Recently on a business trip back east, I was fortunate to coordinate a drop in at an NAHL tryout. It's always exciting to see kids from all over the US. You've got kids from the west coast, the mid-west, the southwest and the east coast. It is truly a mix of players from all over this great country. I would say hockey players are the "kings of cool." They come dressed in casual shorts, T-shirts, and flip flops. Of course each one walks into the rink sizing each other up and in their own way letting them know they've got competition. And, when they step on the ice, the competition really does start.I watched about about a half a dozen games. My analysis? Wow! These boys are FAST! I thought I saw "fast" at some BCHL Canadian Jr. A tryouts, but I would say the speed is again a level faster. The other thing I noticed after watching a bunch of Canadian hockey is the American hockey style of play - wide open ice, fast skating, and passing, none of the incessant slashing, hacking, cross-checking, and roughing that characterizes Canadian hockey play. This was truly a clean open game. Of couse there was some hitting and a few hard checks, but even this was different. In Canada if you hard check a player they're going to get up and want to kick your ass. Here I saw some hard checks and the players just skated off. I could almost say it was a gentleman's game. But again a very, very FAST gentleman's game. If you can't skate fast, don't even bother coming to an NAHL tryout. After watching a season of Wrangler hockey, there was no way any Wrangler boys were NAHL material.
Finally, I was amazed at the size of some of these boys. Several boys made Wrangler D Josef Chase seem small. Also there weren't any '92's around they were all '90's or older. Lots of full "play-off" beards were evident. It was not a "kids" game it was a game of men.
I was very impressed at this NAHL tryout. NAHL hockey is Junior A Tier II hockey, but it seemed more than one tier up from NorPac which is supposed to be Jr A Tier III. I had a chance to talk to the coach, head scout and associate coach and asked them about NorPac. What I detected was a bit of a snicker. They said they don't get a lot of kids from NorPac. If they do, it's from the America West Division which they said has a higher level of skill. When I asked them about what advice they might have for a young aspiring player they said, "Be committed to working hard & improving yourself, work on your skating, and work on passing and puck handling skills." Oh, and one last thing, "Get out of NorPac." I took that to mean you can start there but you've got to move up and out early.
