Puck Soup - College Material

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Ryan talks to Mike McMahon about a seismic shift in NCAA hockey, while Sean takes listener questions. Sponsored by Gametime (download the Gametime app and use code PUCK for $20 off)

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To make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's c-ar-g-g-U-R-U-S dot CA. Carguoros.ca. Welcome to Puck Soup. I am Sean McAnew from The Athletic, and it's just me right now. Solo for the first little bit, different format this week, because Ryan is on a well-deserved break, a little bit of a vacation, but it's a working vacation. And so the second half of today's show is going to have lots of Ryan, but the first half is just me. here's how it's going to work today you're going to get uh to start with you're going to get me on my own for about as long as anybody can handle listening to me talk which experience tells me is

maximum half an hour or so uh so that'll be the first half of the show and then we're going to send it over to ryan and ryan has uh got a really interesting feature where he's sitting down with a guy named Mike McMahon, and they're talking about these rule changes in the NCAA that you've heard about, you've heard Ryan and I talking about. They're going to drill into the details. Now, Mike has been described to me as if you took Pierre Lebrun and Chris Johnson and Ellie Friedman and Darren Dregor and all your favorite insiders and mush them all up together into one guy, and then that guy was all about college hockey. He's the ultimate NCAA insider,

and he's going to be sitting down with Ryan. So, I mean, as far as this big, huge change that's happening in the college hockey world and as it relates to Canadian Junior and the development paths that affects so many players on their way to the NHL, I don't know that you can get to guys who know college hockey.

better than Ryan and Mike. They're going to walk you through it. And that's going to be the second half of the show. For the first half, as I said, just me. And I'm going to be answering some of your questions. Normally, this is the part where we talk about what was going on in the NHL these days. But we're at that point in the season where things are kind of settled in. It's a little too early for big trades and big stuff like that.

But not so early that we aren't already. seeing some patterns emerge. Look, the penguins are bad. We saw that last night. Sabres, not great either. Carolina, very, very good beating Vegas last night. But really nothing going on in the NHL right now that I want to focus on, except for one thing.

And this is a request to any of you fans out there, especially you old-timers and especially any New Jersey Devils fans, please, if you are aware of anyone ever having referred to Martambrotur as Satan's wallpaper, please get in touch. Please talk to me because this is what is, this kept me up last night. If you didn't see it, where this came from is last night on Jeopardy, apparently they had a Martan Broder question. And as part of the question, they referred to Martan Broder's famous nickname, Satan's wallpaper.

And my response seeing this was, I didn't know that was his nickname. And I went on Twitter and I asked, did anybody actually call him this? And the flood of replies from hockey fans, from Devils fans saying, we have no idea where this came from. nobody ever called him that nobody remembers it i've literally got people in my mentions who were like martin broder was my hero i love the guy i had the jersey my room was decorated with posters i love martin broder i've never heard this nickname before people have been digging into it there is a rolling stone article that they published online years ago that makes a passing reference to it uh that may have

come from a bleacher report piece that was a few years before that. Some people are digging even further in. But I would love to know if you have any idea where this came from, please let me know. I'm just dying to know the history here. My theory, and I think it's a pretty good theory, is that Jeopardy, the researchers, would have got the nickname off of hockey reference. If you have seen some of the stuff I've done on this in the past, you know that Hockey Reference recently started adding nicknames to player pages, and they just put anything

they can find. I'm pretty convinced that they are somehow automatically scraping the web for any reference to nickname to go with a player and taking that and putting it on the players page. So it does, Martan Broder's player page on Hockey Reference does have the Satan's wallpaper nickname on there. I'm assuming that's where Jeopardy got it from, which is, which is for. fine. It didn't. Ultimately, the nickname had nothing to do with the question, so it's not like it affected the game or anything. No big deal. I just want to know where this came from,

because I've never heard it, but honestly, it's a pretty good nickname. That's not bad. We could use more nicknames like that. So I need to find who came up with this however many years ago. And let's put them on the job. Let's get them out there. So that is my question to you. As far as the the show or my part of the show, it's going to be your questions to me. I put the call out. I said, please let me know if you have any questions. And you did send a few in. So we're just going to dive into that. And as I say, that's going to be the first half hour or so of the show before we kick things over to Ryan and Mike. So first question. This is from Mr. Wright. Who would you put into the Hockey Hall of Fame next year defend your nominees? So timely question. We had the

Hall of Fame inductions over the weekend. One of my favorite times of the year. I love the Hall of Fame. I love the history, obviously, and the celebration of it. I also love the debates. You know, if you read me, the two times of the year, November when they do the induction, and in the summer when they announce the class, I'm all over it. I love writing pieces about who should get in, who shouldn't, and that sort of thing. So this is a timely question. And most years, it would be a really good question to sink our teeth into. I'm not sure that debate's going to be as fun this time around because I think next year's class is pretty locked in for the most part.

At least on the men's side, the men's players, you've got two guys that I would consider absolute sure thing, complete first ballot locks. That's Joe Thornton and Zaydon Chair. They're both going in. I don't know what to tell you. If I would be absolutely shocked barring some sort of weird scandal or whatever have you, if either of those guys wasn't in.

And then from there, you also have Duncan Keith. And I would say Duncan Keith is maybe not quite as much of a lock to go in on the first ballot. But I think it's very, very likely. is a two-time Norris winner. There are no multi-time Norris winners who have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Team Canada, the three Stanley Cups,

having a Conn Smyth. He's going in the Hall of Fame. I don't think there's any question at all. But the only question will be whether he's in on the first ballot or whether they make him wait so that they can move some other guys in. I think he goes in first ballot.

So he would be my third pick. For the fourth slot, I think there's a good chance that they just go all first ballot guys because Kerry Price is there too. And I do think ultimately Kerry Price will get in. I think his case is a little bit weaker than maybe some people think. I wrote about that last week with Carrie Price among several other guys. But I do think he's probably going to get in.

I could, if I was the committee, Carrie Price is the guy that I would hold off on a year. I would save that slot. And I put Alexander McGilney in. We've been over and over and over this for it feels like the, better part of a decade. McGilney should absolutely be in. He's not getting in. We're not really sure why. Most of the theories around it tend to be, A, that he's Russian and B, that he could be a bit of a jerk. But we just inducted Pavel Datsuk, and we just inducted Jeremy Ronick. So those things may be working against Alexander McGilney, but they're certainly not insurmountable

issues. So I would put McGilney in as far as as on the women's side, again, still a backlog. You know, for me, I'd probably go Megan Duggan and Jennifer Botterall, but there's other names that you could absolutely put in. There, Julie Chuse, one of them as well. Again, I'm still in that place on the women's side where I'm just going, as long as you use two slots, use them both, don't only use the one or even none,

as the committee has done a few times in the past. I'm happy as long as you put two in. And then on the builder's side, the Fran Ryder case, I think, is very strong. And the other guy that I would put in that you don't hear mention very often, but I've made the case for in a couple spots, Jacques de Merres.

