Think this has been brought up a couple times, but definitely fascinating. At one point I made a spreadsheet of top 50 scorers over the past 10 years and figured out the correlation to birth date. Not sure what I did with that anymore but it was interesting anyway.

Gladwell is fantastic.

Interesting but flawed in my view. One big factor the author fails to consider is the variation in size among boys born the same year. He assumes that boys born earlier in the year would be bigger than boys born later but never cites any studies to corroborate his assumption. I wouldn't be surprised if by the age of 8-9, genetics and diet have a greater impact on size than several months.

Also, there are some notable counterexamples. Not that these serve to discredit the author's claim as the sample is too small and I randomly picked a few of the top scorers in recent years.

Crosby - Aug 7, 1987
Malkin - Jul 31, 1986
Tavares - Sep 20, 1990
Ovechkin - Sep 17, 1985
Sedin - Sep 26, 1980
Thornton - Jul 2, 1979
P. Kane - Nov 19, 1988

__________________
I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.
- Rodney Dangerfield

Seeing as half of your examples aren't Canadian and the author is specifically addressing the advantages an early birth date has for Canadian players I'm not sure I can agree with your counterpoint.

Also, the point isn't that being born earlier is the difference between being elite or not it's that being born earlier gives you an advantage against otherwise similarly skilled players in your birth year. You still have to have the skills to succeed and the truly elite can defy this but when you are working on certain levels of mediocrity being born earlier tends to help.

__________________
Dig my Cage Match articles? Follow my blog! The Laws of Sport

Also on Twitter @SteveLaidlaw

Not really arguing your point but I can do the same thing for the other side...

Stamkos - February
Perry - May
Richards - May
Toews - April
Giroux - January

One thing I discovered when I did my spreadsheet (if I remember right) is that later birthdays had to be high scorers to be drafted at a young age more so than earlier birthdays did. Ie: at a young age, those with later birthdays who were typically less physically developed had to have a high end skill set in order to stand out. Therefore there is a slight trend that while later birthdays made up a smaller proportion of draftees, many of them were exceptionally talented.

not to sound cliche but the exceptions are exceptions because they are exceptional

it is the fact that they are exceptional that allows them to show up in the exceptions column

basically what metaldude and dyz are saying

Fair point about the inclusion of non-Canadian, although I remember the author made the same argument about Czech (or Slovak, I can't remember which) players.

My biggest criticism is the assumption that being born earlier in the year gives you an advantage due to being bigger. The author simply picked size difference as the explanation of the stats. Are most boys born in Jan-April bigger than those born in the later months? What about genetic and diet differences?

__________________
I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.
- Rodney Dangerfield

Great thread regardless, Blayze.

I noticed this about 20 years ago, a couple of years after I got into my pool. I didn't search for an explanation on why, but, it did stand out and was something i've always kept in the back of my mind.

Same argument applies to czech because their eligibility date is also Jan 1st, so if anything that reinforces the author's point.

I think you are missing the key point here. It is not that being bigger gives you the advantage. Being bigger at that age gives you the opportunity. The advantage comes from being able to play more games as part of the rep team, getting better personalized coaching, and training with a better group of peers. This in turn gives you a leg up on the "regular" kids (who may be just as equally talented) but who are playing less house league games against weaker competition. It is a matter of opportunity, not a matter of size... size is what provides the opportunity at that young age, because it is much harder to distinguish raw talent since kids aren't physically matured yet.

__________________
2013 Bay Street CBS Playoff Cash Pool - $100 buyin
12 Teams, Points Only (G/A = 1, DG = 2, W = 2, SO = 1)

The Motherpuckers (5 NYR, 2 PIT, 3 VAN)
Forwards: Neal / Iginla / Nash / Richards / Stepan / Roy / Higgins
Defense: Del Zotto / Garrison
Goalies: Lundqvist

You are right that those data were never researched but think about it this way - if you've got two kids with great genes and great diets but one is born in January and one is born in December, who would you expect to be bigger/more advanced?

The point is that there are plenty of talented players with great genes and diets and when those players are born will be randomly dispersed so once that weeds a bunch of kids out and you are still selecting there has to be some other factor. The data speaks for itself. Kids with better genes and diets aren't simply just being born more often in the early months. But the genetic and diet factors are why we don't see ALL players being born in early months. You have to have talent but when genetic talent is essentially equal age/development starts to play a role.

__________________
Dig my Cage Match articles? Follow my blog! The Laws of Sport

Also on Twitter @SteveLaidlaw

Good points. Thanks guys.

__________________
I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.
- Rodney Dangerfield