WarriorofTime
Registered User
- Jul 3, 2010
- 28,905
- 17,051
There was a bit of a historical bias that college hockey was for players that "couldn't crack" major juniors. For a while, you had to wait an extra year once you already played a season of college hockey to get drafted, making prospects generally a year older and thus less desirable (older age = lower ceiling so you gotta really wow to be seen as being as good as players a year younger to work against that impression). There also historically were not a ton of Americans. Going back even further, direct sponsorship of junior hockey made that the only feasible path towards the NHL.
As expansion and the WHA created a larger demand for hockey players, alternative paths were explored, and the grassroots hockey in certain parts of the USA took off, college hockey grew and more pro opportunities were created for NCAA hockey players. This in turn lead to more NHL opportunities. The Miracle of Ice also did a good bit to help College Hockey's reputation, a team of college kids (NHL prospects mind you, 13 went on to play in the NHL, five over 500 games and three over 1,000 games) went out and beat the Soviets, even in a flukey "miracle" fashion, that was a Soviet team that had proven themselves up to the task of playing competitively with Canadian NHL bests in various competition.
Even still, there definitely remained a time college guys had a bit of a negative reputation, NCAA has an automatic one game suspension for fighting and until recently, the ability to fight was seen as a major plus in prospect evaluation and necessity for all NHL lineups. There was the notion that they were "preppy college boys" that were less serious about hockey, which you can attribute to general resistance to change, anti-intellectualism and insecurity about being seen as "dumb jocks" for their own lack of formal secondary education.
Biggest change has probably been the overall growth in American Hockey, where NCAA has consistently been the "default" path. The change in the Draft rules to that college-bound players didn't have to wait a year plays a big role as well, as they are now judged on the same level and same time regardless of when they enter. As a wider proportion of NCAA players go pro, there becomes less and less concern that NCAA Hockey is an inferior path towards making the NHL. Historical patterns still result in a higher share of CHL players ending up in the NHL, but as waves of new NCAA Hockey players make the NHL and play at a high level, matching up the correlation and the causation becomes more difficult to attribute to anything particularly special going on in major junior development circles. Any player going NCAA Hockey doesn't have to worry that they won't be facing enough NHL talent. Some teams have double digit draft picks on their rosters.
Add to that, the obvious benefits of choosing your own path, and the fact that hockey players are now coming from more affluent backgrounds and the notion that education IS important and something many want regardless of whether they make the NHL or not. NCAA Hockey offers an opportunity to both earn a degree and remain on the NHL track simultaneously. With the education package, USports is becoming more of a dead-end for hockey, so it's often a choice at the end of the day, pursue pro hockey and end your educational journey (maybe you go back later in life which is more complicated) or end your pro hockey dreams and make an educational choice. An NCAA Hockey player doesn't really have to make that choice, they can work towards credits or finish it while playing in a pro hockey feeder. Those realistic about NHL futures will see that there are benefits to having lots of flexibility in terms of time of entering and leaving NCAA Hockey.
Some dinosaurs may still be stuck in the old way of thinking about the differences here, but for this generation of players, it's a whole different ballgame and it's unsurprising many very high-end kids on both sides of the North American border are seeing the appeal to the NCAA path.
As expansion and the WHA created a larger demand for hockey players, alternative paths were explored, and the grassroots hockey in certain parts of the USA took off, college hockey grew and more pro opportunities were created for NCAA hockey players. This in turn lead to more NHL opportunities. The Miracle of Ice also did a good bit to help College Hockey's reputation, a team of college kids (NHL prospects mind you, 13 went on to play in the NHL, five over 500 games and three over 1,000 games) went out and beat the Soviets, even in a flukey "miracle" fashion, that was a Soviet team that had proven themselves up to the task of playing competitively with Canadian NHL bests in various competition.
Even still, there definitely remained a time college guys had a bit of a negative reputation, NCAA has an automatic one game suspension for fighting and until recently, the ability to fight was seen as a major plus in prospect evaluation and necessity for all NHL lineups. There was the notion that they were "preppy college boys" that were less serious about hockey, which you can attribute to general resistance to change, anti-intellectualism and insecurity about being seen as "dumb jocks" for their own lack of formal secondary education.
Biggest change has probably been the overall growth in American Hockey, where NCAA has consistently been the "default" path. The change in the Draft rules to that college-bound players didn't have to wait a year plays a big role as well, as they are now judged on the same level and same time regardless of when they enter. As a wider proportion of NCAA players go pro, there becomes less and less concern that NCAA Hockey is an inferior path towards making the NHL. Historical patterns still result in a higher share of CHL players ending up in the NHL, but as waves of new NCAA Hockey players make the NHL and play at a high level, matching up the correlation and the causation becomes more difficult to attribute to anything particularly special going on in major junior development circles. Any player going NCAA Hockey doesn't have to worry that they won't be facing enough NHL talent. Some teams have double digit draft picks on their rosters.
Add to that, the obvious benefits of choosing your own path, and the fact that hockey players are now coming from more affluent backgrounds and the notion that education IS important and something many want regardless of whether they make the NHL or not. NCAA Hockey offers an opportunity to both earn a degree and remain on the NHL track simultaneously. With the education package, USports is becoming more of a dead-end for hockey, so it's often a choice at the end of the day, pursue pro hockey and end your educational journey (maybe you go back later in life which is more complicated) or end your pro hockey dreams and make an educational choice. An NCAA Hockey player doesn't really have to make that choice, they can work towards credits or finish it while playing in a pro hockey feeder. Those realistic about NHL futures will see that there are benefits to having lots of flexibility in terms of time of entering and leaving NCAA Hockey.
Some dinosaurs may still be stuck in the old way of thinking about the differences here, but for this generation of players, it's a whole different ballgame and it's unsurprising many very high-end kids on both sides of the North American border are seeing the appeal to the NCAA path.
