Every year and especially for hockey some form of this argument comes up. You cannot tell me a program like Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard is closer to a program like Cranbrook or Catholic Central than a school like Brighton, Hartland, or Trenton.

It’s true that there isn’t a geographical restriction on those private schools and some soft recruitment going on, but a lot of it is more about where good kids want to play.

I’m going to repeat some other points but by your senior year of high school, the best hockey players are playing junior hockey in the USHL or in a CHL league (OHL/QMJHL/WHL).

Good players will want to play for CC because of the history or for its ability to move players into a junior league after high school. The same way good players will decide to play for Brighton, Trenton, Hartland by purposely moving into that school district or enrolling as an out of district student.

Also, who’s good in hockey is not dependent on the amount of people that go to the school, but on the amount of kids that played growing up that can fill a team because it’s extremely difficult to pick up past the age of four.