I would like to see Jacques DeMere in the Hall of Fame. The only coach in the history of the NHL to win the Jack Adams in back-to-back years, a guy who later went on to win the Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadians. Of course, we all know to this day, the most recent Stanley Cup won by Montreal

and won by a Canadian team. That was Jacques de Meres. And just a guy who did a lot of good things for the game. There's not enough guys in the Hall of Fame, I think, purely as coaches. I think Mike Kenan's another guy that has a good case.

Although you talk about someone being a jerk and maybe that holding them back that would apply to Keenan. I don't think it applies to DeMers. Everyone seems to like him. he obviously had some things later in life where he talked about challenges that he had had that the people hadn't known about and educated us on that sort of thing. I think he's got a strong case.

And I would like to see him in both just for him personally as a candidate, but also because I just think we should have more guys who were just great coaches. And that's it. I know it's builder. I know that's a weird category. There isn't a coach. category in the Hall of Fame. Maybe there should be, but for now they go in as builders. But I think guys who had really distinguished coaching careers should be in there. And I think a

guy who is the only coach in history to go back to back on the Jack Adams would qualify as that. So that would be the last of my spots on the builder side. Go to Shock the Mer. Andrew asks, are you related to the dude who founded birds aren't real. That seems like your style of humor, but less dry. Andrew, thank you for sending this question. It's a good question. I'm surprised I don't get it often, or more often, I should say. No, I am not related to, I think the guy's name is Peter McIndoo, who is the birds aren't real guy. And if you don't know what I'm talking about when we say birds aren't real, I won't even bother trying to explain it.

Google it, look it up. But it is essentially a conspiracy theory about birds that may or may not be a parody and may or may not be a parody on the level that you first think and sort of goes around in circles a little bit. But this guy, Peter, I've looked up his information. McIndoo is uncommon enough. last name that I guess we're all probably related on on some level, maybe not going that far back.

But I got to say, I look this guy up, I've looked at his picture, he doesn't look like one of us. He does not have the forehead for it. Like, I'm sorry, Peter. You're sitting there with that, you know, normal size forehead. That's not going to cut it in McIndoo World. But I got to say, I am frustrated by this guy because when you have an uncommon last night,

name. When you have a last name that you don't encounter very often, you always have that thought of, man, could I become like the most famous guy with this name? Could I become the top Google result for this name? And in my case, I don't, I could never really get there because there was a guy named Archibald McIndoo, who was a famous, groundbreaking plastic surgeon who did a surgery on war veterans and people who had injuries from the war. And he has hospitals named Ashton. after him and he's a real trailblazer. And obviously that was a very long time ago. But he is the sort of the standard bear for the McIndoo name.

And I can tell you, I've looked up Archibald McIndoo. That guy's got the forehead. That guy is definitely related to us somewhere along the line. Most of the pictures are of him when he was quite old. But if he get one of him when he's younger, he looks like me. He looks like my dad is who he looks like. So I'm pretty sure he's one of us from somewhere along. the line. But my quest had been, you know, could I be the most famous living McIndoo? And there was like a

couple of, um, like soccer players and Aussie rules football and that sort of thing. But now, then this, this jerk comes along from New Zealand and tells everyone, uh, that birds aren't real and, and knocks me way off the pedestals. So, uh, sorry, Peter, um, look me up sometime if you're in Canada, spreading your wisdom, and we'll go out for a pint, but I don't think that we're actually related, as far as I know. Treg says, I miss Peter Sodorikowitz, don't you? Weird question. Kind of a weird one, but yeah, I do. I miss Peter Sodorikowitz. He was, he was cool. He was, I think I liked him because back then I wasn't a sports writer, so I didn't have to worry about spelling his name. But the Hartford Whalers legend who also once made the All-Star game with,

I think, three wins. I think that was one of the first Senator seasons. And there had to be an all-star from every team, but they didn't have any All-Stars because they were an expansion team and they stunk. And back then, we didn't give star players to expansion teams just for funzies like we do these days. So he made it in. He was, I think his record was like 3 and 30 or something like that. But he, he was an all-star and I miss those days. I miss Peter Storkowitz. Mikey wants to know what one single almost trade that if it happened would have changed the NHL forever. And there's a ton of these. And I've written about a bunch. Obviously, you look at any of the other Wayne Gretzky destinations when they traded the Kings.

That would be the right answer. If he goes to Vancouver or he goes to Detroit, the entire fabric of the league for decades to come changes. Because you don't get that California spotlight, the southern spotlight. We're sitting here 35 years later. We probably still have expansion of the Sunbelt and what have you. but it's nowhere near the same. So that's the obvious answer. There are other ones like the Leafs trying to sell Frank Mojavillich to the Blackhawks,

which would have been massive, not just as far as the trade itself of a superstar going to a different team, but would have completely reset the financial world of not just the NHL, but pro sports. The deal was Frank Mahavlovich for $1 million. It wasn't a trade. It was a sale more than anything, but back then the idea of a pro athlete being worth a million dollars was absolutely unheard of. So if that had gone through,

who knows what it would have done to the NHL, Major League Baseball, on down the line. You can, of course, look at Eric Lindrosse going to the Rangers instead of the Flyers in 92. Does that, do they still win the cup? Does, does, what flows from that? The Flyers now have Peter Forsberg, what happens to the Nordiques, all of that stuff. The one that, it kind of sticks with me that's just a little bit more recent is the, in the mid-90s, the Red Wings,

allegedly being ready to trade Steve Eiserman to the Ottawa senators for Alexey Ashen. that according to reports and according to Chris Stevenson had something about it in his book where he said the plane was the plane was gassed up and on the tarmac and ready to go to take Steve Eisenman to Ottawa the deal was done and ownership then stepped in on the Detroit side and said we're not going to do this and this was in I want to say 96 so it's before Detroit's won their cups this is when Detroit is in there we're a great season team, but we can't get it done in the playoffs mode. And as bizarre as it sounds, figures were pointed at Steve Eiserman. Can't win with this guy. It's an offensive first player,

doesn't do the little things you need to win, all of this stuff for Steve Eiserman. And there were people in Detroit who said, you know what would fix this? Let's go get Alexey Ashen. So, man, I can't even imagine if that trade goes through, does Detroit still win for Stanley Cups? Do they win any Stanley Cups? If they do, do we all give Alexei Ashen credit for that? Does he become the guy? Is he in the Hall of Fame now? Is Steve Iserman the Joe Thornton of his generation who could never, never get it done? What does it do to the senators, of course? Is Steve Eisenman a GM these days? Is he viewed in the same way? He's probably not the GM in Detroit, you wouldn't think.

