There is no doubt that Thursday’s NCAA Division I Council meeting could result in major ramifications for elite men’s hockey, for players in their early teens right up to the NHL.
What is far less clear is exactly how the hockey landscape will shift if the council does the expected and green-lights a rule that would allow Canadian Hockey League players to compete at U.S. colleges. If approved, the rule would go into effect on August 1.
Currently, playing one CHL game disqualifies a player from competing in the NCAA. A class-action lawsuit filed Aug. 13 in U.S. District Court in Buffalo challenged the NCAA’s ban of players from the CHL’s Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.
“We don’t exactly know what’s going to happen,” CHL president Dan MacKenzie said. “We’ve heard rumours, various people coming forward with the feeling they believe they know how the rules are going to change. But we don’t really know that yet. So I think we have to take everything a little bit slowly on that front in terms of let’s see if the rule does change on (Thursday) and what the implications of it will be.”
To help get an idea of how this potential massive rule change could affect the sport, Sportsnet interviewed four people with different backgrounds in hockey:
• MacKenzie.
• USHL president/commissioner Glenn Heffernan.
• Queen’s University men’s hockey coach Brett Gibson.
• Former University of Wisconsin and Colorado Avalanche coach Tony Granato.
Sportsnet asked Heffernan if he felt you would get 10 different answers if you talked to 10 different hockey people about how they thought the sport would change if this rule passes.
“I think you’re bang on about that,” he said. “I think some people are clouded by what they think the outcome will be or what their preference will be.”
Added Gibson: “I feel like I’m in the unknown. I know it’s going to affect my recruiting 100 per cent. I know it’s going to affect the landscape of U Sports. But we just don’t know to what extent it’s going to affect it. I’m a firm believer that I think the NCAA is holding the cards right now and I’m just playing with them. That’s the hard part.”
With the lack of certainty in mind, we do our best here to provide some educated guesses to some key questions:
Is this a good thing for hockey?
Our four experts all agreed that there can be positives for players, though some were more bullish than others.
“I think for the fairness of everybody, it’s the right decision,” Granato said. “You can go play in the (CHL), just like you play in the USHL, and should be able to go to college. I think that’s the way it should be … At the end of day if you’re looking to have hockey grow and make it better, I think this is an opportunity to look at it that way and I think that’s what’s going to happen.”
Even Gibson, whose level of hockey could face the most significant challenges if this goes through, sees reasons why the NCAA should open the door to CHLers.
“I’m a firm believer in kids having an opportunity where they feel they can best develop,” he said. “That might be stupid on my part because that might go against my program. I think in hockey we kind of dictate the path (of players). But I think there’s an opportunity for kids to have a say in their path and I’m OK with that.”
When can a player leave the CHL for the NCAA?
Now, here’s a million-dollar question.
Canadian-born Macklin Celebrini played one year in the USHL with the Chicago Steel before going to Boston University for one season and then was picked first overall by the San Jose Sharks in this year’s NHL Draft.
So, could a future Celebrini-type prospect play one or two years in the CHL (depending on birthdate) and then head to the NCAA before embarking on a pro career?
As the current rules stand, a standard CHL contract for a drafted player wouldn’t allow that. In North America, a player typically stays in the CHL until their junior eligibility runs out, unless they make the NHL as a teenager.
“I can only talk about the way it is right now,” MacKenzie said, acknowledging things could change down the road. “We have contracts with our players, (where) we make commitments to the player in terms of their hockey development and education, and they make commitments to the teams in terms of their duration with the team.
“That’s the structure the way it exists now. I don’t want to speculate what it might look like two, three years from now. But that’s the way it is now. And it’s been a system that’s worked fairly well. Contracts players have signed have been recognized by federations, whether it be USA Hockey, Hockey Canada or international federations.”
CHL contracts have been the subject of debate for years in hockey circles — so it hardly seems like a sure thing this system remains in its current form.
Another hypothetical: perhaps we see a scenario where a CHL team grants an early exit to a Celebrini-type prospect in their contract so it can have the player for at least a year or two rather than never having him.
The USHL, meanwhile, is more than happy to see players leave after a year or two to go to the NCAA. That will continue to be a recruiting tool for that league if the CHL tries to hold firm on standard contracts.
“Our players are free to advance, whether that’s pro hockey or college hockey, at a pace that’s appropriate for them,” Heffernan said.
Will signed NHL players be able to play in the NCAA?
It doesn’t appear this rule change will allow that, which could help keep elite players in the CHL.
If a player is drafted out of the CHL, sometimes they are signed to NHL entry-level contracts (six or seven figures) and returned to junior.
In the NCAA, a player becomes ineligible once he signs with an NHL team.
No one is saying that’s about to change.
“I think as long as (a player) doesn’t sign an NHL contract, he’ll be able to maintain his (NCAA) eligibility,” Granato said. “If he played three years of Canadian junior (after a potential rule change), he can say ‘Well, I’m not ready to sign yet, I’ll go play college hockey.’”
What about the NHL Draft rules?
This appears to be something that’s going to have to be discussed while the NHL and NHLPA are discussing a new CBA.
Currently, a CHL player goes back in the draft (if he’s still age eligible) if he does not sign with the team that drafted him within two years. In the NCAA, NHL teams retain the rights to NCAA players for four years.
