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<\/a><\/p>\nCollege hockey coaches recently wrapped up their annual convention in Bonita Springs, Fla., a week-long gathering that also includes conference-level meetings.<\/p>\n
Normally, items on the agenda include things like rule change suggestions, and NCAA Tournament formats. But these are not normal times.<\/p>\n
Foremost on the agenda was a meeting with NCAA lawyers, who went over the age and eligibility rule changes coming to NCAA sports as soon as June. The change includes granting five full years of eligibility to all players, but with a clock that starts ticking either: 1. at high school graduation; 2. four years from the start of ninth grade; or 3. 19 years old, whichever comes first.<\/p>\n
For decades, college hockey has been granted a “delayed enrollment” exception, acknowledging the sport’s unique development pipeline. A player could enroll at 20 years old and still have four years of eligibility remaining. Players in juniors who turned 21 after Jan. 1, could also enroll in a nearby college and take classes to remain NCAA eligible, and then “transfer in” to the NCAA school they’d be playing for in the fall, and retain four full years of eligibility.<\/p>\n
Some coaches had suggested a player could delay high school graduation until age 19 and still have five years of eligibility remaining. That, however, does not appear to be the case. In order to do that, a player would have to delay a year before ninth grade, which seems unlikely.<\/p>\n
Numerous college hockey coaches and administrators pled a case to the NCAA lawyers on hand that hockey had unique differences that required a carve-out exception. For example, it was pointed out that the large majority of high schools in the United States do not have hockey programs. This compels good players to seek out junior leagues.<\/p>\n
The NCAA acknowledged hockey’s unique nature, but nevertheless remained unwilling to make changes to accommodate it.<\/p>\n
The rule change came about because the NCAA believes it’s a way to curtail lawsuits over eligibility, mainly coming from football and basketball, by creating a uniform rule. And the NCAA doesn’t believe it has any obligation to the system that exists in hockey outside of college.<\/p>\n
“The NCAA certainly wants to change and be more uniform and reduce lawsuits, which have been considerable and is totally understandable,” Hockey East commissioner Steve Metcalf said. “But the folks involved in these decisions don’t understand how it works in hockey as much as folks in hockey. They understand it has an impact, but they’re more interested or focused on getting consistency. Therefore college hockey will be lumped in to the same umbrella.”<\/p>\n
As a result, hockey will undergo yet another sea change in what’s been a series of jarring changes over the last few years, joining things like unlimited free transferring, and the increased pervasiveness of money being allocated to players.<\/p>\n
“The sport’s never been in a better place, and we’re going to impact this sport, which has never had anything to do with why you’re creating these rules,” said one coach, echoing a sentiment of frustration. “We have the best graduation rates, the kids are more mature, they’ve already been away from home. Even though not one lawsuit was ever from a hockey kid, it will have the most the significant impact on our sport ever.”<\/p>\n
Michigan Tech coach Bill Muckalt said, “At the end of the day, you just have to play within the guidelines we’re given. (But) it’s going to make things really complicated.”<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen what the full ramifications will be, but one thing everyone agrees on: college hockey will get younger. And that hurts certain schools more than others, at least when it comes to competing nationally, which has already taken a hit due to free transferring and NIL\/rev share money. Most teams have taken advantage of the ability to bring in 20-year old freshmen with four years of eligibility remaining. But smaller schools, as a way to equalize the talent gap, take more advantage than the bigger schools.<\/p>\n
Instead, you could bring in a 20-year old, but they would only have three years of eligibility remaining. In fact, for some Canadians, who graduate high school at age 17 based on birth year, it could mean only two years of eligibility. How many teams will want to do that? And how many players will want to do that?<\/p>\n
“It shouldn’t be based on when a player started high school,” Connecticut coach Mike Cavanaugh said. “It should be five years of eligibility if you enter college at 18 or 19, four years if you enter at 20. That’s the easiest, cleanest solution. I’m not sure why they are so fixated on when a kid starts high school.<\/p>\n
“There’s a rule in place and there hasn’t been any problem with it.”<\/p>\n
The five-year rule would figure to have less impact. Assuming most players still come in at 19, they would have four years of eligibility remaining. Only 18-year olds would be eligible for a fifth year, but most 18-year olds that come into college hockey aren’t expected to last that long before wanting to turn pro.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes we’re guessing on the benefit,” Metcalf said. “It’s not always black or white.”<\/p>\n
College hockey commissioners are still planning to present other proposals to the NCAA over the next two weeks, before it convenes a meeting of the Division I Management Council on May 22, where this rule will be on the docket.<\/p>\n
“What’s the grandfather opportunities so it’s less disruptive,” Metcalf said. “It’s all about the younger kids that (already) made a decision that they’re going to do this because then we’re going to do that. There just needs to be common sense. A coach said, ‘What do I tell the parents that are calling me?’<\/p>\n
