Just Pass the Damn Puck Already!

When I sat down at 10:30 pm with a beer by my side three years ago and wrote “So You Don’t Want to Pass the Puck?” I never thought in a million years that it would have over 100,000 page views.

I was half asleep when I wrote the thing and couldn’t believe how it blew up in the following days.

I often wonder why it blew up, it’s clear that there’s a common thread in the game and that’s the lost art of passing.

It’s evident that everyone sees the lack of passing in the game plain as day, but yet here we are talking about it yet again.

Every time I scout a hockey game I still literally want to yell at the top of my lungs “pass the damn puck.”

You want to know something folks it’s getting worse.

Everyone talks about puck skills and individual skill, but they never ever talk about young elite level players being puck hogs.

“Oh, that player has velcro on their stick.”

“Oh that player is all over it and around it.”

No shit they don’t pass the puck.

It’s getting so bad as soon as certain players touch the puck, I automatically say to myself or trusted scouting colleagues sitting near by, “here we go again, they aren’t going to pass the damn puck.”

“They are never going to move it.”

Could you imagine what it’s like playing with those entitled self centred egotistical puck hogs?

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but the lack of passing in the game is shameful. It’s a travesty of the game. It’s so common place nowadays that everyone is so accustomed to seeing and accepting it especially coaches, which to me is just simply mind blowing.

It’s laughable that these players aren’t being told, corrected or held accountable for their actions when they come back to the bench.

That’s the area of the game that just annoys the hell out of me.

You know something, it’s probably never going to change.

Passing is a lost art.

From a scouting perspective players that pass and move the puck efficiently and effectively jump off the page and you know something they always have and always will.

Passing is an art form, it’s a forgotten skill that so many people these days overlook.

Listen, I’m not Abe Simpson, I’m not yelling at the clouds here folks, you can see it as well as I do, but no one is saying anything, coaches aren’t correcting it, players are just galvanized to it.

The only people that might saying anything about the lack of passing in the game are the yelling and screaming hockey parents and who really wants to listen to them.

If I’ve learned anything over my time in the game is that the players that should move the puck or shall I say the puck hogs never realize the importance of it until someone freezes them out or doesn’t move it to them. They all cry foul or injustice, but a solid dose of their own treatment is what these premadona puck hogs need to wake the hell up.

Passing is a lost art, don’t believe me, just go watch a game you will be able to pick out the puck hogs almost instantly.

Would you please just pass the damn puck already!