<p>hockey6ridge,</p>
<p>Although my expertise is with lacrosse, the lessons I have learned there apply equally as well to hockey.</p>
<p>If you want to play hockey for a top prep school, you have to dedicate yourself to hockey and academics. Unless you are the next Sidney Crosby, that means four things. (1) You must be an A student. (2) You must have excellent SSAT scores. (3) You should play AAA hockey for a good program. And (4) you should engage in age-appropriate off-ice training to increase your strength, stamina, and speed. </p>
<p>A typical prep school coach doesnât have the time or the budget to scout games much beyond his immediate geographical area. And there is no guarantee he will scout an unknown player even if you are playing in his area. The best you can do is to send the coach an e-mail inviting him to watch you in a game, tournament, or showcase in his area and give him your schedule and contact information. </p>
<p>If you cannot arrange to have that prep school coach scout you, send him an e-mail in the late summer or early fall. Briefly detail your educational and hockey background. Explain that you are interested in playing varsity hockey for his program. And ask how you should proceed. </p>
<p>If the coach is preliminarily interested, he will send you an e-mail advising what you should do. While responses may vary, a coach might invite you to campus or advise you to contact the Admissions Office. Virtually all will want you to send them a game DVD if they havenât already scouted you. The game DVD is especially critical. It should be about 5-10 minutes and of one game only. As Coaches receive scores of them, make sure your game DVD stands out! A good recommendation letter from your current coach can be helpful as well.</p>
<p>If the prep school coach believes that you have the potential to be an impact player, he will contact you and support your application. Even if he does, you still have to be admitted. Hence the necessity of being a great student and a great hockey player if you want to play varsity hockey at a top prep school.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Again, not to be a downer, but if you are 5â10 as a 96 and playing AA you should really focus on which schools you have a REALISTIC chance of playing hockey at (not some of the ones mentioned earlier). Yes your pal may be on the Hill School team, but they play in a totally different league. There are guys who are bigger, stronger, faster who played AAA and are well over 6 feet on jv teams (Hotchkiss, Taft, Deerfield, Choate to name a few). 5â10" for a 1996, esp defenseman is nothing special and not necessarily big enough. Iâm sorry to say that but very few of the defenseman on varsity at NE prep schools are that small.</p>
<p>Hockey at prep school is not the be all end all. Look at the recent USHL draft of 1995 birth years. 90 kids drafted and like 10 are from prep schools. Look at the recent 95s invited to the US development team. Again, very few from prep schools. </p>
<p>Having said that, you face an uphill battle Sending coaches dvds, going to showcases, etc cannot hurt but wont necessarily help. NAPS is overloaded with stud players as are the other tournaments. Unless you are a superstar you wonât get noticed by a prep school coach that way. You have to do more homework and find schools where you can get into academically and you have a chance of playing. A targeted approach where you have an in would work better, where your current coach knows someone. </p>
<p>I know too many 95s and 96s that played jv this year and may NEVER make varsity. They thought they would but it is a rude awakening to find out 3 recruited kids from Canada (or wherever) can quickly take up spots that might have been for jv players moving up.</p>
<p>@jmilton
I have taken many of the steps you explained, contacting all of the coaches, playing on a strong AAA team, lifting, and on tops of the getting straight As in school and have been studying for the ssat and got in the 90 percentile for all subjects on my first practice test.
I know that a video is also a good idea, im just not sure if I have found the right game to tape, meaning I want a very fast paced/high level game. </p>
<p>Overall I understand that I might not be an expert on applying to prep schools, but I am hoping that even if prep school never happens for me, that I can come away from the experience feeling satisfied that I tried. </p>
<p>Thanks for all our information</p>
<p>@bspreppie
I feel I have not explained correctly what my ambitions for prep school hockey are. For me it is not going to any school and playing on a winning/good team, but what I really want is to go to a great academic school, and play my favorite sport of hockey. Maybe the two will collide down the road and good things could come from that. </p>
<p>It seems that many of the very elite or strong academic schools also have great hockey program. It is unfortunate but really what I would like is a strong academic school with a weaker or growing program that is not just going up to canada and picking kids up. For example, I think Lawrenceville which you know is a great academic school, has a hockey team that I think went 2-17 this season. I will continue to do my homework and really look into what schools i think i would fit best in. Once again i really appreciate your advice, and if you have any schools in mind i would love to know.</p>
<p>I just got an email from NAPS the other day saying i was put on a team for the showcase, should I be emailing a couple of coaches and tell them I am attending the tournament, or is that obnoxious? Also I was also wondering when is the best time for me to be going to these showcases. Do coaches generally look at players during the fall, spring or summer. I am nearing the end of my freshman year and If I am applying this fall, should I be loading my fall with showcases. After all I will be a junior when I go to prep school, so maybe it is best to wait till this fall, when I will be bigger and better.</p>
<p>Im going to NAPS too, maybe weâll see each other. 
if youâre trying to get noticed by a coach, donât be afraid to tell them what tournaments youâre going too. It is very likely that they are probably going to those tournaments themselves to look at different players. </p>
<p>Sent from my MB860 using CC App</p>
<p>Hey man, I think that if your real goal is just to play college hockey, play juniors somewhere. Just know, to play NCAA Hockey, you MUST at least be a stud in the EJHL at least. So the chance of you playing at an NCAA school because of this seems slim at this point. Then again, i cant judge how good you are! Just make sure it is a good league though(EJHL,EMJHL,AJHL,NAHL,USHL⊠Not the IJHL,CHA,Metropolitan) if you choose Juniors over prep.