“(The NCAA is) pretty hell bent on doing it. But take out the high school graduation piece and just have it at 19 (years old). That would seem to be something that college hockey will push for.”<\/p>\n
Metcalf said that getting the NCAA to budge isn’t easy, but that college hockey has the support of USA Hockey, the USHL and NHL, which could lend the effort clout.<\/p>\n
“I can’t say anyone is walking around feeling super optimistic, but (they’re) all happy to jump on board to support the message or position. It’s rare when you get all the entire bodies of hockey aligned, and when you do, it’s more powerful.”<\/p>\n
Even if a wholesale carve out is not granted, the commissioners will still be attempting to create a grandfather system for players already in the pipeline.<\/p>\n
“People in this sport have set up their futures dating to 2011 (birth years),” RPI coach Eric Lang said.<\/p>\n
Because of the frustration over the NCAA’s decisions, there is growing talk in college hockey circles of breaking away into its own governance.<\/p>\n
Last year, NCAA president Charlie Baker said that hockey would start to have more autonomy over its own business, and the Men’s Hockey Oversight Committee was established. With that essentially back-burnered by the NCAA, it has led to conversations on how to get that autonomy outside of the NCAA.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t had what we were hoping for within the sport,” Metcalf said. “So there’s frustration about that message. People were salty about that.<\/p>\n
“So the volume on that conversation increases a little bit over time. People aren’t shy about saying that.”<\/p>\n
Whatever that process looks like would obviously take a while to get to. It requires the support of school presidents, and everyone getting on the same page, not to mention some legal hurdles.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the usual other topics were also discussed, various rule change proposals, and so on. Those included potential changes to the overtime format, hand pass rules, time outs, and so on. This is the first year that the Division I Men will have its own rules committee, separate from the others.<\/p>\n
Among everything, two items gained serious support. One, an increase of the regular-season games limit to 40, from the current 34. The other, an increase in roster sizes for teams that opted in to the House settlement to 27, from the current 26.<\/p>\n
While those had broad support, they still need to pass through various NCAA legislative levels to become enacted.<\/p>\n
In the case of games played, it needs to go through the usual NCAA legislative channels, and there’s no certainty it will get approved.<\/p>\n
“If we shoot for 40, maybe we get 36,” Cavanaugh said.<\/p>\n
The roster limits would have to go through the judge that approved the NCAA’s House settlement, the same class action lawsuit and settlement that led to the current revenue share model. That agreement also set roster limit standards, and getting a change, would require going back through that process. The Big Ten would have to handle the request because it was one of the parties of the settlement.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
The evergreen topic of NCAA Tournament format was discussed again. The debate over whether Regionals should remain at four neutral sites or return back to higher seeds hosting, has been discussed in great detail. But a compromise proposal, of sorts, gained some traction; teams that win their conference tournament championship would be assured a home game in the first round. That includes, for example, the Atlantic Hockey team, which is often the 16th overall seed.<\/p>\n
That proposal certainly helped gain more acceptance for the overall concept, but, like everything else, many more hurdles would need to be overcome.<\/p>\n
Denver coach David Carle has pointed out that 30 teams would’ve had a home game in college hockey over the last 15 years if home-ice Regionals were a thing. That argument, however, hasn’t been as persuasive as the new compromise would be.<\/p>\n
“You can’t go back 10 years. Since COVID and NIL, everything has changed,” Cavanaugh said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t necessarily have a problem with the top eight hosting one game. I have a problem with the top four hosting two games and never going on the road before the Frozen Four. I could get behind one round (on home ice) and then two regional sites.”<\/p>\n
Cavanaugh, and many others, would like to see the tournament increased from 16 to 20 or even 24 teams. That would help alleviate some of the concerns raised in the home-ice Regional debate. Again, that brings up many hurdles, in particular the NCAA rule that doesn’t allow more than 25 percent of teams that participate in a sport to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
“Everyone is for it but everyone is like, ‘The NCAA won’t let you do it,'” Cavanaugh said. “We’re paying kids $5 million a year to play in college, and we’re talking about a ratio?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 4, 2026 Plus New Ideas on NCAA Tournament Format, and More by Adam Wodon\/Managing Editor (@chn-adam-wodon) College…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[377],"tags":[1880,4412,4975,5,2205],"class_list":{"0":"post-567111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-college-hockey","9":"tag-frozen-four","10":"tag-hobey-baker","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-ncaa-tournament"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116519645642290761","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567111","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=567111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}