New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

[FreshFish]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

There's no such thing as an academic scholarship at Harvard (or any other Ivy). Financial assistance is based on need, and need alone. Now, you can be named as a "McBadgerton Scholar" or other such awards based on your merit, but to the extent that there is any assistance tied to that honor, the amount has to be based solely on need. If Bill Gates, Jr. cured cancer at age 11, solved World Peace at 16 and won Olympic gold medals at 18, he'd still pay full tuition at Harvard.

That's not quite true, though it's pretty close, because of the availability of paid work. It's not quite as bad as the star college football player getting a sales job at the local auto dealer/head of booster club during the offseason, but there are (legal, legitimate) ways for the schools to get money to athletes that isn't based solely on "need" and technically is not a scholarship either.


They may have beefed up the supervision lately, but in the past, one easy way to get money to an athlete not based on need was to have a host family invite him/her to live in their home, rent-free.

[TimU]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

This, more than anything, is the most disingenuous part of Lucia's comments. Older players going on to college aren't expecting to end up in the NHL - they probably still want to, and see college as a last-chance opportunity to make the show, but in the front of their minds they're usually thinking "well, if I'm good enough to play in college, I can at least turn hockey into a degree that I can use going forward."

Except it takes four years for most players to earn a bachelor's degree. Only got three years of eligibility? Whoops, that's not going to work.

True.

It's college hockey, Don, not hockey college. Lucia doesn't hesitate in the slightest to recruit a kid he knows is never going to graduate, so one can probably excuse him for not knowing the difference.

I agree here too, although THIS is actually the part of the interview where I though Lucia was the most disingenuous (on the issue of trying to tilt the scales in his favor because he runs one of the programs that can and does recruit from the smaller pool of one-and-done talent). How do we know whether we'll have these guys for one, two, or four years? Oh please. Not only does he know that his 18-year-old first-rounders aren't going to last more than a year in the NCAA (and good for them, by the way), but I would be shocked if part of Lucia's recruiting pitch doesn't go something like "I can put you on the fast track to the NHL, and you can win a national championship before you go."

[Toe Blake]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

Knowing that the average student who enters college after time off from high school perform better than the average student who enters college directly from high school, it wouldn't bother me in the least. I would even suggest it if I didn't think the kid could make it to the pros but could still play on a college team. A few (very few) even take some online/correspondence courses while playing in the juniors so they have an easier time graduating college while at school playing for the team. Drew LeBlanc was working on his master's degree when he won the Hobey.

Not sure what your source for this is but for the sake of discussion I'll assume it's accurate on the academics. How about a junior leaving his high school, moving to another town, and going to a new high school just because a college coach who has given him a worthless commitment tells him he needs to develop in juniors? I'm glad my kid is not an elite player because I know I wouldn't want him to cut his high school experience short. And I only get him for 18 years, so I wouldn't want to miss the senior year for the sake of a potential college hockey experience. But that is the position many kids / parents are forced into with the current system. From families I know, it's a very difficult decision that impacts the family significantly and carries high risk. And, for every kid who gets that chance to play D1 due to his junior experience, know that there are literally hundreds forced out of the D3 experience due to the junior kids who don't make it to the D1 level. My point is this system is not ideal for the participants and their families. But it is profitable for the junior leagues.

[St. Clown]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

Not sure what your source for this is but for the sake of discussion I'll assume it's accurate on the academics. How about a junior leaving his high school, moving to another town, and going to a new high school just because a college coach who has given him a worthless commitment tells him he needs to develop in juniors? I'm glad my kid is not an elite player because I know I wouldn't want him to cut his high school experience short. And I only get him for 18 years, so I wouldn't want to miss the senior year for the sake of a potential college hockey experience. But that is the position many kids / parents are forced into with the current system. From families I know, it's a very difficult decision that impacts the family significantly and carries high risk. And, for every kid who gets that chance to play D1 due to his junior experience, know that there are literally hundreds forced out of the D3 experience due to the junior kids who don't make it to the D1 level. My point is this system is not ideal for the participants and their families. But it is profitable for the junior leagues.

Leaving school early for hockey is a non-starter for me. Academics before sport.

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

Not sure what your source for this is but for the sake of discussion I'll assume it's accurate on the academics. How about a junior leaving his high school, moving to another town, and going to a new high school just because a college coach who has given him a worthless commitment tells him he needs to develop in juniors? I'm glad my kid is not an elite player because I know I wouldn't want him to cut his high school experience short. And I only get him for 18 years, so I wouldn't want to miss the senior year for the sake of a potential college hockey experience. But that is the position many kids / parents are forced into with the current system. From families I know, it's a very difficult decision that impacts the family significantly and carries high risk. And, for every kid who gets that chance to play D1 due to his junior experience, know that there are literally hundreds forced out of the D3 experience due to the junior kids who don't make it to the D1 level. My point is this system is not ideal for the participants and their families. But it is profitable for the junior leagues.

Maybe USHL/NAHL, others should start offering college cost $ like MJ has started to allow participants get money towards college after they leave?

[joecct]

Leaving school early for hockey is a non-starter for me. Academics before sport.

If you're a genius chemical engineer and Dow wanted you to start working for them full time after your sophomore year, would you say no?

[St. Clown]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

If you're a genius chemical engineer and Dow wanted you to start working for them full time after your sophomore year, would you say no?