However, if you are looking to go to a high tier prep school, play hockey there, and maybe only go onto playing NCAA D3 or Club Hockey, playing JV there would suffice. Also, as long as youre always improving, your coach should have no reason not to put you on varsity.</p>
<p>With regards to the whole national v. american dilemma, I had done a different track. At first, I was selected for the american but I made sure that the coach knew that I wanted to play national. We worked out a plan: As Im a goalie, I would practice with the national 3 nights a week, practice with american 2 nights a week and then I played american on weekends. However, the fact that I practiced with the higher tier national kids helped me a lot (one of the best goalies in the American division). Also, near the end of the season, one of the national goalies got hurt and they were able to call me up to the team. </p>
<p>I also have experience with the USA hockey festival team - great experience, highly recommend it. You get to play with a lot of really good players from the east coast and eventually the country.</p>
<p>One last thing. I do not want to push your opinion one way or the other, but I played both Junior and Prep hockey. I personally recommend prep hockey as colleges would LOVE to see that you had solid schooling while also playing really good hockeyâŠ</p>
<p>Good luck with everything!</p>
<p>As of now I know I should probably have a goal set in mind, but I really just want to play prep school hockey not just for the hockey, but for the prep school experience too. Its like playing college hockey to me. Like I keep saying, I am not going to go to the NHL, and I have to figure out what I want to use my hockey for. I think for now seting my goal as prep school hockey is perfect. If I end up getting to play prep hockey at a great academic sschool , and into a great college because of that school, then I achieved what I wanted. I want hockey to bring me somewhere I wouldnt have gone without it, and if I am a playing junior or prep hockey one day, and I think that college hockey is my next goal, then I will do that, but for now I am focused on my short term gaol.</p>
<p>As far as the american national argument I am trying to do something similar to what you did. I play on the national coaches spring team and I think he is realizing I easily could have played for his team. Also if that does not work out I will be playing in a u20 league this spring which and I hope that brings up my tempo. On top of that I have started practicing with a spring junior team. Many of the players are only junior b, and a couple play prep or even junior a. The reason I bring this up is because I noticed some of the players were 5 to 6 years older than me , and honestly were not too good. Which begs the question, is it worth it to go such a risky route. I do know that many of the junior players are more looked at than the prep players, but once again prep is my goal. </p>
<p>I am still just trying to figure out, which schools I want to go to, and which schools are realistic as a future poster mentioned. </p>
<p>srry if my spelling is really bad, my mom is breathing on my neck telling me to do homework lol. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the posts everybody, you guys have realy helped me with this process</p>
<p>any thoughts on the prep prospect tournament?</p>
<p>yeah those things are run to make money. donât count on a lot of coaches scouting you out there. not trying to be rude, but if you are good enough, coaches will find you. the NAPS is a money making tournament with a whole bunch of selects teams in there al paying $200 plus the hotel every night to be there. If you are lucky you will be on a good team at least and maybe get more games if you make the playoffs.</p>
<p>Maybe I am wrong, but I feel like there are a million hockey players that could be playing at levels much higher than they are, and just did not get lucky: make the national teams, payoff the organization, kiss up to coaches, or even try to get seen by coaches. So maybe I am good enough, maybe I did not even consider going any farther with my hockey career before, but within the past couple of months I have decided that I really want to. </p>
<p>At the end of the day people will always tell you tat your not good enough. 1. Because
they failed at achieving their dreams. or 2. They regret not following their dreams. I am not trying to direct this message to anyone, but I think it will help people to understand where I am coming from. Micheal Jordan did not make his highschool basketball team⊠what if he had stopped there. </p>
<p>I am not looking for people to tell me what I can not achieve, I am looking for people to help me achieve.</p>
<p>My son is your age and also interested in playing prep school hockey. However we face one disadvantage; we live in California where very few to no east coast hockey coaches scout. He is going to the pre prep showcase in August because we donât know how else to get him seen. Do you have any thoughts on that?</p>
<p>If, hockeyridge, you are looking at people to help you achieveâŠthen do well in school and achieve good grades, do well on the ssat (an achievment test after all), make sure your essays and recs and interviews are all great and get yourself into prep schools. once there, anyone can try out for the hockey team. Work on your hockey skills this summer but donât pay a lot of money for showcase tournaments. There are too many kids and at u16 level unless you have tremendous size or speed it is tought to stand out. Apply and get accepted and figure out which schools might be a good fit even if you canât play hockey (ie have a concussion for example). Do not go to a school just for the hockey but let the hockey program factor into your decision (ie can I make jv? is there a thirds team? do kids move up from jv to varsity?). Donât go to a school just for a coach or even if a coach promises you that youâll be on varsity. Go for the right reasons (the school fits you with regards to academics AND everything else). You are the one who is best place to help yourself.</p>
<p>The tournaments and showcases canât hurt, but you will see that very few kids if any will get scouted from them. You still have to apply and get in â and when you apply you can talk to the hockey coach at each school and hopefully understand where you stand vis a vis their program.</p>
<p>I get what your saying bspreppie and I dont think hockey is really going to stronglysway my decision in the school I choose. Though I would love to play prep hockey and believe I am capable of it I will not let it affect my decision strongly. I am working on my grades, Unfortunately I am missing the SSAT to go to NAPS, but I will take the next one in october. Like you said it wont hurt going to showcases, the price I am paying to go to a couple of showcases is equivalent to the extra money I would have to pay if I were playing for national anyway.</p>
<p>I live within 30-45mins of lawrenceville and the coach told me he wonât be able to make it to some of the tournaments I am going to. I want to know peoples thought on if it is rude for me to ask him to come watch one of my junior practices. I am not implying I want him to recruit me from there, just get a chance to see me. I am only considering this because it is such a short trip for him.</p>