This week, the USA Hockey NTDP released the names of the 45 2007’s invited to their evaluation camp. Over 50% of the players were born in the first 3 months of 2007. Malcolm Gladwell talked about this hockey phenomenon in his book Outliers, where the earlier you are born in the calendar year, the more likely you are to be get selected to elite teams. This is due to the size and age advantage over players born later in the year. It is a self-reinforcing cycle from atom/squirt ages – despite hockey being a late-development sport. 15 years later, this bias still exists.
