[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by fotze

Oh I know it didn't fit with the conclusion whatshisnuts was making, just thought it was interesting as I completely see the effect already watching my kid play in novice as a Dec bday.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious and results in most NHL players being born early in the year (March seems to be a good month). So plan ahead guys if you want to sire the next one.

The first chapter in "Outliers" is about how some Canadian hockey players born in the first months of the year enjoy advantages that those born later in the year don't have. You also write that birth month correlates closely with success in other sports. Why is this? It's a beautiful example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In Canada, the eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey programs is Jan. 1. Canada also takes hockey really seriously, so coaches start streaming the best hockey players into elite programs, where they practice more and play more games and get better coaching, as early as 8 or 9. But who tends to be the "best" player at age 8 or 8? The oldest, of course -- the kids born nearest the cut-off date, who can be as much as almost a year older than kids born at the other end of the cut-off date. When you are 8 years old, 10 or 11 extra months of maturity means a lot. A Page 2 study After checking out Malcolm's Gladwell's new book, "Outliers," and his explanation of why Canadian hockey players born early in the year have a big advantage, we conducted a little study: We tallied up all the NHL players from this season who were born from 1980 to 1990. Sure enough: Many more were born early in the year than late. Note: We did not screen for Canadian-only players. Month Players January 51 February 46 March 61 April 49 May 46 June 49 July 36 August 41 September 36 October 34 November 33 December 30


So those kids get special attention. That's why there are more players in the NHL born in January and February and March than any other months. You see the same pattern, to an even more extreme degree, in soccer in Europe and baseball here in the U.S. It's one of those bizarre, little-remarked-upon facts of professional sports. They're biased against kids with the wrong

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...=merron/081208