Defenseman Noah Van Vliet will skate at Sacred Heart after playing for the OHL’s Niagara Ice Dogs. (Brandon Taylor/OHL Images)
The college hockey landscape is constantly evolving on a week-to-week, season-to-season basis. That’s never been truer than it is right now.
“If you don’t like a rule, just wait a little bit. There will be a new one a couple of days later,” Sacred Heart associate head coach Scott McDougall (Mansfield, Mass.) said.
For McDougall and other college coaches around the nation, the changes seem to be rolling on a day-to-day basis lately.
In the wake of impacts from the transfer portal in recent years and the rise of NIL, last November’s CHL ruling has flipped college hockey on its head.
Take Bemidji State, for example, as the Beavers recently added two players with professional experience in either the AHL or ECHL to their roster after clearing them through the NCAA Eligibility Center.
“It’s hard to have a strategy when the goalposts keep moving on you,” McDougall said.