[The Original FFIV]

Found this on Chris Nicols twitter. Wonder who it is but goes to show how much of a crapshoot the draft is with 18 year olds who are very much still works in progress.

Marek and Friedman were chatting about their own kids and the inevitable introduction of video games, when Marek shared this tidbit:

“On video games – and I’m not going to say the player’s name,” began Marek. “I really doubt he’s going to make it to the NHL and it’s because of a video game addiction. To the point where his junior general manager told me that they’ve had him go to counseling over it because he’ll play until all hours of the night and into the morning and then he’ll have no energy the next day. He’ll be a write-off. And it is that bad. He has this compulsion for playing video games until all hours.

“I swore that I wouldn’t say the player’s name. But it’s unfortunate. He’s a recent first-round draft pick for a very, very prominent NHL team – will probably never play in the NHL because of a video game addiction.”

“One thing I do know,” Friedman noted, “Is I know there are teams who will say, ‘After a certain point in the season, we don’t want those things on the road,’ and stuff like that. It’s sort of like MLB teams and golf clubs. Was there a point in the season where you told your players, ‘Okay, no more golf clubs on the road.’ And I do know of teams that have done that.

“But an addiction being the reason they haven’t made the NHL? Boy, that’ll be a heck of a story when somebody tries to do it.”

“And hopefully,” said Marek, ”And again, this is information that’s six months old. Actually, you might say a year old now. But it’s a terrible story because this guy is a good junior hockey player. This guy is a good player and was a high pick – and I’m probably saying too much right there – but there’s a good chance he’s not going to make it to the NHL and his general manager said, ‘Yeah, video game addiction is bad. It’s bad with this kid.’ “