NCAA to Vote on CHL Player Eligibility – The Hockey Writers NHL News Latest News, Analysis & More
It has been the way things were done for decades. There were two main paths for players to pursue their professional hockey careers in North America. The first, and oldest, was playing in major junior leagues in Canada. The second was to play in Junior A leagues across the US and Canada to remain eligible to play in the NCAA. But that looks as though it will change. As it stands, the NCAA does not allow Canadian Hockey League (CHL) players to cross over into the college game once they have dressed for a game, even an exhibition game, in the top junior league in North America.
The CHL allows players aged 16-20 to play, with exceptions made for some 15-year-olds deemed to be exceptional, the full season, or the WHL, allows them to play up to 10 games. Meanwhile, NCAA hockey is typically anywhere from 18-25. Therefore, it has been set up so that CHL players cannot go to the United States to pursue an education and play hockey once their junior careers are over. This has already led to an anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA. Rylan Masterson dressed in some exhibition games for the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). Unfortunately, for Masterson, this cost him his NCAA eligibility. Despite his efforts to petition several teams, every coach refused him a spot on their rosters as it would go against the rules of the NCAA.
NCAA Lawsuit
This did not deter the young man as, according to Rick Westhead, Masterson filed a class-action lawsuit he and his legal team believe that the NCAA is violating antitrust and anticompetitive laws by excluding him and CHL players in general.
CHL players were classed as “professionals” due to them receiving a stipend of up to $600 per month. This is used for living expenses, and is not considered as income for tax purposes. Meanwhile, college players receive scholarships worth well over $100,000 and can now earn income via endorsements and payments for the use of their name, image and likeness by the NCAA or their colleges.
The NCAA was aware that the bylaws blocking CHL players left them legally vulnerable, and there was an opportunity given to all Division 1 coaches to eliminate or ignore the by-law if they chose to, however, not enough voted to lift the bylaws, and the NCAA left them in place. Since the lawsuit was filed in August 2024, there have been rumours of pre-emptive maneuvering by the American college organization. There has already been one CHL player to commit verbally to the NCAA, as Braxton Whitehead of the Regina Pats has agreed to join the Arizona State University club in 2025-26, in the hopes that the by-laws will be eliminated by that time.
United States College Hockey site, USCO.com, broke the news that the NCAA will be holding a vote in the very near future that will allow CHL players to be eligible for college hockey in the United States. This is a vote that will change how NHL teams approach the draft, and how young players decide on their futures.
Unintended Consequences
This vote will be simple enough, but the fallout will be anything but. This will upend many fundamental rules that the NHL, CHL and NCAA teams have built their programs and franchises around. For instance, the CHL has many unique rules with the NHL, such as, that a player drafted from a CHL team is unable to play in the American Hockey League (AHL) until the age of 20 if they don’t make the NHL team. Another is that NHL teams retain the player’s NHL rights for only two years, if they do not sign a contract by that time, they can reenter the Entry Draft.
For the NCAA, players are not allowed to be under NHL contracts. As soon as they sign an NHL contract, they forego their eligibility to the NCAA. However, NHL teams retain the NHL rights to the players for four years, providing them more time to develop and assess these players, but the players become unrestricted free agents (UFA) if they aren’t signed by the end of those four years. That being said, more and more NCAA players have been taking advantage of this rule, allowing them to decide where they will play.
The two organizations have been in direct competition with one another for the premier talent to develop before the players embark on their NHL or other professional hockey careers. As it stands there were several benefits for each path. The CHL provides players with a faster path to the professional leagues, with players starting at 16 years old and finishing their four years at 20 when they can move onto the professional ranks. The NCAA took on older players who moved on from Junior A and spent as many as four years in the NCAA when they exited at 22 or 23 years of age.
The college route was seen as ideal for late bloomers, or players that needed more time to develop. Not just their skills, but also physically. The NCAA plays fewer games, usually two per weekend, and spends more time practicing throughout the week. This gives the players time to refine their game and work in the gym to build strength. Whereas the CHL has a more professional style schedule filled with games, travel and a franchise approach where the main focus is on hockey while allowing the time required to complete high school.
With this looming vote, what are the CHL and Jr A leagues and teams thinking? What is their plan moving forward if the rules are changed? At the moment it seems pretty detrimental to all those leagues, teams, and communities as the system itself is going to need to be reset. Leagues such as the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL), United States Hockey League (USHL) and others have built their entire model as a prep league for the NCAA. Some of their best players will now no longer have to make the difficult choice of forgoing a CHL career. Yet, the larger impact will be on the NHL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
The NHL CBA
Craig Button asks a very important question, what about CHL players on an entry-level contract (ELC), would they be able to then go play in the NCAA?
Whether or not a player signed to an ELC would be eligible will rest on the outcome of this lawsuit. If the restrictions on “professional” athletes are lifted, then they should be able to play Division 1 hockey. The effect on the NHL CBA will be profound and cause ripples throughout the feeder leagues. Currently, any player under contract in the CHL will have what’s called a “slide,” so their three-year deal could slide one or two seasons.
NCAA players use the CBA to their advantage, sometimes to hold out until they’re UFAs or, use that fact as leverage to sign after one or two seasons, usually waiting for the end of the NHL season so that they get a game or two in the league, but also “burn” off a season of their ELC.
The next round of negotiations between the NHL and NHLPA will need to focus on this new reality. There will need to be a significant review of the number of years a team can own the players’ rights. Do they drop the ownership of rights of NCAA players down from four years to two? Will they make it universal and set the limit at four years? More importantly, what about the NHL’s contract limit which is currently set at 50? With teams hovering close to 45 and up on a regular basis, that leaves general managers with even more difficulty choosing who gets signed, and who doesn’t. This may become the reason that the NHL chooses to drop the entry draft from seven rounds to four as suggested by Elliotte Friedman in his 32 Thoughts podcast last spring.
How teams scout, manage player development, and more importantly manage the team’s assets will be forever altered. The ripple effect of this one class action lawsuit has the potential to upend the NHL system from top to bottom. It falls onto each management team to take this change seriously, as it could render their current draft and development programs obsolete, and these GMs should be on notice to start planning ahead for the eventual reality of CHL players becoming eligible for the NCAA.
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