And, you know, who knows where it goes? Just a million what-ifs. So, sorry, Mikey. I know you asked for a single one. I didn't give you a single. I gave you a few there. Jay wants to know. Do you know who would be credited with a goal off the opening face-off

where the other team wins it clean straight back and somehow the goalie missed it. I've always wondered that. Yes, Jay, I do know this one because it did happen once that I know of. And it wasn't quite what you're describing. It wasn't off an opening face off. But there was a game between the Leafs and the Flames where there was a faceoff in the flame zone and Calgary won it clean straight back. and right through the legs of the goaltender,

who was not fully set and expecting it. Just a weird, fluky play. And the credit for the goal, even though no Maple Leaf player had touched the puck on that shift. And we all know that it's the last guy to touch it on the shift. We've seen goalies get credit. We've seen guys who were off the ice get credit and that sort of thing. We know that it's the last guy to touch it,

but what if nobody on the shift has touched it? It was literally the flame scoring into their own net without the puck ever touching a maple leaf stick. And what they did is they gave credit for the goal to the Leaf Center, who I want to say was Matt Station. You can find the play on YouTube. But that's the answer. They would just give credit to the opposing team center.

Even if he hadn't touched it, I guess it's close enough. So, yeah, that's how that works. And I know this only because I've seen it happen exactly one time. Morgan wants to know, is there a person in charge of hitting play on the goal horn? Like just watching the goal all game and waiting. Yeah, there is. And I have to say, I, anytime I think about this, I get anxiety.

You talk about a job I could never do. Imagine being the guy who has to sit there. And it's not just the goal horn, because most places now, they've got like spotlights that come on and this and that. And you see it every now and then where somebody jumps the gun, right?

Where you get either the goalhorn goes off or the spotlight comes down after the puck has hit the post or whatever. And everybody has a good laugh about it, usually when it happens. I don't. I have like an anxiety attack because I'm like,

imagine being that guy realizing you just press the button and 16,000 people plus however many watching at home just saw you screw up. I mean, I don't deal with it well when I like have a typo in an article and one guy on Twitter points it out. You know, that is enough to ruin my morning. I can't even imagine being that dude. And because I can't imagine being that dude, I know that if I ever was that dude and I ever had that job, I would be five seconds late on every goal horn, every spotlight. Like, these guys are quick. How many times you see a goal and everything just happens instantly to the point

where you would think there must be some automatic thing, but clearly there isn't. We know there's no sensors in the puck or anything like that. It's just somebody watching and having a good eye. And I could not do that. I would be, it would be like pot, you'd see guys celebrating, they'd be high-fiving the bench, and then finally the goal horn would go off when I'd feel confident enough. But, oh man, it's, I just thinking about doing that job weirds me out.

All right, this is Luke, this is Luke. And Luke has an excellent question. He says, since Lambert isn't listening, I don't know if he's not listening. He's probably, no and Ryan, he'll probably listen to the show. But he's not here, which is the important thing. So we can talk about him. Since Lambert isn't listening, where do you stand on his no snacks at the movie rule? Dude, it's crazy, right?

Like, do we all agree on this that no snacks at the movie is insane? I mean, and I'm not even like a huge snack guy. I don't go to the movies just because I love popcorn, but you can't go to the movies and not have popcorn or candy or something. It's absolutely nuts. And I do not mess around with Ryan on his movie takes. I understand this guy knows more about movies

in his pinky finger than I ever will. I take his advice. I listen to whatever he tells me, even in a handful of cases where he's maybe led me, you know, towards something I didn't enjoy as much as I thought I would. I know that this guy knows what he's talking about, except this. This is a, this is a, it's a bad take, it's a bad rule. It's, it's, it's psychopath behavior.

Honestly, man, if I, if I'm at a movie and I look over and the guy next to me, he just has his hands folded in his lap and he's just staring straight ahead, that is, uh, it's weird. man. I'm sorry. It's just, it's, it's a very weird take. Speaking of weird movie takes, um, Kevin wants to know, uh, Sean, is it true that you watched and enjoyed Joker 2? I did. I, I posted about this on the, the Discord, which is where I'm assuming this, this came from. And I know it's like the biggest bomb of the year, one of the great disasters of all time. But I watched it the other day at home. It's streaming now. I got to be honest, I thought

it was a good movie. I really did. I didn't think it was a great movie. I didn't think it was, you know, it's not going on any all-time list or anything, but it was, I thought it was well worth my two hours. I thought it was weird and dark and strange in mostly the right sort of ways. And I am surprised that it was as universally disliked as it was, more maybe from critics. I get why audiences might not have liked it. But I'm surprised that critics didn't, you know, even just for the artsiness of it, that they didn't give credit for that. I think, Part of what's happening here is I think I'm in the perfect middle sweet spot of a Venn diagram for this movie in that I liked the first movie. I liked it a lot. I thought the first movie was a really good movie. So I was interested and invested in seeing where they were going to go in part two. But I have no attachment to the character, to the comic book universe to DC or whatever. Like I, I, I, I, I never read comic books as a kid.

I was in there. I know Batman and the Joker and all that purely from movies, from good movies. I've always, you know, the Joker's a cool character from Jack Nicholson to Heath Ledger and on down. But I have no attachment. So I'm not sitting there like, oh, you can't do that. You can't take it in this direction. I was just sitting there going, dude, do whatever you want with this character. And you've probably heard, even if you haven't seen the movie, the ending is not.

The ending is not popular. A lot of people were bothered by the ending. I wasn't. I thought it was fine. Sure, I'll go along for the ride, whatever you want on that. So I did think a lot of it was ridiculous and silly, but it's a musical,

and I think every musical is ridiculous and silly. I think every single musical I've ever seen in the movies, I'm just looking at these characters. You know, they start singing, And I'm like, what are you singing for? What's, what's going on? So that, I, I just kind of got over that. And the other thing is, while, yeah, there's stuff in Joker 2 where you're kind of

looking, like, side-eyeing the people next to you going, like, is this stupid or like, what are the, I feel like the first movie had scenes like that. I think the infamous staircase scene in the first Joker movie, where he's, like, dancing down the straight and you get these, like, it switches to slow motion and the music change, it's a big dramatic music, and you get these close-ups of, like, his feet stamping in puddles. Like, we've all decided that that scene is a masterpiece. Cool, I'm along for the ride. But can we admit that it's at least on the razor's edge of being a very, very dumb scene? This sort of thing. We're like, if you told me after that movie that, like, oh, yeah, me and my

friends watch it, we're all laughing. We're dying laughing at the staircase thing because it was so cheesy and dumb. I would have been like, yeah, I could absolutely see that. So, yeah, There's a lot in Joker 2 that tiptoes right up to that line and maybe over it on being cheesy and dumb. But overall, I thought it was good. I was, you know, I was happy to watch it. And I would recommend it. I would, I've definitely seen some movies this year that I did not enjoy as much. I did, I had a bunch of edibles before I watched it.

Maybe I should have said that at the beginning. That might be important context. to the whole thing, but, uh, ow, go see Joker 2, go see it in theaters if it's still there. And if it is in theaters, bring snacks. Bring snacks. Don't be a weirdo. Just load up. Bring extra snacks in case the guy next to you is trying to follow Ryan's rules and then realizes

that he's made a terrible mistake. Okay. That is half an hour, uh, of me rambling. That's, uh, probably about as much as you can handle. We're going to take a break. The next voice you hear is going to be me again because I'm going to be doing an ad read. And then after that, we're going to toss it over to Ryan and Mike. And they're going to guide you through this NCAA story and fill your head with actual useful information.

