Ecological Dynamics Foundation Series: Part 3
Landon Dupont Case Study and Athlete Arbitrage as a solution to North America not having it figured out yet...
You cannot be a star if you burn out before you shine.
That is not sound astrophysics, but it is sound youth player development and user experience.
Invert true success in hockey and you’ll land at ‘avoid burnout’. If you burn out, you quit. If you quit, the game is over.
So how do you enjoy your hockey experience so you stay in long enough to reach your full potential?
Maybe take a page out of this kids’ book…
That thread of clips you just watched is a kid named Landon Dupont. And his parents ran a very unintentional but very cool experiment. And it has to do with this…
Europe is out here balling in the youth space. Smaller nets, smaller ice, more touches, different balls, different-sized hoops… They are dialed.
What does this have to do with very Canadian Landon Dupont? Look closer:
Born in 2009 to his father who was playing pro in Europe.
Forget Landon’s EP. Landon didn’t get to Edge School in North America until 2022. Do the math on where he grew up playing.
A place that believes this about youth hockey (click tweet, watch the video:)
A place that does the whole… Small spaces and joy thing. A place that gives the players the game in practice. Holistic environment. Alive movement problems to solve. 1v1, 2v2, 2v1, 3v3. A place that adopted EcoD lightyears before North America. (mostly because we still haven’t)
Unintentionally designed by the constraints of his father’s pro hockey career, but totally worked in practice, Landon Dupont is a product of what I’m calling ‘athlete arbitrage’. Don’t move states when you can move continents. But, seriously, it will actually help your kid this time.
Arbitrage Player Development
If they won’t leave you alone in North America, if they won’t stop setting up cones and doing fundamentals, leverage a market that will actually develop your player.
Okay, what’s arbitrage? Let’s put it into its most common context. Stock trading. From an article:
In an efficient market, an asset should be priced the same everywhere (the "law of one price"). However, temporary disparities can happen. For example, if Company A's stock is trading for $20 on the New York Stock Exchange but for $20.05 on the London Stock Exchange, an arbitrageur can buy the shares in New York and instantly sell them in London to pocket a risk-free profit of five cents per share.
Having a remote job and choosing to live in the middle of Nebraska instead of New York City to keep more of your money… 2 examples is enough.
Now, how do we alchemize it and remix it for hockey player development?
Gabriel Foley helped me get to this idea with a DM conversation. He wrote:
Your posts spark some funny thoughts sometimes - my day job is in national-level family services. Lots of discussion about psychological safety, adolescent development, adult learning theory. Even this message makes me laugh; go to the country that pipelines kids in the right way and come back to profit when you’re done molding
Said differently, if we can’t provide what you need in North America to let you develop into an original, go somewhere that will. Go to Europe where they are running art galleries as we continue our sad attempt at factory-made players:
Believe it or not, youth hockey parents aren’t going ‘far’ enough with their ‘craziness’. Don’t move your kids states to play hockey. That’s not far enough. Move him continents.
I’m kidding, but like also… I’m not kidding:
German and Scandinavian Player Development: A Montessori School for Hockey
“Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence.”
― Maria Montessori
Street environment first. Free play first. Stay out of the way and let them build the love first… That was Part 1 of this series.
After you stay out of the way and give the child free play…
Next, consider EcoD and the CLA.
That was Part 2 of the series.
This is what the kids ‘really’ need.
If you can’t find it here, build it… Or ship your kid to Germany or Sweden…
Your move, youth parents.
P.S. For more Dupont, check out the 40ish videos of him in our conceptual library. Just type ‘Dupont’ in the search bar after your purchase and marvel at the fluency. Also, quite a few clips of the Berlin pro team that Dupont came up under.