Kukla's Korner Hockey
Bump the Draft Age to 19
by Alanah McGinley on 10/21/11 at 11:35 AM ET
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From John MacKinnon of Postmedia via Calgary Herald:
For all the right reasons, Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson has suggested the NHL make its annual entry draft a harvest of 19-year-old talents, not 18-year-olds.
There’s little doubt that sort of change would rationalize the entire hockey system, permitting midget teams to hold onto their best players for another year, allowing young talents one more year to polish their games in major junior, letting all sorts of European players remain home for another season in their formative years.
Nicholson is serious about plumping for this change, so much so he prepared a nine-page position paper on it and sent it to NHL headquarters.
“For the most part, 18-and 19-year-old players are not close to being ready for the NHL. If the draft goes back a year, it slows down the process at every level,” Nicholson told Eric Francis of Sun Media. “Right now, everyone is on a treadmill to get there.”
Filed in: NHL Talk | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: bob+nicholson, entry+draft, hockey+canada,
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