So stick around for that. And we'll be right back. This week's episode is brought to you by Game Time. Hey, folks, you know where you are definitely allowed to bring snacks, no matter what, no matter what some snobby guy down the aisle says to a sporting event, especially to a hockey game. It's all part of that experience, that great experience of going to an NHL game or one of the other leagues around. If you happen to be near the HL Jr., if you get a chance to take in a women's pro game,

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What time is it? Game time. over to you, Ryan and Mike. Hey, everybody. A bit of a different format for the show today, as I'm sure you've noticed. I'm out of town for the next little while. I've got stuff to do. So instead of having the normal me and Sean segment, again, you just heard Sean talking earlier,

I am joined instead by my great friend Mike McMahon. What do you think, Mike, the original college hockey insider, like the real OG. I mean, you got the URL. Nobody else did. I mean, that's very true. Yeah. So maybe. So.

And we're here today to talk about, we're recording this on Thursday afternoon, near moments after the NCAA's Division I committee or council, sorry, voted to approve CHL player eligibility beginning in August, August 2025. So starting next season in Division I college, college hockey, former CHL players are now officially eligible. Yeah, it's a big change. It's crazy, man. You know, it's funny because, like, I think we all knew it was happening for a little bit.

Like, this has been talked about since January, but it's kind of crazy, just the, the different steps this has gone through from hearing about the possibility right around middle of January last year. Yeah. Everybody's saying, at least in college hockey, that it was likely not going to have. and talking to more people who said, look, it's probably going to happen because it's really going to be outside of anybody within hockey's control. It's going to be at the NCAA level that they're going to make this change. And that is kind of how it played out.

Like, eventually they got sued about it and it got put in front of the NCAA Division I Council. There's 40 members of that council, and only two of them even have connections to college hockey programs. There's someone from Kenetius on there and somebody from UNH. outside of that, the other 38 members don't even have hockey programs. So when this was brought up to just bring hockey in line with every other sport in terms of how they treat professionals before enrollment, it seemed like a no-brainer that it was going to pass. Yeah, and I think the thing you said about bringing it in line with all the other sports is kind of the important factor here, is that, well, first of all, this applies to both hockey and skiing weird. But more importantly, it is worth noting that this, the CHL, like no CHLers rule, and classifying the CHL as a professional league like you would,

the NHL or the AHL or the Swedish league or the Swiss League or whatever, was really like a decision made by like just the coaches in college hockey, whatever, 30, 35 years ago. Yeah. Yeah, so it was a rule that they created. And I guess what started this from the story that I had heard is that the NCAA, obviously they're getting sued about everything and losing all of those cases or settling all of those cases, one or the other. They started to look, their lawyers started to look at all these different rules across all of their sports

and tried to figure out where are we legally vulnerable with some sport-specific rules. So two years ago, in the spring of, of 2023, when the coaches had their meeting in Naples, the NCAA attorneys went to the coach and said, hey, we've identified this as a potential rule change because we think we're vulnerable legally, if anyone were to ever take us to court over this. Is that something, is it something you, as a coaching body, you're willing to change? This spring is when they reported back, you know, a year later and effectively said, no, you know, we don't want to change this rule. As a coaching body, it wasn't, there was something that did and some that didn't, but not enough wanted to change. that they were going to change it on their own. And then all it took was, you know,

what are we, five months later here. And the rules changing because there was, you know, there was a lawsuit. I don't even know. I'd be curious to find out if the lawsuit by Rylan Masterson that was filed over the summer,

if that prompted this or if this was more the NCAA figuring, hey, it might not just be one. This could be many. because Braxton Whitehead committed to Arizona State in the fall, he didn't file a lawsuit. However, they would have had to rule on his eligibility next spring if this rule was still in place.

And I think they looked at the landscape anew. It's not just going to be Braxton Whitehead. It's going to be Braxton Whitehead and maybe 15 or 20 other players. And if we across the board rule all of these players ineligible at once, now we have a giant class action lawsuit with 20 players. coming out of saying you're denying me this opportunity to play college hockey over a rule that may violate antitrust law. So I'd be really curious to be a fly on the wall and figure out exactly what prompted them to make the change. Because everybody is kind of connected to the dots and saying it's the one lawsuit from over the summer.

But I don't know if it was just that. It may have been that combined with the potential for future lawsuits, which I think they knew were coming if they didn't make any changes. Right. It's worth noting, I believe the Masterson lawsuit is like a proposed class action. So in theory, other players could have joined this if they also, like you said, kind of had their eligibility denied for, you know, even, you know, Masterson, I believe he played two OHL preseason games. He wasn't even like actually a CHL player. And that cost him his eligibility. So that's that's all just kind of background for. Again, starting next season, people who are in the CHL right now, unless they've signed professional contracts, which of course some of them have, and that's the reason that was always considered a professional league is that some players in the CHL, I don't know what the number is, probably like 40, maybe 50, have signed NHL contracts. And therefore, it's a professional league, was always the rash. now. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I was going to say it's going to be like, and now it's not just the CHL that's now open. The same rule is going to affect those European players, which end up having, I mean, we just start this year. It happens with a bunch of guys all the time, where they, especially, it seems to be more with goalies than anybody else for whatever reason. But, you know, a goalie gets hurt while they're playing juniors in Sweden, let's say, and they come up and back up for a game. There's been cases of guys that have come up and dressed as a backup for two games didn't even enter the game. They didn't even play. And that affects their eligibility because they were technically on a professional team. That all seems silly.

So that corrects all of this stuff prior to initial full-time enrollment. Like there's kind of differences in the rule from before initial full-time enrollment and after initial full-time enrollment. That's where a lot of this stuff applies to before they initially enroll. Right. And okay. So the thing you say about initial full-time enrollment, let's just like talking broadly about some of the terms we're about to use because me and you, like, we know what this means because we're dorks, you know? And like I think the average person listening to this maybe doesn't know what like things like initial full-time enrollment or like what is it actual and necessary expenses. Yes.

Yeah. So initial full-time enrollment means literally just like, are you a full-time enrollment? means literally just like, are you a full-time student at that college? And there is before initial full-time enrollment and after initial full-time enrollment. And we'll talk, you know, again, kind of broadly about what is allowed and not allowed once we, again, like, just make sure everybody's on the same page on the terminology here. And then like the actual and necessary expenses, basically means like the cost of travel, lodging, food, that kind of thing, ice time. I think even like health insurance maybe, if I'm remembering the, so yeah, like, basically what that means is like teams can pay for kids to go to, say, a development camp or a training camp, but they can't pay the kids to play there.

for example. So like as long as a kid not putting money in his pocket basically is what that means. So with that having been said, I hope that makes sense to people. And let's talk about what it means for kids who have not yet enrolled in NCAA. And by the way, only Division 1, Division 3 remains unaffected by this. I don't know why, but that's the case. Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know why either. I think it's because this is the Division 1 council that voted on it. Right. Sure. I wonder if there must be a Division 3 council too

and maybe they would have to vote in the same legislation. I'm not really sure. That's my guess. Yeah. No, it makes perfect sense that that would be why. But yeah, so before initial full-time enrollment and I'm just literally just going to go down the bullet points that you put

in your newsletter, you know, an hour ago or whatever, Mike. And by the way, you can read Mike's fantastic, like indispensable college hockey newsletter at college hockey insider.com. A plus stuff, day one subscriber here. I get a lot out of it as a, you know, guy where this is kind of my job a little bit. So thank you. No, Mike, thank you.

