The face of hockey changed in November of 2024. This we now know.
The decision by the NCAA allowing major junior players to play Division 1 hockey is a little over a year old. The repercussions have come in waves. The initial wave saw a number of players immediately jump around junior leagues. Major junior leagues seemed to be the winners of this wave. High-level players that were in “college-eligible” leagues, many of whom already had declared their intentions to play for an NCAA program, quickly made the decision to hop to the WHL, OHL or QMJHL. For the first time ever, this did not compromise their ability to go and play south of the border afterwards.
Through the summer, the NCAA has seemingly returned fire, with high-level major junior defections such as Cayden Lindstrom, Porter Martone and the biggest name of them all, Gavin McKenna, among others, choosing to play this season in the NCAA.
As training camps rolled around, the CHL celebrated another wave of signings that otherwise would have likely played somewhere in the USHL/Prep School/Tier 2 Junior A ranks this season. But the NCAA didn’t go down without a fight, snapping up a couple of high-profile players right before the start of school. One example would be Adam Valentini, who was slated to play this season for the Kitchener Rangers of the OHL, but signed with the University of Michigan very shortly before players reported to camp.
Certainly, the elite tier of pre-professional hockey has had its movements, surprises and gyrations as we’ve moved towards the 2025-26 hockey season. But the chaos is reverberating through all levels of hockey.
It would be pretty tough to argue that players don’t currently have access to greater choice with regard to their career path than they did two years ago. But while choice is always a good thing, if channeled correctly, it is that channeling that is proving a challenge for many young players.
With choice comes the ability for bad actors to manipulate the people in the system. We are particularly seeing this as we move down the food chain, closer to the point where players move from youth hockey (typically U16 AAA) into either junior or prep school hockey. This is the point of greatest ambiguity right now. Major junior leagues are sorting through the dynamics of the current landscape. We have predicted in the past that major junior is going to get meaningfully older—in the form of far more 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds in the lineup.
We can speak firsthand to this experience. Rob is the Defensive Skills Coach at St. Andrew’s College. The there are five members of last year’s graduating class that are playing in the OHL this season. Four of those five already have NCAA scholarship commitments. These players all would have been playing elsewhere under the old system.
This is manifesting itself as the number of 16-year-olds in the league is falling. There are a number of second round picks from this spring’s OHL draft that have either yet to play a game through the first couple of weekends of the OHL season, aren’t with their OHL clubs at all (are playing in Tier 2), or are clearly playing very limited minutes. This is a meaningful deviation from the previous environment, as typically second-rounders would be in the lineup most, if not all, nights almost across the board. This should mean that there are more talented young players in the Tier 2 Junior A ranks.
The NCAA is changing in meaningful ways as well. We are now seeing players who have played professional hockey go back and play in the NCAA. And we aren’t talking about some second-rate league in a third-rate hockey country in Eastern Europe, but players that have played big chunks of seasons—or even full seasons—in the ECHL or even the AHL. We haven’t seen anyone with NHL games go back to the NCAA, but it wouldn’t be surprising. If you were a hockey person that had slipped into a coma in 2021 or 2022 and just woke up now, this would truly boggle the mind!
The transfer portal in the NCAA continues to be a beast in and of itself. Players are jumping around from one program to the next. It is becoming shockingly common to see players play for three or even four different NCAA schools over the course of their college hockey career. Our view on this is that the previous transfer system wasn’t right—the power rested with the schools and coaching staffs over the players in a wildly unbalanced way—but this system isn’t right either. Certainly, the NIL legislation is playing a role in this, with players chasing dollars from one school to the next.
An interesting idea that we heard recently was that a player gets to pick: transfer portal or NIL money. If the player takes NIL money, they cannot go into the portal. Or maybe they can’t go in for two years? Professional sports leagues don’t have unconstrained free agency for all players every single year, yet that is essentially what has been created in the NCAA today.
Teams at every level are scrambling to make promises and offers to players, get players to sign things, and make commitments. Agents are scrambling to secure places to play for their players and secure NIL dollars for players—and themselves! Coaches are trying to determine who is on their roster this week, and whether or not they will be there next week.
Now more than ever, it is critical for players that they have a plan. Know what it is that you want to get out of hockey. Know what is available to you. How do you build relationships? How do you avoid destroying them? These are all questions that you should have very clear, actionable answers to. And if you have someone helping you have those conversations and reach those conclusions, great! If not, consider reaching out to us. Or if not us, certainly find someone that you trust who can help you with this.
The hockey world has never been more fast paced, or more potentially deceptive. It’s not unrealistic to expect individuals to make decisions that are not in your best interest. Make sure that you have the right team around you. We are happy to help!
