Development

[sionlikesmusic]

Forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but I genuinely don't know the answer to this and after watching John Donovan's interview with David Simms during the Steelers game where they discussed what Sheffield are doing in terms of development, I was wondering if anyone knew what the situation was with the Devils?

I've heard the Junior Devils mentioned a few times, but is that just an open-to-all junior hockey team? I'm assuming there's no academy in place, or anything like that.

Has there been a history of development within the Devils?

 

[Ibbz9]

The Devils Junior development historically has been pretty succesful. Plenty of players have come through the ranks to play for the Devils and indeed GB. Nicky Chinn, Jason Stone, Stevie Lyle, Jon Phillips, Phil Hill, Matt Myers and Ben Davies have all played senior GB and made solid careers. Junior teams won a couple of national championships at 21s in the 90s, a 16s championship in the late 90s, plus an 18s national championship a couple of years ago. The same group of players may have won the 16s a couple of years before but cannot remember.

Not too sure of the ties to the Elite team at present, but the best players from the juniors will almost certainly be asked to train with the Devils at some point.

The main issue that Simms was talking about was a national elite 20s league. It has its pros and cons. The other big debate is always the amount of imports Elite teams can sign. Always a hot debate with some saying it takes places away from Brits, whilst others saying if Brits were good enough, they would make it anyway.

The Cardiff Junior teams are on par with most junior clubs in the UK. They have good representation at all age groups in regional and national squads.

Behind the Devils there are a couple of ENL teams. That again is another hot topic with different view points from people.

 

[Johnnybravo1927]

My 7vyear old son plays for the junior devils. Loads of new starters lately and getting very popular. Going to be a few pro players in the future I am sure

 

[youngbob]

ENL is now named NIHL, you can find some info here

http://eiha.co.uk/nihl/

There are 2 teams,

Cardiff Devils, who are associated with the Devils and the Cardiff Junior Development system

Cardiff Fire, who are not

you can find details of team rosters here

http://www.eliteprospects.com/team.php?team=4525

http://www.eliteprospects.com/team.php?team=19062

the majority of players in both teams have come through the Cardiff Junior Development scheme, and on the Fire roster you can see several ex-Devils names