Something to while away the day..

until tonight's first in three Aeros game.
What do you know about THE MATTHEW EFFECT?
Matthew 25:29
"For onto everyone that hath, shall be given and he shall have abundance.
But from whom that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath".

Well, I didn't and really was not overly interested, except, that it can touch on Hockey.
Canadian Hockey to be specific. And what is it?
It appears that there is an 'iron law' of Canadian Hockey, that in any ELITE group of players,
40% will have been born January-March,
30% April-June,
20% July-September and
10% October-December.

So I went to the Aeros Roster for the past 2 years and found
(Canadian, Foreign or USA born -I don't know if that makes a difference):
08-09 Roster: 9 Players in Category 1, 7 in Cat. 2, 7 in Cat. 3 and 6 in Cat. 4.
09-10 Roster: 9 Players in Category 1, 5 in Cat. 2, 5 in Cat. 3 and 6 in Cat. 4.

In Canada, the cut off date is January 1 for selection into age-class hockey.
So, a 10 year old on Jan 2. could be playing alongside a kid who does not turn 10 until December,
and that - in preadolescence - really is an enormous gap in physical maturity.
Now it seems to me that this is a self fulling prophecy. Why?
Well, if chosen, the younger player gets better coaching, his team mates are better and he plays more games in a season, he practices a lot more, and with all that under his belt, the likelyhood of rising to the next level and eventually into the 'big' leagues increases.
But really, if one selects, in essence, the oldest kids, give them all advantages of training, practice, play time and so on, one ends up providing a big shove to the kids closest to the cut-off birthdate, talented or not. It is an arbitrary selection, not because of talent, but because of birthday!


Now, Aeros of this season:
good scorers* in total points
Cat. 1: DiSalvatore*, Gillies*, Hilbert*, Milroy*, Rau*, Rogers, Sifer, Smith*, Dubielewicz G
Cat. 2: Kalus*, Noreau*, Zingoni*, Khudobin G
Cat. 3: Almond *, Irmen*, Gunderson*, McMillan, Brust G
Cat. 4: Daoust*, Falk, Fraser, Kassian, Lannon, Testwuide (Daoust being the exception here)

Does that prove much?
I don't know for sure.
Maybe the current Aeros players, most of whom have been skating professionally for a time, are just more experienced even if not as hugely talented!
And then there are players who defy all that: for example: Sidney Crosby (August born)

I really want to challenge readers to make a comparison of
USA and Canadian Olympic Teams according to the 'Matthew Effect' ;-)!
Just in case readers get bored and have time on their hands, LOL.