The NCAA Finally Passed CHL Player Eligibility - Now What?
the hockey world is excited and yet stagnant to the changes following thursday’s vote. how are leagues, teams and personalities reacting?
written by james blennau
CHL and more specifically Canadian major junior hockey players are now eligible to compete in NCAA hockey. Barring a few regulations regarding financial compensation, of course, this changes the talent pool for college hockey tremendously. Leagues which were once the prime development centers for one of the NHL’s top feeder leagues could now become increasingly obsolete if they don’t change quickly enough.
The British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL), previosuly one of Canada’s largest pipelines to college hockey was one of the first to react to the seismic change in the hockey development landscape. What was once an independent haven for players across North America to develop without forgoing eligibility now becomes a larger piece of competition across the continent’s expansive junior hockey landscape.
Another prime location for player development, especially among US-born players, the United States Hockey League faces a similar conundrum to its British Columbia counterparts. With its midwest-spanning teams once being the hub of American player development, it now faces the same two options as all other leagues. Adapt, survive and compete, or stick to your guns and fall behind.
On the other hand, the CHL remains proud atop their pedestal as the top junior hockey league in the world, recognizing how much the NCAA’s decision means for their player development.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, the league said “It will also give young players and their families more options in choosing their development path, which includes opening up the CHL – the best development hockey league in the world for players aged 16-20 – to more players worldwide.”
While the NCAA is more known than most North American junior leagues for its foreign player development, the CHL sees this ruling as an opportunity to expand their player base. Other leagues like the BCHL and USHL are seemingly being left behind by the Canadians’ trail of dust and laughs as they could, if they choose, poach the top talent from across the continent and the world. The playing field is evened, and barring the players that are compensated for more than their necessities when playing for CHL clubs, competition for hockey’s top 16 to 20-year-old players is higher than ever.
These players that are receiving extra compensation could be the key for established NCAA feeder leagues to retain their footing in the recruiting landscape, however.
While the CHL had 390 player alumni on NHL opening night rosters as compared to the USHL’s 195 and BCHL’s minute 16 as compared to the other leagues, the latter two hold a strong advantage in NCAA recruitment knowledge. Players in the current recruiting cycles understand that they can’t take extra compensation while playing for those teams as the leagues were developed with NCAA eligibility in mind. Playing in the CHL, however, means players run the risk of one mis-step ruining their eligibility, and for most players, chances at a degree to better their life after hockey.
The NCAA, its established prospects and teams may be the most affected by these rules out of all the parties across developmental hockey.
Scott Norton of Norton Sports Management and CHN’s Mike McMahon raise the points that most of these players, teams and leagues need to hear right now. If teams don’t establish their alligiances to current prospects or junior teams, recruits and leagues could be left in the proverbial dust mentioned earlier by the CHL’s superior development and NHL presence. Players could be replaced on NCAA rosters, move to CHL teams for better development.
This could go on to the point that established junior leagues would have to leave their vague statements of keeping themselves established behind and scramble to find a better player development model than their neighbors to the North (or fellow countrymen). To those players and leagues who are waiting and seeing how things shake up, I wish you good luck. The college athletics world is always changing, and it’s tough to catch up when you stop for even a second.
For now, we await the long-term effects of this ruling on the game of hockey as those around it begin speculating, wondering what this could mean for the next year and especially the next decade.
