That's really what I wanted to know. Is there an emerging new source of talent? I guess SKA's school, not really new but probably is getting more financial backing.
Can Sochi be a new source soon?
I think I might misunterstood the thread question a bit, are we talking about hockey schools all-time or just recently/currently?
If we're talking about the current situation, I'd highly doubt that Traktor is #1 as other posters stated here, not a lot of top prospects from there recently. In my opinion Dynamo, Lokomotiv, CSKA and Ak Bars (and by Ak Bars I kind of mean also other Tatarstan hockey schools like Neftyanik and Neftekhimik, because, iirc, Ak Bars pretty often lures top players out of there) are the top tier with Traktor and Magnitka a bit behind.
About the future, recently SKA made affiliations with Dynamo St. Petersburg and Serebryanie Lvy (and their hockey school has a solid reputation), so, if I understand correctly, now we can say that SKA covers all the St.Petersburg the same way as Traktor does in Chelyabinsk, so we might expect something good here.
How would you guys rank them?
Yaroslavl, Magnitka, CSKA, St Pete? Others?
That's really what I wanted to know. Is there an emerging new source of talent? I guess SKA's school, not really new but probably is getting more financial backing.
Can Sochi be a new source soon?
Don't expect anything form Sochi. SKA is basically hurting it's own school by buying young talent from all over the country in bunches.
A school is a process. Top notch players aren't going to spring from the ground in a couple of years after creating a school.
I expect Yaroslavl and Kazan to start producing really good ones soon.
Some real good ones recently but under the radar are Nizhnekamsk and Novokuznetsk obviously because of the not so impressive KHL teams, but those schools produce amazing talent.
Aren't those already actively producing?