Hot off the presses -- it's that time of year again!
When the NCAA Division I ice hockey season gets underway it's quickly followed by an avalanche of misinformation about where players played last year, where they are from as part of the broader question of "What is the best path to college hockey?"
This information is extremely relevant to the thousands of players who are currently trudging that path toward the NCAA arena with an enormous amount of time, effort and -- let's face it -- money. Each year the battle for NCAA roster spots at all levels gets tighter and tighter, but it would be hard to find a topic that has more myths and misinformation in circulation than this "path."
The Junior Hockey Hub is the only in-depth source for NCAA ice hockey advancement and commitment information. Each year we scrub rosters of all NCAA men's ice hockey teams and formulate the data into meaningful reports that can be utilized by players, parents and even college hockey coaches themselves.
We advocate that if you are a player, and a coach or advisor tells you about the best path, ask them "Why?" Ask them "How many players have successfully followed that path to the NCAA?" Don't just take that information verbatim. Every facet of the youth-to-college development structure perpetuates this misinformation -- sometimes on purpose, sometimes just out of sheer lack of knowledge.
The opinion regarding your path may be customized to your style of play, for example, but the data doesn't lie. On the same hand the data isn't a singular guide to where you need to be, but it's an important criterion to use when making your choices or assessing your chances of playing college hockey.
For the 2021-22 season there are 376 freshmen (including the players who matriculated for spring semester last year after NCAA allowed an extra year of eligibility). Below are the levels from where these players directly advanced, with the comparison to 2020-21 data under the "2021" column.
Zero surprise that the United States Hockey League leads the way followed again by the North American Hockey League. For most United States players, and any college-bound foreign players, those are the leagues in which you'll most likely end up if you are a Division I player.
You'll notice the British Columbia Hockey League down 27 advancements, clearly due to the pandemic shutdown of that league in 2020-21. Same with the Central Canada Hockey League at -14. The "Other" column at -7 merely a reclassification of the European advancement for this 2021-22 because of the pandemic. In 2020-21 there were seven players who came directly from Europe, this past year there were 16 so we broke them down by country for a net gain of 9. We believe most of those players would have played in North American Junior leagues if it were possible.
One final oddity is that of Austen Swenkler, with Bowling Green, who was granted rare NCAA eligibility after competing for the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League in 2019-21. The NCAA views participation in the Canadian Major Junior leagues (OHL, Western Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) to nullify a player's eligibility. The last player to gain NCAA eligibility after playing Major Junior was Brayden Gelsinger, who entered Lake Superior State in 2016 after essentially a ruling error by the NCAA.
Any question please send to info@juniorhockeyhub.com. For the next few days we'll release additional NCAA Division I-related advancement data, so check back with The Junior Hockey Hub.
No comments:
Post a Comment