cheque\u00a0of around $1 million Cdn is rumoured to await him<\/a>.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
WATCH\u00a0| The NCAA’s first high-profile CHL crossover:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many fear it could inspire others follow suit, draining the home-grown hockey talent pool Canada is known for, and which helps fill small-city stadiums across the country, rallying communities around the sport.<\/p>\n
Some\u00a0argue that Canadian junior hockey needs to re-evaluate its formula for\u00a0developing young talent and preparing exceptional players for the NHL.<\/p>\n
“We’re disappointed that he’s not coming back,” WHL commissioner Dan Near told CBC News on\u00a0Wednesday, calling McKenna an “outstanding and exceptional player” who helped the\u00a0Medicine Hat Tigers win the 2025\u00a0WHL Championship.<\/p>\n
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With the Tigers, coached by Willie Desjardins,\u00a0McKenna transformed from a promising young talent\u00a0into the driving force behind Medicine Hat’s ascent,\u00a0falling just\u00a0short in this season’s Memorial Cup final.<\/p>\n
“For 50 years, we’ve been working within a formula\u00a0around: what does the best development environment look like to get players to the NHL?” Near said.<\/p>\n
![\"Medicine](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752246072_739_822abe6a23c214f5374584fdba0290d0.jpeg\"\/)
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McKenna is seen after being awarded the Canadian Hockey League Rookie of the Year in Frankenmuth, Mich., on June 1, 2024. (Duane Burleson\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n
He says\u00a0the league will take a look at that formula, and\u00a0ways of better selling it. “We’re not just going to sit here with our arms folded,” he said.<\/p>\n
Gary Jerome, a hockey dad and uncle to four children in Whitehorse,\u00a0says he and his family are McKenna fans and applaud the player’s decision, but he also thinks it’s a sign Canada could make some changes.<\/p>\n
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“Sorry for my language, but it sucks for Canadian hockey because they’re not producing the same qualities as the States are, right?\u00a0It’s kind of Canada’s\u00a0loss,” said Jerome, who is no stranger to relocating\u00a0for hockey.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Jerome\u00a0and his family\u00a0moved from Fort McPherson, a Gwi’chin First Nation in the Northwest Territories, to Whitehorse so his son Evander, 12, and twin 10-year-old daughters\u00a0could play competitive hockey. He says\u00a0the local and federal governments should invest more in small-town sports infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Chris Gruben, whose son William plays in the Whitehorse Mustangs with Evander and moved to the city from Inuvik, N.W.T., said that, to him, the important thing is to celebrate “a young Indigenous player really paving the way.”<\/p>\n
A ‘young,’ ‘new’ program<\/p>\n
McKenna’s choice came down to two U.S. colleges, Michigan State and Penn State, both part of the NCAA’s Division 1 Big 10 teams.<\/p>\n
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It was “probably the hardest decision he’s ever had to make in his life,” according to his father.\u00a0Willy\u00a0McKenna added\u00a0that the influence his son’s decision could have on the future of hockey in Canada was part of what made it difficult.\u00a0“It’s a lot to put on a young guy,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He feels excited about the Penn State program. It’s young, it’s new,” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Krystal](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752246073_121_38d39465907e59e9fd0ec7f6ab138ea6.jpeg\"\/)
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McKenna’s parents, Krystal and Willy McKenna. ‘It’s heartbreaking, don’t get me wrong,’ said his mom of the NCAA decision. ‘We are still very proud of him.” (George Maratos\/CBC)<\/p>\n
The college’s NCAA hockey program is just over a decade old but, under the direction of Canadian former pro Guy Gadowsky, has done a lot to catch up to well-established rivals, including building a $89-million US state-of-the-art facility.<\/p>\n
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For Penn State, it could mean a better chance at the National Championships\u00a0\u2014 especially with another talented young Canadian recruit, Jackson Smith. The pair aren’t alone in making the hop from CHL to NCAA in the coming year. Keaton Verhoeff, from Saskatchewan, who’s also projected to be a\u00a0top five NHL\u00a0draft pick for 2026, committed to the University of North Dakota’s program at the end of May. A handful of others have made the jump, too.<\/p>\n
Karen Weaver, the academic director of the University of Pennsylvania’s\u00a0Collegiate Athletics Certificate Program and an expert on college sports, says NCAA\u00a0athletes’ relatively new rights to name, image and likeness revenue sharing with schools is making the NCAA even more attractive to recruits like McKenna.<\/p>\n
Most of the NCAA\u00a0revenue share traditionally goes to\u00a0football players because of the popularity of their sport in the U.S.\u00a0For a chunk of it to go to a\u00a0hockey player, “that’s a shift. We don’t know how that’s going to go,” Weaver said.<\/p>\n
![\"Gavin](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752246074_323_73c3944962548bac61c86c0bc8d09272.jpeg\"\/)
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McKenna, seen here during the world juniors, will be joining Penn State’s NCAA hockey program, which is just over a decade old and under the direction of Canadian former pro Guy Gadowsky. (George Maratos\/CBC)<\/p>\n
NCAA\u00a0hockey investments ‘unsustainable’:\u00a0WHL official<\/p>\n
Chris Peters calls it “the dawning of a new era” in the development of hockey talent in North America, but the\u00a0YouTube hockey commentator<\/a> for FloHockey\u00a0doesn’t think it spells the end of CHL’s success.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
“Fewer players will play longer in the CHL, but that doesn’t mean that you still won’t have those top players play there,” Peters said in a recent video.<\/p>\n
Near, of the WHL, has his doubts that U.S.\u00a0colleges’ hefty investments in hockey are going to pay off.\u00a0“I think Canadians should feel a little threatened right now, amidst all of the geopolitical tensions\u00a0\u2026 that our players are being lured away by a rather unsustainable business model,” Near said.<\/p>\n
While he says his league is going to watch closely how the new Canadian NCAA recruits fare in the fall, he says it may not be improvements that are needed at home, but for Canadian junior leagues to better sell their existing programs.<\/p>\n
Peters agrees. He says that NCAA players may also choose to go back to the CHL after some time.<\/p>\n
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“The doom and gloom is misplaced,” he said. “It’s not a death knell. It’s not going to end junior hockey.”<\/p>\n
As for McKenna’s fantastical puck skills, they seem bound for greatness no matter where he lands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The language used to describe Gavin McKenna’s game often\u00a0comes straight from the realm of fantasy. “He’s a unicorn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[19,22,2456,766,5,15304,1272,21473,767,901,4,16622,768,769,13275,9368],"class_list":{"0":"post-120916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-canadian-hockey","10":"tag-canadian-hockey-league","11":"tag-gavin-mckenna","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-hockey-world","14":"tag-jack-hughes","15":"tag-mckenna-magic","16":"tag-medicine-hat-tigers","17":"tag-ncaa","18":"tag-nhl","19":"tag-pennsylvania-state-university","20":"tag-sidney-crosby","21":"tag-western-hockey-league","22":"tag-whitehorse","23":"tag-whl-championship"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114835205981813905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}