“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen“
The above quote is often attributed to the founding head of Soviet Russia, Vladimir Lenin. While we certainly aren’t here to discuss politics, we may well look back on the landscape of hockey in relatively short order and decide that this quote may have been prescient for the period of late 2024-early 2025.
In a series of posts, we are going to discuss the truly vast implications of what appears to be the imminent rule changes that will allow players that played in the CHL (the big three major junior leagues in Canada) to play NCAA hockey after their CHL career has reached its conclusion. How wide-ranging will the impact be? It will be literally game-changing. In these pieces, we do a deep dive on the dynamics of this decision and the implications for:
- The NHL
- The AHL
- The CHL (OHL, WHL and QMJHL)
- The NCAA/NIL Legislation
- The USHL
- Canadian and U.S. Tier II Junior A&B
- Prep School
- USports
- Elite level youth hockey (U14-U16 AAA)
- Many other stakeholders!
There has been much discussion around the possibility of CHL players being able to one day play in the NCAA. It has been covered by some of the preeminent hockey journalists in the world. Some of the biggest player agents are Tweeting (X’ing?) about it. But what I have yet to see is any discussion on many of the second- and third-order effects that we evaluate in this deep dive that we will be rolling out over the next couple of weeks. Keep your eyes peeled on SkateGuard’s LinkedIn, Instagram and X accounts, as well as on the SkateGuard blog. This sea change is long overdue in the hockey world, and SkateGuard is your go-to platform for all the latest information.
It is very likely that major change is upon us in the hockey world. The power structure of the sport, particularly a player’s transition from “youth hockey” to a more competitive environment, has remained largely unchanged for much of hockey’s history. High-level youth players (typically the “AAA” level in most major centres) would get to 15 or 16 years old, and then they would have to make a decision:
- They would choose to go the “major junior” route. The first point of contact here is typically a draft. The OHL and the QMJHL do their draft after the season that ends in the spring of the year that a player turns 16 years old, and the WHL does the same but for 15-year-olds.
- They would choose to go the “NCAA/college” route. This typically involved finding a tier II Junior A/B team, or an elite prep school, to play for the next 2+ seasons until the player finishes high school at 18 to 19 years old.
That decision was forced upon players due to the fact that the NCAA viewed the Canadian Hockey League (the body that oversees the three major junior leagues) as a “professional” league. This generally stemmed from the fact that major junior leagues pay their players—for a long time, the going rate has been about $50 a week—and players could sign contracts with NHL teams and then return to major junior hockey. Neither of these elements were present in the NCAA for decades.
This is changing—fast. In the face of lawsuits in the short term and the new economics of collegiate sport in the long term, it seems likely that individuals who have played Canadian major junior hockey will be allowed to play NCAA hockey at some point soon.
It has been a long time coming. Many people point to the 2009 class action lawsuit filed against the NCAA, with former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon serving as the frontman, claiming that an EA Sports basketball video game used the players’ “likeness” without any form of compensation, as the genesis of this change. It was ultimately decided that the NCAA’s amateurism rules were an unlawful restraint of trade. California became the first state to pass name, image and likeness (“NIL”) legislation (the “Fair Pay to Play Act”) in 2019, with enactment originally slated for 2023. Many other states eventually followed suit, expediting the adoption of NIL legislation around the country. Ultimately, in NCAA vs. Alston, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA is not exempt from antitrust regulations.
By 2022, the NCAA Board of Directors had adopted NIL guidance to member schools. It means that student athletes are able to enter into agreements with outside entities to receive compensation for the use of their name, image or likeness.
This does come with some caveats. Arguably most importantly for hockey players, given the geographic makeup of the players, Canadians must be very careful not to run afoul of the terms of their student visa. It is very important to remember that from an immigration perspective, the reason you are allowed to live and study in the U.S. is that you are on a student visa. One of the terms of that visa is that you are not allowed to work in the United States. Therefore, if you are to benefit from any of the new NIL legislation, the work must be performed outside the United States. Otherwise, you will be in violation of the terms of your student visa.
However, where there are problems, there will be solutions. It is our opinion that sooner rather than later, there will be options for athletes born outside of the United States to take advantage of the NIL legislation. We are already hearing rumours of players making meaningful sums of NIL money in men’s college hockey. The bigger, overriding issue, of course, is this: If the NCAA now allows players to effectively earn an income, how can the organization justify banning Canadian major junior players because they effectively earn an income?
The Fork in the Road
We don’t think Yogi Berra was thinking of junior and/or college hockey when he uttered his famous quote, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” But it may be the reality for 15- and 16-year-old elite-level hockey players in the near future.
For decades, any player that made the decision to play major junior hockey forfeited their eligibility to play NCAA hockey. And “playing major junior hockey” was often considered as little as spending 48 hours at a major junior training camp. Or accepting any kind of consideration (money, food, lodging, equipment) from a major junior team.
As we touched on earlier, the reasoning behind this was that the NCAA viewed the CHL as “professional hockey.” Between the weekly stipend CHL players receive (which is not considered income for tax purposes) and the fact that players can sign an NHL contract and then return to play in the CHL, the NCAA viewed this league as compromising a player’s amateur status.
However, with the NCAA now permitting NIL deals, the courts may get a chance to rule on whether the NCAA still has grounds to prohibit CHL players from playing in the NCAA. The consensus around the hockey world seems to be that the NCAA will have very little chance of continuing to keep CHL players out. It might even decide to remove the ban all by itself. If CHL players being able to play in the NCAA becomes a new reality, then what was once a fork in the road for every player coming out of youth hockey simply becomes the new path.