Hockey's Mike Modano Scores 500th Career Goal

Mike Modano has had a fabulous career. Modano was born in Livonia Michigan 36 years ago. On Tuesday March 13th, 2007, Modano solidified his great career with an addition into the record books. He scored his 500th against Antero Niitymaki and the Philadelphia Flyers in the third period of Tuesdays game. Modano took a quick shot from inside the goal mouth for his 15th of the season. Modano joins a handful of active players who have 500 goals on their career. Modano is among other greats such as Brendan Shanahan, Jaromir Jagr, Joe Sakic, Peter Bondra, Mats Sundin, Mark Recchi, Pierre Turgeon, and Teemu Selanne. Modano also became the second highest scoring American born player trailing Joe Mullen by just 2 goals. Modano has spent his whole career with the Stars. First he was drafted by the Minnesota North Stars and then the team moved down to Dallas. All of his 500 goals were scored with one club, an amazing fact that shows Modano's leadership and loyalty to the Stars organization. It also says a lot about his character as a man off the ice. Usually a quiet and mild mannered man, Modano was simply thrilled to score his 500th in front of his home town crowd.

In the past, the majority of hockey players came from Canada and other countries. Russia, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Sweden among the top countries to produce elite talent for the NHL. The US has only recently spent large sums of money to upgrade college hockey programs and provide young US born players to develop into solid professional hockey players. Players such as New Jersey Devils' forward Brian Gionta and Colorado Avalanche defenseman John-Michael Liles are proof that the college system can work for certain types of players. Other players skip the college process all together and are recruited by a team in the Junior leagues. The best of these leagues are located in Canada and such talent surfacing from this type of program are players like San Jose Sharks Forward Joe Thornton and Pittsburgh Penguins phenom Sydney Crosby. Other countries have programs similar to Junior programs like Russia's Elite leagues which produced players like Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin and Pittsburgh Penguins Rookie Evgeni Malkin. In the next few years I believe we will see many more American born players enter the league and dominate the way foreign players have in the past. The youth programs are rapidly increasing their talent range, and college hockey has proven to cater to players needs. They also provide an education if these players in fact get hurt or can not make it playing professional hockey. Look out for the Americans in the future. We`re here to stay.