There’s a feeling something’s going to have to change on this front with many players expected to play in both systems.
“There’s no way (the NHL) is going to let a major junior player go to college and now he goes to college and has four more years (where he’s with the same NHL team),” Granato said.
Could all this lead to some sort of on-ice competition between the CHL and USHL?
You get two very different answers when you talk to Heffernan and MacKenzie about the potential of any arrangement.
Heffernan attended the Memorial Cup last season in Sagniaw, Mich., and has had discussions with MacKenzie, along with WHL commissioner Dan Near and QMJHL commissioner Mario Cecchini — he hasn’t yet connected with new OHL commissioner Bryan Crawford, but expects to do so.
When asked if he’d like to see USHL teams get a chance to compete for the Memorial Cup, Heffernan said: “I certainly would. … Or some North American championship. Maybe they can play for the Clark Cup (the USHL championship), too. I think having a North American championship would be outstanding. I think it would be a great television property and I think it would help us grow the game. I think so many pluses would come out of it.”
MacKenzie, however, isn’t reading from the same script.
“I think it’s way too premature to consider that right now,” he said. “I like Glenn, we have built a good rapport. But I think any speculation at that kind of level at this point is far too much premature. I’ll leave it at that at this point.”
Will CHL players cash in on NIL deals in the NCAA?
Name, Image and Likeness deals are all the rage in the NCAA, with athletes now able to make significant money while playing college sports.
We now see stories estimating which athletes have the highest NIL values.
One problem for Canadians, though.
Student-visa rules prevent Canadians in the NCAA from entering into the same type of deals as American counterparts — a story best illustrated by former Purdue basketball star and Toronto native Zach Edey, the two-time NCAA player of the year.
The student-visa rules are so significant that Kingston, Ont., native and former UConn basketball star Aaliyah Edwards could not talk about an NIL deal she signed with Adidas Canada while in the U.S. last year.
There is an opening for players to engage in more NIL deals when their team crosses the border into Canada, a big reason why Purdue’s men’s basketball team played a regular-season game against Alabama in Toronto last season.
There is no sense an NCAA-CHL shift would change NIL rules for non-U.S. student-athletes.
Could more NCAA hockey teams play games in Canada to help top recruits out? Stay tuned.
Could there be a negative impact for any type of players?
The ones who seem to be in a bit of a tricky spot are younger teenagers who already have verbally committed to NCAA programs.
If the door opens for CHLers to play in the NCAA, will their spots be threatened?
“Most (NCAA) teams are two to three years out in (verbal) commits,” Granato said. “Now, there will be six to seven Canadian junior players available to the program as well. So (programs are going to have to ask themselves) ‘what are we going to do with the commits we already have?’
What players will this affect most right off the bat?
It seems like it will be those finishing off their CHL eligibility, like the Regina Pats’ Braxton Whitehead, who announced a verbal commitment to Arizona State earlier this year despite the rule not being officially changed yet.
Suddenly, players like Whitehead will have a chance to play in the NCAA and perhaps be a late bloomer in rinks where NHL scouts are known to congregate.
From a CHL perspective, the league can sell CHL-draft-eligible kids on knowing they’re free to play in the NCAA down the road instead of having to make a huge decision one way or another around age 15.
“You can play in the league that’s considered the best (development) league in the world and then still have those options open for you,” MacKenzie said. “I think the net result is you’re going to have the best 16- to 19-year-olds playing in our league. … I think for us and our clubs, we just have to make sure we continue to provide that great experience and don’t take that for granted because at end of the day, players’ development is the most important thing.”
Added Granato: “Probably 90-plus per cent of players, are not going to be able to make an NHL team at 20 years old, maybe 99 per cent. Why wouldn’t you want to play longer, to get ready for your opportunity at 22, 23 as opposed to 19, 20 where Canadian junior players have to. I think that will be attractive for players who aren’t quite ready for pro hockey or don’t want to play in the minors.”
Perhaps this spells some trouble for the USHL, or a league like the BCHL in B.C. and Alberta.
Heffernan, however, thinks he has a good product to sell, even if NCAA rules do change.
“We’re going to continue to do a solid job,” he said. “We have great owners, good markets, great fans. I’m not overwhelmingly concerned about it. There’s steps we have to take that we’ve been working on to improve our product irrespective of this change.”
Will this take away potential top recruits for Canadian university programs?
Gibson acknowledges U Sports will lose some players to the NCAA.
But he doesn’t see this as a death knell for the Canadian university ranks. A Queen’s degree, for example, can be a key recruiting tool for a player who hopes to work in Canada after his competitive hockey career is over.
“Not everyone is going to be attracted to the NCAA, just like not everybody is going to be attracted to U Sports,” he said. “I think we’re going to lose guys, yes. But I think there’s going to be guys who naturally want to play in Canadian university. What we need to figure out is what the ground rules are. Right now, it’s the wild, wild west.”
Another area to watch is U Sports players (formerly of the CHL) transferring to U.S. colleges — which is starting to become more common in men’s basketball.
Michael Kelvin of the reigning national runner-up Queen’s men’s basketball team, for one, announced this summer he is transferring to Oklahoma State.
