Beck Malenstyn's Goal shows us that...

[tom webster]

3 hours ago, matter2003 said:

Often hear people who are great at pickup basketball say they could take NBA players who are bench players that never play, but then get absolutely crushed by them in a "no-contest" type way when they get a chance to play them.

That reminded me of Malenstyn scoring on that play...while there are probably a lot of people that think they are way better players and scorers in their leagues than someone like Malenstyn who is a 4th line player, the truth is he would dominate them and their league and score at will, like 5-10 goals a game any game he wanted. 

The difference in offensive skill between the best "pickup" hockey players and NHL 4th liners is still night and day and I think we forget that sometimes.

It’s funny, I had almost this exact conversation yesterday at the meet up. I think we’ve all had friends who played against so and so in grade school and think they were better, or at least equal to the guy that “made it.”

[JustOneParade]

I always looked at this phenomena like a pyramid. How many high school seniors are there in a given year? What percentage of those can play varsity basketball? What percentage of those can play college basketball at any level? What percentage of those can play pro basketball at any level? That large initial base of the population whittles down to the head of a pin at the top.

To provide a first hand account, in college (DIII basketball) we went down the road to scrimmage Army (low-level DI) before our season started. It was eye-opening how different the talent and skill levels were, even within that relevant tier I mentioned above. Army had a kid who was also an all-American tight end on the football team. He was an absolute beast.