First of all, a big Congratulations to the Los Angeles Kings on winning their first ever Stanley Cup!  A very well deserved and impressive run, and by the looks of the core group they could be contenders for the next several seasons.

But today’s post comes from a recent post on collegehockeyinc.com outlining the amount of US College Hockey products, six to be exact, that helped bring the Stanley Cup to LA.  Obviously Jonathon Quick is the first name that comes to mind (FYI-3rd straight College hockey product to win the Conn Smythe trophy [Toews 2010, Thomas 2011]).  But also look at this list: Rob Scuderi (Boston College); Matt Greene (North Dakota); Alec Martinez (Miami); Willie Mitchell (Clarkson) and Dustin Penner (Maine).

**Note:  The New Jersey Devils had 8 college hockey players – Mark Fayne (Providence College); Zach Parise (North Dakota); Andy Greene (Miami); Ryan Carter (Minn. State Mankato); Peter Harrold (Boston College); Matt Taormina (Providence College); Travis Zajac (North Dakota); and Stephen Gionta (Boston College).

Even more, College hockey’s impact can be seen  in the front office: President/GM Dean Lombardi (Elmira/New Haven); Jack Ferreira (Boston University; Nelson Emerson (Bowling Green); Amateur scouting co-director Mark Yannetti (Brown/Williams); scouting staff- Bob Crocker (Boston University);Mike Donnelly (Michigan State), Tony Gasparini (Minnesota-Duluth) and Mark Mullen (Boston University).

There was a time when it was said there was only one path to the show: Major Junior hockey.  However, in the past few years, the amount of college hockey players playing in the NHL has gone up every year (30% in 2011, a 34% increase from 10 years earlier).   In fact, 30.5% of all of the players that suited up in the NHL in 2012 played college hockey.

The point of all of these statistics is this: there is no one route to the NHL.  Not every player is a first round draft pick.  Players mature and come into their own at different points in their lives.  Some players peak at a young age.  Some players need a few years after high school to develop their game.  Ultimately, every player is different, but in one way we are all the same: we can never become too complacent or too frustrated to stop working towards our goals.  Whether your goal is to one day play professional hockey, to play college hockey, or to make the jump to a more competitive travel team, keep working and I promise good things will happen.  Now, Get After It!