<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1985, Paula Barnsley\u2014a co-researcher who, alongside her husband Dr. Robert Barnsley, went on to discover relative-age-effects\u2014noticed a pattern in the birthdays of hockey players when attending a Western Hockey League game in Lethbridge, Alberta. Most players were born in January, February, and March. Canada has a strict January 1st cutoff for its youth Hockey league, resulting in kids born on December 31st being an entire year younger than those born on January 1st. This scenario is referred to as the relative age effect, where children born just after a cutoff are older and thus develop faster than those born on the ends of the cutoff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nature vs. Nurture is a classic argument between genetics and environment in psychology. In sports, nature is the body you inherit: height, speed, lung capacity, and any other factors that give you an advantage. Nurture is everything that is done to that body, such as coaching, training, and the chance to play tournaments and other competitions that give you experience. Sports have long been treated as the purest form of meritocracy, where the best players rise to the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the relative age effect seems to contradict this premise, a meta-analysis of 38 studies across 14 sports found that the effect is consistent but small overall, and it is strongest among adolescent males competing for limited spots (Coby et al., 2009). In the NHL (National Hockey League), the skew is milder: 32% of players born from 1989 to 1990 were born in the first quarter and 19% were born in the last (The Side Quest, 2026). A 2024 review of hockey research found the effect to be weaker in the NHL than in minor Hockey, illustrating how the effect wears off once players stop growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, there seems to be a rising trend, and a more influential factor among hockey players that may not have anything to do with age: the wealth gap. The Side Quest matched U.S. born pro athletes\u2019 hometown to local median income and found the percentage coming from richest towns has grown in every major league since the 1990s. The NFL (National Football League), went from supplying 10% to 25%, while the poorest percentage fell from 43% to 33%. In hockey, over 30% of the U.S.-born NHL athletes came from the poorest towns in the 1990s, compared to the 10% today\u2014with nearly half now coming from the richest households. This data is all relative, meaning it accounts for the distribution of wealth among the population and is not susceptible to people getting wealthier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On one hand, this is good news. More wealth gives access to better coaching, better training, and better nutrition\u2014which help in producing better athletes. The problem is who gets that nurture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daniel Markovits, the author of The Meritocracy Trap, describes success as a product of three inputs: effort, talent, and training. Sports have long been treated as the purest meritocracy, the place where raw ability wins out. However, as training becomes something that is being bought and sold\u2014with higher quality training being sold at higher prices\u2014the opportunity to even compete in these sports becomes dim, and raw ability becomes a byproduct of wealth. A kid with the same talent and work ethic but without any money for training camps, tournaments, travel teams, or private coaching is competing against other kids who have a headstart. What\u2019s more is that this wealth gap does not seem to have an end point. Therefore, this inequality will simply keep on compounding every year, creating even more disparity, mirroring the advantage that the players born in January had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bibliography<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cobley, Stephen, et al. \u201cAnnual Age-Grouping and Athlete Development: A Meta-Analytical Review of Relative Age Effects in Sport.\u201d Sports Medicine<\/em>, vol. 39, no. 3, 2009, pp. 235\u201356.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barnsley, R. H., et al. \u201cHockey Success and Birthdate: The Relative Age Effect.\u201d CAHPER Journal<\/em>, vol. 51, 1985, pp. 23\u201328.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Markovits, Daniel. The Meritocracy Trap: How America\u2019s Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite<\/em>. Penguin Press, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gurol, Nick. \u201cThere\u2019s a New Relative Age Effect (It\u2019s Worse).\u201d The Side Quest<\/em>, Aug. 2026, thesidequest.com\/posts\/lottery-of-life\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1985, Paula Barnsley\u2014a co-researcher who, alongside her husband Dr. Robert Barnsley, went on to discover relative-age-effects\u2014noticed a pattern in the birthdays of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":2307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-pieces","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2306,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions\/2306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}