First look up the AAA Blues program, there alumni is pretty impressive.
Second: All sports have ODPs or National teams sites, it doesn't change where the kids come from. From Soccer to Wrestling, track to Hockey, gymnastics to weightlifting, its just they way it works
Third you said the NCAA: well that's even dumber, you can't control where kids go to college at. My Son wrestled at NIU it doesn't make him from Chicago. We have SEC football; do all the players at Mizzou come from Missouri- No they don't actually maybe only about 20% do.
I understand how hockey development works. Better than you do. I don’t need you to tell me to look up the junior blues. All NHL teams have junior development programs. St. Louis’s is absolutely not notable in any way. Many NHLers who played in and retired in St. Louis had their kids in that program. Shock shock. No, the AAA blues do not have a “pretty impressive” alumni.
To your “second” and “third” points, I’ll just explain how hockey development works for you. Around the age of 15, a junior player will he scouted into major junior leagues. The CHL (Canadian Hockey League, composed of the OHL, WHL, and QMJHL) is the top development flight. That’s what’s commonly referred to as “major junior.” This is where the cream of the crop go. Americans will move to Canada. Europeans will move to Canada. Russians will move to Canada. The CHL is to the NHL as college football is to the NFL. The age ranges in this league are 16-21, though a CHL player becomes minor-professional-eligible at 20, so by then it is expected that a player be in the AHL.
Back in Europe and Russia, sports clubs are more traditionally structured. The leagues are all intertwined, and there’s nothing stopping a 16 year old from playing at the top or second flight if they’re good enough (some age restrictions do apply). Typically speaking, drafting a euro or Russian player means more training to adjust to the North American style, but less to training them how to play against pros. This is why loads of players who are gold enough will flock to the CHL in their teens.
College hockey, on the other hand, is seen as traditionally inferior to the CHL. The NCAA is the routine American development path, which comes with the significant setback in that a player won’t be free to switch to a pro game until 21 or 22 years old - at which point they’re typically eligible for shaking off their designated team restrictions as a free agent and signing elsewhere (and heading straight to the AHL or ECHL on most accounts). CHL players cannot enter the NCAA system (against NCAA rules), so lots of American talent will still go through the NCAA system if only because not every 15 year old wants to uproot their life to go for the CHL.
So that brings us to the fucking point. Who goes to the NCAA? Americans. What do they do from the age of 16-18 while their Canadian counterparts are playing with the world’s top talent? They play junior hockey. Where? The USNTDP. Well, unless their location already features premier junior hockey. Oh, I don’t know, like in Minnesota. Or Massachusetts. Or not St. Louis. Or definitely not St. Louis.
I mean dude your very premise of promoting St. Louis as a hockey development site where they make few but great players is totally obnoxious when you try to use the Tkachuck kids as evidence. What, Stastny kids next? Did it ever occur to you that maybe they were born into royalty? Like, when Pavel Bure’s kid is ready to become an NHLer do you think Floridians will start calling him a product of Florida? Homegrown?
Anyways. US hockey development has grown a lot in the last decade. Places like St. Louis have seen hockey development grow, owing thanks to the NHL teams in the area and their former players setting up their lives there.
You still have absolutely no ground to stand on regarding the productivity or quality of St. Louis hockey development. It just isn’t there dude.