But yeah, so it says basically, again, if you haven't signed a professional contract and you're in the CHL, you maintain your, your eligibility again, as long as you're not getting anything above and beyond your actual and necessary expenses. It's that simple. That's basically who is allowed, like,

who's the kid who signed an NHL, or yeah, a CHL kid who signed an NHL contract. Quentin Musty has been in the news lately, right? So like, Quentin Mustie can't go play for Michigan next year. No. Nope.

And they lay that out with, not only is it you also can't, I think this is where the specific language comes in, where they talk about how you can't sign contracts that include, like a post-dated contract, you can't say, well, we're signing this now,

we're just going to date it for 2027. Like you can't do that, and you can't sign any contracts that allow, or that have the promise of future payment. Not only can you not receive payment for playing. You can receive your expenses, but not payment. You can't sign a contract that includes the promise of future payment.

So that's where it comes out to just expenses. one of the things it does apply to, though, which I think is going to be beneficial for the college players, we see them every year going to development camps in the summer. The difference now is, up until this point, they've had to pay their own way to go to those.

Now they're allowed to have their expenses paid for, so they can, just like a CHL player, go to those camps and the team can fly them out, the team can put them in the hotel, all the meals, all, everything, the equipment. Like, I think there were things before where, like, guys technically, like, couldn't take the gloves back with them that they were.

Yeah, like if they broke a stick. Yeah. Like literally, it's that stupid. But yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now that seems to have gone away.

Right. The other thing that's interesting about this is not just, uh, like development camps like that they have every summer or whatever. Um, also players can now play in tryouts with professional teams before they enroll. Uh, or and before they,

uh, Yeah, before they enroll full time, sorry. And again, as long as they're not getting paid anything above and beyond that, like in theory, the Wilde could draft, the Minnesota Wilde, for example, could draft a kid and say, you know, as long as you're not enrolled in college yet, like if they draft him, whatever, and then he's going to go to Minnesota in two years after that, University of Minnesota. of. In the interim, they can say, why don't you come to the NHL tryout, like, or the NHL camp or whatever. And the only thing is they can't, like, play in games with that team, but they can be a full participant in practice and all that sort of thing.

Yeah. And it's interesting. Like, so before enrollment, I need clarification in this because there's some language in there where I think if they're, if it's before their enrollment, they could actually play like in rookie camp games and things like. that. I think that only applies after enrollment that you can't represent the team. The language is a little muddy there. I got to figure that out. Yeah. And I need some clarification. But yeah, they could go to training camp. And we see that a lot, right? A player gets drafted out of the USHL and isn't going to go to school until 19. They're going to play an extra year in the USHL. That player could go be a full participant in training camp because they're not going to miss any academics. Like there's no other issues in the way. So like, yeah, all those players could go to training camp now before they enroll for those and it's usually what i mean that i think we usually see that with like middle to late

round picks for the most part right a guy that's drafted like in the fifth round out of the ush-l that isn't going to go to college until 19 he can go to campus first year before he goes to school yeah so again huge change you know could could again to your point really benefit a player to in their professional career to be like getting you know in the room with their potential future coaches and and just do video work and testing and workouts on like NHL quality equipment and all that kind of stuff. All of that is now allowed even before full-time enrollment. After full-time enrollment, they can do practice sessions conducted by professional teams

as long as they don't get paid, as we said. As long as they don't sign anything that like you mentioned even gives them future earning ability or whatever. And they can't, they can't again play in like actual games. What is termed being a representative of a professional team.

Yes. Which would be like NHL rookie camp games or obviously exhibition games. The thing I found out since I wrote this an hour ago is that they also, they cannot miss classes for these practice sessions. So I always assumed that, but you never know.

Like sometimes like, you know, hey, can I go remote for a week while I'm at training camp and then come back? Or you never know how some of these things work, right? But they can't take, they can't miss classes for these. So I wonder, I mean, that's going to make it a challenge academically. But it will work in some cases. Like you think if there's a Minnesota player that gets drafted by the wild and he's taking classes that are only at night, he could go to training camp practices in the morning and have it not be an issue. Same if you're, you know, really at almost any hockey school drafted by the Bruins,

you could do the same thing. It's all within driving distance, with the exception of probably Vermont and Maine. So, Vermont, maybe Yukon, you might, you might say. Maybe, yeah, maybe. But like all those other schools, and that happens a lot too, where, especially as guys get older, the junior and senior year, they're ahead on classes usually because they enroll later. So you have guys that might be like, hey, I'm only taking classes on Mondays and Wednesdays or I'm only taking classes at night. You know, I don't really have any classes going on during the day.

Those guys might be freed up academically to go to training camp practices if they're drafted or even if they're not drafted. Even if they're just a training camp invitee. Yep, they could they could just be, you're right. They could just be invited, you know, in much the same way that like people are always on the lookout for, oh, who's the big free. free agent who's going to sign with an NHL team and then all the fans of that team were like, well, this guy's a future All-Star, then maybe, you know, he's a third liner or something like that. Like, those guys could now get, like, actual training camp invites if they're, you know, 22, 23 years old. And again, just as long as they're not missing classes and not signing anything,

you know, have fun with that. Yep. Yeah. So, like, I guess that's like the big, the big, like, explainer on the rule itself, the rule change. But I guess what do you see, Mike, is like, what do you think this means for college hockey and, I guess even like the NHL development processes, whatever you want to say, writ large? Yeah. It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. I think what's going to happen is you're going to see.

like everyone talks about the developmental pyramid for players. I think you're going to see like right now, the NCAA and the CHL were essentially on the same level of that pyramid. And then you would have the America Hockey League and the NHL at the very top, obviously. I think what's going to happen now is the NCAA is going to be removed. It's going to be untied from the CHL and it will be a step above the CHL. It'll wedge in between the CHL and the AHL. So you're going to have players that either come out of the USHL or the CHO,

CHO, I think predominantly the college recruits will be European players, CHL players, and USHL players at the Division I left. Yes. So what's going to happen is, is now those players, let's say they're drafted, the ones that aren't ready at their 19 or 20-year-old year, 20-year-old year usually, to play in the AHL, teams aren't going to have to make a decision on whether or they're going to sign that player at 20 and hope they survive in the HL as a 20.

