesting ideas — I don’t philosophically disagree with any of them, though there would be some fairly significant hurdles.
Changing the ages to 17-21: this would mean the 2004 birth year “rookies” (the 17 year-olds) would be graduating from high school at the conclusion of the season and the 2000 birth year “super over-agers” (the 21 year olds) would be fully FOUR YEARS out of high school at the conclusion of the season.
I know the OHL likes to say that 98% of its players graduate from high school on time, but sheesh, a 17-21 year old league would hardly have any high school age players at all. That looks a lot like minor pro or Senior A hockey to me, not a junior league for amateur student athletes.
As well, most people don’t realize that the post-OHL scholarship package is capped at 4 years. To illustrate, take a player who plays all 4 years of regular eligibility and then a 5th year as an over-ager. The scholarship program covers ONE program of full-time study, uninterrupted. If a former player who banked 5 years in the OHL takes a 1-year college certificate program when he leaves the league, that’s it for the scholarship funding. If he takes a 4-year undergraduate program and then decides to take a Master’s program, he does not get a 5th year of scholarship funding because that’s a “new” program of study.
I bring this up because a 17-21 year old league would have both 5th AND 6th year players playing for no future benefits at all. One could say, “well, just extend the scholarship program to cover the extra years,” but that doesn’t really work because there are no 5 or 6 year post-secondary programs for scholarships to cover.
Now, having said all this, I’m not in favour of rostering 2005s (16 year olds) in 2021-22. The league will absolutely push forward with a minor midget draft (foolishly, in my view) sometime this year (likely June or July) but I’d like to see them take a page out of the WHL system.
The WHL drafts Bantams, not minor midgets, but then limits them to a maximum of 5 games in their first year, all after Christmas.
So maybe the OHL should do something similar: drafted 2005s are not eligible to play until January, 2022. This would allow them to continue developing outside of the OHL for 1/2 of a season and then they would be eligible.
One last point: minor hockey has been devastated by the pandemic and lots of talented 15 year olds had few opportunities to play games or participate in high end skills training, which is crucial.
One of my sons spent a small fortune last summer to become a Hockey Canada Certified Skills Instructor because that was the only way he could legally rent ice. The restrictions were lengthy and onerous, let’s leave it at that. Today, there’s no ice to rent — my son went from 25 clients to 0. About half of the 25 were players from the OHL or other junior leagues, and the other half were minor midget or major bantam guys. Ungodly expensive for them, btw, and several gave it up because their families couldn’t afford it. In simple terms, the informal on-ice training infrastructure young prospects have relied on for about 25 years now was and remains severely compromised.
In my view, the OHL should not be picking the flowers before the beds have been properly watered. After all, how often do people say, “another year in junior never hurt anybody?” I don’t think another 1/2 year in midget hockey is going to hurt anyone, either.