This notion of throwing boys in against men isn’t without parallel in sports and isn’t limited to sports such as tennis or golf where no physical risk is attached to the difference in age. In fact, it’s often an initiation into the most brutal and dangerous sports. Somewhere, a teenaged boxer on the rise is thrown into the ring with a fading 30-year-old opponent. For better or worse, growing muscle is tested by a guy who has made a living through the sport. And in hockey, the idea of boys skating with men isn’t limited to the NTDP.

In the European leagues, the very elite kids skate among mature pros, including more than a few former NHLers. This, though, isn’t a fair analogy to the USA Hockey program. Sure, Alexander Ovechkin played for Dynamo in the KHL from age 16, just as Rasmus Dahlin, the projected No. 1 pick in the NHL Draft this June, has logged big minutes the past two seasons for Frolunda in Sweden’s top professional league. But they are isolated cases, exceptions to a rule — in any given season in these leagues there might be a couple, a few or at most a handful making that massive leap up in class.



In Canada, there’s a resistance, an institutional resistance, to boys playing against men. If you’re junior-aged and not already in the NHL, you’re playing amongst your own. This is an odd exception in a hockey culture that places a premium on elite prospects “playing up” at some point during their youth, right up to the moment those designated as exceptional players jump to the CHL at 15. That’s where playing up ends for Canadian teenagers, but not the very best elsewhere and not those in USA Hockey’s program.



Is it reckless to send teenagers against collegians? The officials with the USA Hockey program will argue their case but they need not. Fact is, the desire of parents to get their sons into the program in Plymouth is the only endorsement the practice needs. Those parents include the former NHL players who have sent their kids to the NTDP: Keith Tkachuk’s sons Matthew and Brady; Brian Bellows’s son Kieffer, who tore up this year’s world juniors, leading the tournament in goals. It’s like the old line about roadside restaurants: If truckers eat there, it must be good. In this case, if an NHLer sends his son, then someone who knows the game intimately believes it’s the best of all possible options.