20 year old, they might say, hey, like, especially for mid to late round picks, hey, you know what? Do you have any NCAA offers? Why don't you go to school for two years or three years? And now we'll make a decision later on whether or not we're going to sign you. Or it gives you more time to develop, right? So obviously that requires a change in the collective bargaining agreement because it's going to require changes in how long they hold those rights for players when teams draft

those players. Like there's a whole bunch of things that are going to have to. to react to this move, the NHL-CHL-C-L agreement, and just the CBA, which I think is up next year anyway, to determine, like, because right now, like, a CHO player gets drafted, though, they hold those draft rights for two years, NCAA players, they hold the rights for four years. Well, what happens if a kid gets drafted in the CHL and then goes to the NCAA? Does it revert or, you know, roll into a four-year window instead of a two-year window? That's what makes sense to me, but until this stuff has figured out, we don't know exactly

how it's going to work. But that seems to be, for the people I keep talking to, that seems to be what everyone's thinks is going to happen, that you're going to have a new level in that pyramid and it will be the NCAA. Like it'll be above the CHL. Some of those players will still jump right from the CHL to the NHL because they're going to be able to. But the ones that the ones that I think the NHL teams think are going to have a hard time competing at the AHL level, usually mostly due to size and strength, those guys will be able to go somewhere else and not have to potentially, you know, get assigned to the East Coast League because they couldn't make it in the

H. I was a 20-year-old. Like, there'll be another place for them to go. Yeah. Last year when, in January,

when this all came up initially, you know, because people always talk about these guys who are too good for the OHL or too good for the WHOL, and obviously there are players who fit into that category. But I was talking about those kinds of players,

like, would those guys be kind of ideal college candidates. And this person who works in NHL front office basically said to me, like, for the vast majority of guys that would get drafted, this isn't going to change very much for them in theory. You know, like finding that middle ground between the CHL and the AHL, it would be maybe, you know, a handful, a half dozen, maybe 10 players per year would kind of slot into

that we don't really know what to do with them. But those 10 players would instantly be 10 of the best players in college hockey in all likelihood, right? So, like, it's not a huge number in terms of, like, the number of CHL players who are drafted every year, but the impact they would have on college hockey would kind to be pretty significant. The other thing to say is that, you know, not everybody who plays in the CHL is eligible to be in the NCAA for like academic reasons, right?

Like there are just, there are just a, I don't know, however many, what is it, like probably 600, 700 CHL players? So that, that's how many I've had it estimated to me may be eligible. There's 60 teams. So I had somebody say to me, you know, if there's 60 teams and you figure, like not, not everybody's good enough to play or eligible or good enough to play, like, Because some of those guys aren't in the lineup every night. So if you took the starting lineup and said, okay, there's 20 players per team, over 60 teams,

there's 1,200 players. Even if half of them are academically eligible, it's about a 600 player pool. You know, that's kind of the baseline number that I've been using. Yeah. And so, you know, obviously that's a pretty good amount of, you know, like obviously not all those players would come straight over to the NCAA after, you know, two years in the CHL or whatever. But even if half of that number, let's say 300 CHL players are coming into the NCAA every year now,

that's like a seismic change. Oh, yeah. In college hockey. Like, there's 64 teams in college hockey right now. Am I remembering that right? That's the number? Yeah, of course. And just think, like 300 players, that's like a couple per team, at least, right?

like, you know, if that are, you know, affecting things. And this isn't even getting into like the house settlement, which maybe me and you will reconvene at some point in the future when there's more clarity on that. But like the house settlement is going to affect things too. But the other, the thing that I wanted to say about like CHL players and, you know, their ability to compete in college hockey, there, obviously like you said, there, there's one CHL player who has publicly announced that they are committed to an NCAA school for next year.

That's Arizona State, obviously. But you and I have certainly heard of more players than that, maybe not names and teams there, but just multiple teams do have CHL players committed right this second that are not yet announced. Fair to say? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know of at least a dozen or so.

And they've kind of been waiting for the rule to go through before they officially announced their commitments. Some of them are, I know of at least one who's an 18 year old who doesn't want to announce anything yet because he's afraid of might upset his team because he's leaving before he's 19 or 20. So that could be an issue too. But most of the ones that I know of at this point are either 19 or 20 years old. So they're either aging out or would be going into their age out year. their overage year. So I think, you know, I would expect over the next couple of days, we're probably going to see a number of guys announced commitments

because they were just kind of waiting for the rule to officially change before they announced anything. So my guess is that we'll see a lot of those happen within the next week. Yep. And to your point about upsetting teams and things like that, we've already seen a couple of like current USHL players announce, oh, I'm actually going to go to the OHL or the WHL or whatever. in the next little while here, including I said,

I can't remember who it was, but there was a kid who the other day was like, yeah, as long as it doesn't affect my eligibility to play college hockey, I'm going to go to the CHL like next week or whatever. I think it was Blake Montgomery from was, he's committed to Wisconsin. Committed to Wisconsin, that's right.

And he was waiting for the rule to officially change before he signed. There was also a player. I don't remember the name of the player. I could look it up who committed or who signed with the Flint Firebirds in the OHL this week. And in the announcement that the team put out on Twitter, they had included University of Minnesota commit, which was strange to see.

You don't see that. Here it is right here. Hayden Reed. The Firebirds are proud to announce that University of Minnesota commit. Hayden Reed of the USHL's Sioux Falls Stampede has signed an OHL scholarship and development agreement. So that was a weird one. I haven't exactly seen that before.

No, I mean, yeah, why would you? ever, right? It was strange to kind of wrap your head around. No, I mean, like, you know, talking to coaches about it, like, in just the last few weeks, again, this felt like it was an inevitability. Like, once that, I felt like once that lawsuit got filed over the summer, you know, I was saying, like, at the latest, it'll be the start of not, like, next season, but the 26, 27 season would be at the latest I envisioned it.

And, you know, some coaches were still like, maybe I don't know. know, but most people were like, yeah, I mean, obviously that's, that's just going to happen at this point. That was the thing. Like, a lot of coaches were still pushing back against it. Not all. Beminently. No, yeah. Like, I had, I had a coach last year when I brought up this subject to him.

He was like, who would ever sue us about this? I was like literally anybody? I don't know, man. Yeah. I had some, the same thing. I had a coach last year say to me, why would we ever vote to change that? Like we're, the way the college coaches, many of them viewed it was, we're winning right now. Like, why would we ever vote for change?

I heard that exact, we're winning like four or five times. And I tried to explain to them like, everyone I had a conversation with, I was trying to explain to them. Like, look, I get it. You'll never vote to change it. And that's fine. What I'm telling you, though, is that it's not going to matter. Like, the coaches didn't want unlimited transfers either, but here we are because they were, the NCAA suit about it. the coaches didn't want really transfers at all.

I don't think anybody, any college coach was asking, yeah, they weren't asking for the transfer. Here we are. Yeah. So they needed to kind of realize that, yeah, the lawyers are leaving it up to the coaches as of right now. This was, you know, a year ago. They're leaving it up to you right now,

but eventually they're going to have to make a decision when someone files a lawsuit. And that was the spark and here we are. Yep. And, again, like, what would you estimate? I think I've seen it reported. Like basically it was like two thirds of coaches voted against it last May.

