<p>"THE MOST CENTRAL STRUCTURE IN BILL DAY’S LIFE right about now might well have been Thomas Jefferson’s rotunda at the University of Virginia. Instead, it’s the Schwan Super Rink, 148,000 square feet of ice in the Minneapolis suburb of Blaine. Housed in a sprawling rust-red brick complex, the Super Rink emerges from the prairie like a temple to youth ice hockey.</p>
<p>On a weekend in mid-November, college scouts, parents and teenagers are pouring into the hockey center for the Junior Jamboree, an all-star game showcasing the country’s top pre-college players organized by USA Hockey, the governing body for amateur hockey. One of those talents is Bill Day, 18, a 2006 graduate of George Marshall High School in Fairfax County and a defenseman with the Washington Junior Nationals, a high-level USA Hockey junior league team. Bill has just flown in as one of the junior league’s all-stars – an elite group of players hoping to impress the dozens of college scouts.</p>
<p>Down in the rink’s locker room, as loogies are hocked and barbs are traded, Bill, a stony-faced, 5-foot-9, 175-pounder, is silent and jittery. Unlike most other players in the room, he has already been admitted to a university. But right now, this game is more important to him than college. Since U-Va. only has a club hockey team – and not a competitive Division I program – Bill has decided to take a “gap year” and defer his college enrollment so he can continue playing in the junior league, which he hopes will enable him to land a hockey scholarship at an equally prestigious university. He’s playing the system, in other words, rigging it so that he gets to keep U-Va. in his back pocket and use his year off to court schools he prefers."</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101716.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101716.html</a>
and another article at:
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/04/AR2007080400632.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/04/AR2007080400632.html</a></p>
<p>Fascinating articles in the Washington Post this weekend about gap years. Interesting how some kids are using it to gain the system but all of them seem highly motivated and smart kids.</p>
<p>What do you guys think?</p>