Quote:
Originally Posted by diane_phaneuf
another problem for Canada, and to an extent the US
if a Canadian or American born player is world class, they are more likely to play for another country through their ancestry. Look at Hargreaves playing for England, or recently Guiseppe Rossi playing for Italy instead of the US.
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I don't believe that this is a big of a problem as the CSA believes it to be and actually shows just how off the mark they are. Instead of figuring out ways to keep players like Hargreaves and Rossi on this side of the Atlantic, we should be finding ways to develop more Hargreaves and Rossi's. By letting these kids go over to Europe we are taking a load off of our development system as we can let the European clubs polish our players off, which they can do a lot better than we will be able to for the foreseeable future, and spend our time and money on getting more players to the level where European clubs are interested in taking them off of our hands. For the first generation or two we will risk losing those players to European national teams but after a while we will reach a critical mass and the players will realize that there are enough of them to field a competitive squad wearing the Canadian badge. However, all of this will take leadership and reform similar to the type that Australia has recently experienced.