It was something like that. That sounds right. Yeah, I don't remember the exact number, but that sounds right. I know most of the CCHA coaches were in favor of it, obviously just geographically. It will benefit them. I mean, Lake Superior. I mean, there's an O HL team across the river from Lake Superior. But even, I know a lot of Atlantic hockey schools that were in favor of it too.

Again, like, Mercyhurst has the Erie Otters next door. Like, they could drive not even half an hour from their campus in recruit or in scout OHL games. A lot of the, I know some ECAC schools that were in favor. I know some hockey schools that were, you know, in favor of it. Even a couple of NCHC schools that were like, hey, you know what? I fought against it for a while, but we're kind of at a point where I see, you know, why are those kids any different than the USHL?

I had a coach to say that to me at the Frozen Four. Yeah. No, and that's the thing too is like coaches definitely saw the writing on the wall and they're, you know, the CCHA Atlantic hockey. Like one thing that, again, like in talking to coaches about it, one of the things that came up a lot is like, you know, this would basically raise the floor of quality in the NCAA Division I writ large. like the worst teams are going to be better now.

I, you know, like, I still think your Denver's and your BCs and your Michigan's and Minnesota's, like, those schools are still going to get all the best players, right? But or all the best, like, you know, 17, 18, 19 year old players. But like 19 and 20 year old players, those are going to start spreading out everywhere. And it'll just make those, again, Atlantic hockey and CCHA teams like more competitive on a game to game basis. Like, you know, the gap between Denver and, I don't know, who do you want to say is like a,

let's say Lake State. The gap between Denver and Lake State, if Denver played Lake State 100 times, a thousand times, Lake State might win 5% of those just because that's how hockey works sometimes. Yeah. But four or five years from now, that number might go up to like 15. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's quite, it's going to be closer with the NHL. is, right? Like last year, if the sharks played the Panthers last year, the Panthers would have won the vast majority of those games, but it would have been, you know, like 70%? Yeah, 15, 20, 30% the sharks would have won. I mean, in college hockey, that was not the case. If the worst team played the best team, the best team was winning 95 plus percent of the time. That's just how it would have gone. So now I think that will, that will, it will bridge that gap a little bit. It also, meaning for the teams in the middle, I think that bubble for teams, for teams,

that are going to be competing for NCAA tournament spots, that bubble just got a little bit bigger. Because it's going to be easier to find good players. Now it's going to be more about, you know, what teams obviously push the right buttons, you know, get things together at the right time, avoid injuries. There's all those components that go into it.

But it's going to be easier for teams that have kind of traditionally been 25 to 35 in the pairwise. Those teams may, if they do it the right way and attack it correctly, now may be able to be on the tournament bubble more often than not when maybe right now they're able to sneak in there, you know, once or twice in a 10-year period. Now, if they tack this the right way, it might be something where 50% of the time they could be a bubble team. Yeah. And, you know, again, you hear coaches talk about how much the sports just like, the sport at this level is just changing by, again, NIL money and, you know, the house settlement, which, with, which will. lead to revenue sharing and roster or scholarship caps changing and all this kind of stuff.

But I think you're putting it exactly right. The teams that figure out how to navigate it most effectively are going to be at a huge advantage, not just like in competing, but also in being able to say to CHL players, hey, if you come here, we can get you an NHL contract. Like I think about Denver all the time, right? Like, I saw Denver play this past weekend. And, you know, they've had two first round picks in the last, like, seven or eight years. Steve Buehiam and Henrik Borgstrom was the other guy, I think.

And, like, they've won three in the last five or four or whatever NCAA championships. Yeah. You know, like, Denver has this ability to sell two players. Hey, if you're like a fourth round pick or even if you're an undrafted free agent, we can get you an NHL contract. They lost five guys to NHL contracts over the summer. And like, you know, again, none of those, I don't even think any of them were second round picks. And all of them were like, I'm going, you know, straight to like my HL team's starting lineup or whatever. And the guys that stick around like Jack Devine, who's probably right now, it looks like he's going to win the Hobie Baker.

He's the guy where he was like, he had the ability to go to the NHL this year if he wanted to. And he went back to Denver because, well, let me rephrase. He had the ability to sign an NHL contract this year, but I think he would have been an AHL player. And he went back to Denver because he's like, you know, can I, do I want to play in the HL and get a little bit of money? But Denver can probably offer him NIL money. And Denver can. It might be pretty close to what he be making in the HAL now.

I don't know. For guys like him, for guys like him, it wouldn't surprise me if actually the NIL money was even better than it would be in the AHA, quite frankly. Yeah. Maybe not including signing bonuses. But anyhow, you know, Jack Devine, he's like, I don't need to rush it. I can stay at Denver for one extra year. And then, you know, I was talking to their coach David Carl the other day. And he was like, you know, in theory.

you know, we're getting Jack ready to step into their NHL lineup next year. So now, so now, like, other teams can kind of pitch themselves as that to CHL teams, if they can develop, like a history of, you want to come here after two years in Erie, like Mike said, or, you know, wherever, London, take your pick. You play here for two years, we get you in, we get you an NHL contract. That's how this works. And if two, three, four, five teams can do that that are currently, like you said, occasional NCAA bubble teams, they're going to be a huge destination for 19 and 20-year-olds

that aren't eligible right now. Yeah. You look at the, like, most NHL undrafted free agents out of the NCAA are 22, 23 years old. So it's like these players are aging out of the CHL at 20. So that's where that extra development comes in. It's in those two or three years. And now you could be a guy that, even as an unsigned guy, you could be a guy coming out of the OHL at 20 years old. And you've got a couple of East Coast leagues interested in you or you had a couple of U-Sport universities interested in you.

That was kind of your path before. Now the path may be, well, I've got these NCAA schools interested in me. And if I continue to develop at the rate I'm developing now or what have you, they could end up being NHL free agents at 22 or 22 or 20. where I don't know if that opportunity really exists if they were to go play anywhere else. No, given the options they would have had previously, right? So like it does create a scenario where now they may be those Colin Graffs. Because like Colin Graff at 18 years old was not looked at as an NHL prospect, even at 20.

Not at all at all. If he was, he would have been drafted, right? Right. Now all of a sudden, I think was he 22 last year or 23, whatever he was. 22, I believe, yeah. 22, there you go. And now all of a sudden he develops a little bit more. and he's highly sought after when the college season ends.

Quinipiac's going to, if Quinipiac plays its cards right, they're never going to lose another ECAC championship for the rest of time, right? Like, because they already have the we turn guys into NHL prospects thing, guys who aren't drafted and that very rare for people who don't know, the Quinnipiac like has it has highly drafted players on their roster or anything like that. But if you look at the number of guys in the NHL or, like, high AHL who went to Quinnipiac, it's a pretty significant number, honestly. It's crazy. I know.

