Elite Prospects Hockey

It's a good thing few people in the United States follow the Under-20 World Junior Championship, given the way the highly touted American squad spit the bit in the Czech Republic over the weekend. After going 4-0 through the preliminary round of the annual tournament that features the best young players in the world, the U.S. was outclassed 4-1 by Canada in the semifinal and then mailed it in, losing 4-2 to the Russians in the bronze medal game. After winning a bronze a year ago, the Americans were hoping to win back-to-back medals for the first time. Sadly, for those few who care, this year's failures have a maddeningly familiar ring to them.

The U.S. has become a fertile ground for developing top-notch hockey talent in the past decade. For the first time, U.S.-born players were selected 1st and 2nd at last year's NHL entry draft (namely, Patrick Kane and James vanRiemsdyk) and the American contingent at last year's draft represented a record 29.9 percent of all players selected. Ten Americans were taken in the first round each of the last two years. In short, the U.S. is producing top-level hockey talent in unprecedented numbers. Not that you'd know it looking at the results at the WJC. In spite of icing deep, talented squads for the past four or five years, American teams have one gold medal and one bronze to show for their efforts. All of which makes you wonder if the millions of dollars spent housing the National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich., are worth it.

Lewis Mongelluzzo, a longtime NHL scout now with the Ottawa Senators and a former USA Hockey talent evaluator for the national junior team, told ESPN.com on Sunday that while he has the utmost respect for the men who run USA Hockey, he thinks there has to be a dramatic change in culture within the national hockey body before American teams begin winning.

"Until they create a cultural environment that makes players accountable, they will vastly underachieve," Mongelluzzo said.

Mongelluzzo was involved with the seminal gold-medal win by the Americans in 2004 against Canada. It marked the last time the Canadians did not win gold at the tournament. Indeed, until the preliminary round this year, the Canadians had not lost a single game since that gold medal defeat at the hands of the Americans.

But therein lays the difference.

The Canadian program under coaches like Craig Hartsburg and his predecessor, Brent Sutter, is run like an NHL team. Players, although predominantly 18- and 19-year-olds, are treated as pros, which is commensurate with the expectations that surround the Canadian team each December. It is not a huge stretch to suggest that the pressure on the Canadian junior team each year is almost as great as the pressure on the Canadian men's Olympic teams. The tournament regularly draws enormous television ratings in Canada, and the players are feted as heroes when they win and are subject to scathing reviews when they don't.

The American program, while icing squads that matched up well with the Canadians on paper at least, have little external pressure on them to perform and clearly little internal pressure or motivation to make up for that.

Those who knew that 2004 American team, a team that erased a 3-1 third-period deficit in beating Canada, suggest Mike Eaves was that kind of coach, demanding accountability from his players throughout the tournament. It is a dynamic that has yet to be repeated, creating the impression that the NTDP coddles players as much as it develops them for international competition.

Why does it matter?

With the World Junior Championship coming to North America for the next four years (three times in Canada, once in the U.S. at a site yet to be determined), the ground is fertile for USA Hockey to build a following for the junior program, to create buzz around the team. But until USA Hockey can find a way to avoid what has become its annual malaise come WJC time, there will be little chance at traction.