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Maybe we could give a little credit to the kids themselves for taking some natural talent and adding in a bunch of hard work and dedication. And the team or organization where they played or trained only played a small part. I'm pretty sure if Mooney adopted any of our kids years ago and sprinkled his magic training on them, they still wouldn't be representing the USA at world championships.

Not!! Just like his cousin, it's 90% Jon Sr. and his training methods.

I think it's a little more nuanced than that. I would give pens credit for a players development if they played both 14u and 16u years there. These are the most important. I wouldn't give them credit for a 12 year old who leaves for prep school. That seems a little silly. I also don't give them credit for someone they import for the 16u team for a year who then immediately leaves to play juniors. The hard fact is there are very very few pens players who start young and stay in the program through 16u and are successful. As a matter of fact, and speaking to their own development model, not a lot of kids develop to even make the 16u team (or maybe they are leaving due to all the extra requirements/money like excel north catholic etc.).

I'd say that is a success! Now - how many people pay how many dollars to have a success rate that you can find one person? Serious question. If you are being sold this is the premier program and the way to make it to the big leagues and dumping 40K per year on it when we include excel + NC, is it worth is? I'm not even doubting its the best program in the area.

How about we give credit to the kid. I don’t think any coach or program deserves all the credit for any player advancing. Talent has to be there. Kid has to want it and work hard. Coaches can’t do anything about either of those criteria. Yes coaches can and do influence how players advance, but without talent and dedication to hard work, kids aren’t going anywhere.

I always thought it'd be nice if teams made offers before tryouts to the players they wanted to keep in order to dial down on some of the chaos. I know baseball clubs that do that and it works out for everyone. Then you see parents signing up their kids for 3-4 tryouts because off their own paranoia of being 'left out' if everyone else leaves. I always felt bad for the kids getting dragged around to multiple tryouts, especially the ones who got cut a few times and had to keep going.

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with all the many wisdoms this forum provides. So far it's generally understood that, Good players leave PPE but we should credit the players' success to the team they left for. Good players come from elsewhere to PPE but credit should go to the organization they came from. The new one I got to wrap my head around, Good players start at PPE and stay there but we should credit the father's training and hype. Any others I'm missing?

He's right, and the family knows how to hype the kid.

The best kids don't stick around for Pens at 18U. Mooney played up through 16U. Humphries last played for Pens when he was 13 then went to prep school I believe.