So, yeah, I'm just trying to quickly pull up a list of guys in the NHL who are who are Quinnipiac guys. But, like, guys, you would, you have definitely heard of even if you are not a Connor Clifton. There's a college or a Quinnipiac guy. That was just the first guy that came up on this alphabet. list. Devin, Devon Taves, Chris Tanev, you know. And Taze, I remember Taze being one where it was like, you watch him play in college. He was a really good college player. But I did not think, oh, yeah, he's going to probably play 500 games in the NHL. And like that's, yeah, he's probably going to play more than that. He'll be making seven million bucks a year, five, you know, five years from now, whatever.

We're not have said that. He's so sick, man, you know. There are so many, it's so funny, right? Mike, like, we're, me and you and guys who are just around the college game for a long time. it's pretty easy for us to look at a player 20 games into their college career and go that looks like an NHL player to me and yet every once in a while there was like were you one of these guys that was like Brett Peshy like signed with Carolina are you see like that's wow okay good for him that's awesome and then like three years later it's like Brett Pesci one of the you know best middle pairing defensemen in the NHL it's so funny but again this is one of those things

Yeah, I mean, obviously. Colleges can turn those guys, if they can show that they're turning your Connor Clifton's and your Devon Taves's into, I said Chris Tannib. I don't know why I said that. He didn't, I just realized he went to RIT. He didn't go to Quinnipiac. I don't know why I said that. Anyway. But, yeah, like, if they can just show, we're a place that turns XCHL players into NHL prospects, there's going to be a line out the door.

Yeah, it's, and that's going to get, it's going to get you more players. Like, it definitely is going to get you more players. That's what every college coach I talk to now says that's the most important thing. That's what they ask about. Like, it's not about what the arena looks like. It's not about, you know, really anything. All these players that go to college want to play in the NHL. So a lot of them ask on their recruiting visits, it's like, okay, that's what they want to know.

How are you going to get me ready to play in the NHL? Or how are you going to get me to the point where NHL teams are going to notice me? What does your strength and conditioning facilities look like? What does your team film rooms look like? They're more concerned with that. And that's what I think fans lose sight of, especially college sometimes. Teams will build new arenas or they'll do work in their arenas and fans will be going, oh, we're going to win every recruiting battle now.

And it's like, well, the arena needs to be nice. It needs to have an atmosphere. Like kids don't want to play in front of nobody. But what's more important is like, what is your training facility and recovery rooms and your weight rooms and your strength and conditioning centers? Like, what are all those things look like? Because that's what players really care about. the ones that, at least the ones that are good and want to play when they leave college.

Yeah. So like if I was a school, I'd be investing all of my money in that. And then when these CHL players are eligible and you're touring them around your campus when they're taking their visits, a lot of these schools now have those facilities are NHL-level facilities. You know, some of them I would argue, depending on the NHL team, might even be better. You look at some of these ones that are brand new and it's like, oh, it's ridiculous what some of these facilities look like behind the scenes. And so that is what's going to attract those players, too, because I don't know, I'm sure that, I'm sure that they have those facilities available to them now, just like USHL players do. But not to the extent that some of these NCAA programs have, that literally have NHL level facilities. I mean, Sacred Hearts in Atlanta hockey school that just built a $75 million building.

Yeah. It's gorgeous, too. It's so nice. Yeah. And the rank is nice. The arena is nice. and I know they're behind the scene stuff is gorgeous too. It's why UNH is pouring a bunch of money in the Wittemmore Center right now

and where is most of it going behind the scenes. Same with Maine. Like they're updating Alfon Arena. The big chunk of that money is going into new rehab pools and all that type of stuff. Like that's where the smart schools are spending their money. Have you been to Mullet Arena, the Arizona State Rink? No. Okay.

So I went out there a few years ago. you know, I walk in and I'm like, oh, this is just like the Whittimore Center. Like they have a second deck, like a, you know, like a luxury box level. But other than that, it just kind of feels like the wit, honestly. But then you go down like to where the player facilities and stuff like that. And you're like, okay, I get it now. I get why this rink costs all this money. Like it's just such a, I mean, you know, especially for Arizona State who was playing

in what anybody from like Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota would consider like, a dumpy college hockey rink, you know? Yeah. Or a high school hockey rink, I should say. Yeah. To go from that to Mollett and all the facilities that come with Mollett and, you know, it's like two blocks from like a, basically it looks like a small office building, but it's like the student athlete resource center or something like that.

I don't remember what the, but like on the front of it, it's like only student athletes can come into this huge, like three students. story building. And it's like, man, you know, I'll say this. I don't think that the CHL player, that's not the last one Arizona, or Arizona State's getting. I'll put it that way. Yeah, I wouldn't think so. I mean, no offense to the fine people of some of those CHL markets, but it's like, you know, sometimes you don't see the sun for a few months and it's 15 degrees all winter and you get 20 feet of snow and then all of a sudden you visit Arizona. I mean, imagine some of those kids visiting like ASU's campus in the middle of January.

you've gone. Okay, when I went, it was like early January. It was 70 degrees in sunny every day. The ranks, the ranks, nice, nice facilities, everything. It's like, this is the easy. They're like, they should win every recruiting battle forever, basically, is my opinion at this point, especially now that they're in the NCHC. But anyway, I think we've gone on long enough. I hope we explain this clearly for people. And like just again, the impact that's going to have not only, only on college teams and CHL teams, but eventually the NHL teams that you, the fine listeners of Puck Soup,

all are super interested in. So it's just like this is such a game-changing thing. And it's, I still can't believe it's happening next season. I thought it might have had a longer runway on it, but here we are. Yeah, I did too. I was with you.

I thought like 26, 27 was the more likely scenario when this all started being talked about in January of last year. year, but once they started getting hit with the lawsuits, that's when I figured it might get sped up. Yep. Well, thanks for bearing with us if you're not a huge college hockey head like me and Mike are. But once again, go to college hockey insider.com. Check out Mike's fantastic newsletter.

One of the goats, it's that simple. I appreciate it, man. Thanks. Hey, thank you. All right, everybody. It's on here. to just say thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode

a little bit different format, but hey, we do what we can. We didn't want to miss a chance to talk to you good folks. You can find me at The Athletic. You can find me with my podcast with Sean Gentilly. We'll be back tomorrow.

And you can find my written work there as well. And you can find Ryan at Elite Prospects. Well worth checking that out as well. We do still have a mailbag this week. So head on over to the Patreon to check that out. And if you're not a member of the Patreon, consider signing up. You get lots of stuff, bonus episodes, you get access to the call-in show, a whole long list of extra content for us, well worth a couple of bucks a month, in my humble opinion. So yeah, absolutely check that out.

and we may not have a show next week. Again, Ryan is still away, still playing through the formats and that sort of thing, but a very good chance that there will not be a free show next week. So don't despair if you go looking forward to somewhere not there. We will be back two weeks from now. Ryan will be back and we'll be back to the usual format and everything will be okay.

I know change is difficult. Thank you for writing it out with the, us this this week and we will talk to you again soon. Bye bye.