No, but that's an apples-and-oranges argument you're making. If the kid's in high school, I'm still the parent who has the authority to say he's not leaving school to play hockey. If my child were in his/her sophomore year of college, the child would be the adult and can make its own decision.

Also, college hockey and the juniors are not offering a career or high-paying job. They're offering a chance to pursue a game at an amateur level where only a small portion of the people playing ever go on to the pros and make money actually playing it.

Add to that, if the child is so brilliant as to be pursued by large companies before graduation, then the child can make up its own mind as to whether or not to pursue a degree while off the clock.

[Toe Blake]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

Leaving school early for hockey is a non-starter for me. Academics before sport.

In my opinion, this is only slightly different from leaving school for two years to play hockey before returning to school. You can always find examples where the system worked well for a kid, but in my opinion, overall the impact is negative for most hockey families. If it was really a good thing for the student athlete and family, we would see similar systems in other sports.

Interestingly, this is not a new issue. It actually goes back to the Denver - Minnesota rivalry between John Mariucci and Murray Armstrong. Mariucci had a roster full of baby faced kids from Minnesota high schools. Armstrong had a roster of 22-26 year old Canadian men who had Canadian junior experience but washed out of any professional career. Mariucci refused to play Denver even though they were in the same league. Not exactly the same issue as today, but similar philosophical differences. I guess you could say both sides benefited. Denver won multiple national championships with Armstrong's commitment to the "mature" Canadians. Mariucci's commitment to Minnesota high school kids eventually resulted in the growth of high school hockey (and community based youth hockey) to the point where Minnesota kids get more college scholarships than any other state. I guess I fall on the side of Mariucci in that his commitment was more in the spirit of college student athletes.

[The Exiled One]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

My opinion on the proposal itself is that it is unnecessary. We have an age restriction rule and it works fine as is. There's a reason why you don't see 22 year-old freshman. Why worry about making kids play 3 years of juniors versus 2 years of juniors versus 1 year of juniors? It is what it is and I don't see an overly compelling reason to change it. On its own merits it just feels very arbitrary. In context it feels somewhat sinister.

[Ralph Baer]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

In context it feels somewhat sinister.

Of course it is sinister. It was started by Don Lucifer.

[sm2pk]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

Just a bunch of big schools whining that small schools are beating them due to older players . Guess what ? The big schools can recruit the older players as well. I knew the Big Ten hockey league would try and ruin college hockey.

[camilo]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

It doesn't cost SCSU 71K though. You can pretend all you want that said player received 71K in scholarships but the actual cost of that scholarship to the university is FAR FAR lower.

And that categorically is not income. Getting paid is having a paycheck/cash put in your hands/deposited in your bank account.

But, this tangent discussion is about the value to the player, not what it costs the institution. It matters not what the "cost" to the institution is. What matters to anyone going to college is what the "price" is. If a student is on full ride (just for the sake of discussion), the value to the student is the difference between what he/she would have paid and what he/she actually pays. That is real value- and if you don't believe it, I'd have to say you've never gone to college (and had to pay for it) or paid for your kids' college education.

The cost certainly has a lot to do with whether the institution can afford to provide the scholarship, I don't deny that. But the only thing that determines the value to the student is what he/she is not having to pay compared to the other students not on scholarship.

As for your statement about income - you're correct. The IRS, I don't believe, would count this as income for tax purposes.

But it surely has very real value that has nothing to do with the cost to the institution. While not taxable, it is certainly an economic benefit to the student.

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

Not sure what your source for this is but for the sake of discussion I'll assume it's accurate on the academics. How about a junior leaving his high school, moving to another town, and going to a new high school just because a college coach who has given him a worthless commitment tells him he needs to develop in juniors? I'm glad my kid is not an elite player because I know I wouldn't want him to cut his high school experience short. And I only get him for 18 years, so I wouldn't want to miss the senior year for the sake of a potential college hockey experience. But that is the position many kids / parents are forced into with the current system. From families I know, it's a very difficult decision that impacts the family significantly and carries high risk. And, for every kid who gets that chance to play D1 due to his junior experience, know that there are literally hundreds forced out of the D3 experience due to the junior kids who don't make it to the D1 level. My point is this system is not ideal for the participants and their families. But it is profitable for the junior leagues.

While this is a good argument and an issue worth discussing, it doesn't have much to do with the proposal. The 21 year-old freshmen almost universally didn't go to juniors until after high school (They may have tried out for teams prior to that, but they didn't make the team.). The kids you're talking about who have to choose what to do while still in high school almost universally go to the big-time hockey schools, and enroll as 18 and 19 year-olds. They are not entering the USHL at 16 or 17 and still playing there at 21. There are legitimate complaints about the USHL and its effect on high school hockey by taking away the high school superstars, but those are completely separate from 21 year-old freshmen, almost exclusively playing for non-perennial powers.

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

****, I thought I was ready to upload a googledoc for public consumption of all players currently rostered with:
League...School...Position...Class...DOB...Date of Commitment...Hometown...State/Province...Country...Age as Frosh (based on 8/1 of year started school)...Days committed (based on 10/1 of year started school minus date of commitment)
But because of transfers I found about 50 guys with negative days committed, need to grind through that yet.

[camilo]

Re: New age restrictions for NCAA hockey

Just want to bump this in case late thread readers missed it. Definitely worth reading:

Here's a blog post that puts a great perspective on this whole thing:

http://www.withoutapeer.com/2015/11/a-rigged-game.html