Zach Hyman Keeps Scoring Despite Harsh Criticism

EDMONTON — Zach Hyman is a fantastic hockey player and even better human being.

How he became a member of the Edmonton Oilers is a truly fascinating story – one that I don’t have the time to go into depth here. Here is the cliff notes version:

He was a fifth round draft pick who was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs, spent five years in that system and never scored more than 21 goals while playing with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.

Zach Hyman. Marc DesRosiers-USA TODAY Sports

Now in his third season with the Oilers and he has set new personal goal scoring and point scoring records each season he’s been with the team. Despite all of this hard work, one person on twitter decided they needed to uncover the real reason why Hyman scored 50 goals – he came from a financially well off family.

Well this is certainly news to me – I thought every family could afford to put their kids through hockey. Yes, that last sentence was sarcastic. In order to play hockey on any kind of level for a prolonged period of time a player’s family needs to make financial sacrifices – or have a lot of money.

In the replies to this person’s post, one of the things he said, “No one is saying he didn’t earn it… However, his wealth, and his father’s monetary control of his career, absolutely is a factor in his accomplishments. Ignoring is is lying by omission.”

Another thing he said was, “when the framing [of the accomplishment] is only about hard work, it fails to pass what I would consider a basic level of reporting.”

Zach Hyman. Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports

So apparently – whenever any hockey player achieves any means of success, it’s the media’s job to always mention if the player came from a well-off family or not. If you don’t mention it, you are lying.

I guess I need to go back into every piece I’ve ever written about Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl and add a post script note detailing how neither player would have amounted to anything without their parent’s money.

I believe Ladislav Smid hits the nail on the head – there’s always a certain degree of luck with every hockey player who makes it. It isn’t enough to just have money, which is why lottery winners never become hockey players. It’s the perfect storm of money, hard work and skill that creates the ideal conditions for success.

Did money play a factor in Hyman having success, yes. Has money played a factor in every other hockey player’s success, also yes.

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