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Stefan Legein's decision this week to not attend the Columbus Blue Jackets' training camp may be an indication he's no longer interested in pursuing the NHL dream.

The 19-year-old may simply feel the need to walk away, for now, from a sport that places such high demands on kids as they chase that dream of playing in the NHL.

If Legein, a member of last year's Canadian world junior championship team and a second-round draft pick of the Blue Jackets in 2007, is suffering from burnout - and has temporarily lost his passion for the game - it doesn't mean he'll feel the same way in a month, or six months or two years from now.

Legein is still a teenager, so it's too early to say whether his disenchantment with the game - and the grind associated with it - is a permanent condition or something he will eventually work through.

That is the larger issue here: The demands placed on teenage prospects at the highest level may be doing many of them a disservice.

Not everyone wants to be immersed in the sport for the unwavering 24/7 commitment that is demanded these days. With summer development camps, off-season conditioning programs and ice time available year-round, it is a never-ending process. Seemingly, there are no breaks in a sport once rooted in our winter culture, but which has now spilled into all four seasons.

Officially, the Blue Jackets are saying little, other than to confirm that, for now anyway, Legein isn't planning to attend camp, which will begin in Traverse City, Mich., on Sept. 12.

Legein, a 5-foot-9, 170-pound agitator with an outgoing personality, would not likely figure into the club's NHL plans this season anyway. He was probably destined to spend the season playing for the Blue Jackets' minor-league affiliate in Syracuse, N.Y., or else return to the OHL's Niagara IceDogs as an overage player.

Legein had a year of wild highs and lows, according to sources with knowledge of his situation.

It started early. He was part of the Canadian junior team that won the Super Series against Russia last summer, an event held to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Summit Series in 1972. That meant convening in Toronto a year ago today for the start of a mini-camp, but largely obliged all the players to report in shape, without much of an off-season.

From there, it continued with his junior season, a break to play for Canada at the annual Christmas world junior tournament, where the right winger separated his shoulder in the gold-medal game. That injury, and his international playing commitments, limited Legein to 30 regular-season OHL games and a lot of rehabilitation last season.

Though he scored 37 points, his play reportedly tailed off toward the end of the season. When Niagara was eliminated from the playoffs, he reported to Syracuse, played two AHL playoff games and then, at his request, was given permission to go home rather than participate in the team's minor-league playoff run.

Legein's case may parallel that of Dan Ryder, a Calgary Flames prospect and younger brother of Michael Ryder of the Boston Bruins.

The younger Ryder walked away from hockey last season, without much of an explanation. It turns out he just needed a break. And after taking most of last year off, he is said to be revitalized and ready to forge a career in professional hockey.

So instead of calling Legein's waffling a retirement, let's more properly label it a sabbatical and see whether a break from the routine might not reignite his interest in the game.

Anyone who watched him play at the world junior tournament - or talked to him during the team's evaluation camp in Calgary last December - would have been struck by his high energy level and mystified by where it might have gone.

But burnout can strike every type of personality and it is never clear when a breaking point is reached. It doesn't have to mean forever and it shouldn't reflect negatively on a player's future.

It is something the greatest player in history, Wayne Gretzky, talked about repeatedly: How teenagers should be exposed to many different sports as they develop, and that the answer sometimes was to do less sport-specific training in order to develop all-round athleticism and maintain a healthy love of the sport in which their primary abilities lie.

Fun, something else Gretzky stressed, generally doesn't get mentioned nearly enough these days, either.

It may well be that Ryder and now Legein are at the front of the curve, the beginning of a backlash by players with an NHL upside against the overwhelming demands of the current system. They may well be speaking for any number of their peers, who feel the same way but say little for fear of developing a poor reputation - sometimes it can just get to be too much.

If that is the case, one can only hope that somebody out there is listening and paying attention.

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