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Excuse my mistake on the 25-30% stat, here's the link to the story I actually read it in, the way it's worded is kind of weird. Looking at it now, what I think it was trying to say was that 25-30% of teams in the NHL carry a college player. Which makes much more sense.
I understand your argument completely, and honestly I do agree. I know that depth wise, the Canadian leagues are much more competitive, talented, etc. Of course they are, that's what they do. Here in the States, as I believe you mentioned in your first comment, College Hockey isn't even second fiddle to other D1 sports, it's more like 3rd fiddle (behind football and basketball).
All I'm trying to get across is that I still think that for the level of talent that it has produced, it doesn't get enough respect. It may not have the history or size of the Canadian system, but it's damn good.
Just as a side note, the USNTDP program, though it did produce most of the guys who played on this year's Junior squad, I don't believe all of them were NTDP alums (there was at least one guy that selected to play for the US over Canada, ie. Brady Murray, probably because he wasn't going to make the cut, but look how that worked out...). That program though, as you stated has really ended up benefiting USA Hockey. A few of my friends played there, billeted with families in A2 and gone to one of the local high schools. All of them have said that it was a great experience, getting to play internationally as well as in the NAHL...of course that's totally irrelevant to my argument, but yeah...
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