Below I will deal with what is and will confound and confuse the recruiting process - signing of underaged college hockey players by the NHL. I’ll assume most writers are looking forward to this year’s college hockey season, which is true of all fans of college hockey. But that future is clouded by the recruitment of the brightest and best of college hockey.
One of the biggest concerns facing college hockey coaches is junior hockey, and its competitive position for top notch players. Recruiting is the life blood of any hockey team -- coaches recruit to either reload or rebuild. Recruiting is a fluid process that, when it works best, feeds the first three lines and defense with players of equal quality with those who have left. Normally, determining the quality of these replacement players is up to the coaches.
Last August alone saw a parade of college hockey stars sign professional contracts: Princeton sophomore defenseman Dominique Auger; Harvard senior Ethan Philpott; Boston University sophomore forward Dan Lacouture; New Hampshire senior forward Eric Nicklaus; Minnesota junior forward Erik Rasmussen (who scored his first goal for Buffalo on 10/9); Minnesota senior defenseman Mike Crowley; and St. Cloud State sophomore forward Mark Parrish. I do not question their decision to turn pro -- but I do question the timing of that decision and the impact the timing of their decision has on the coaches and their ex-school’s recruiting opportunities.
For instance, St. Cloud State lost its best forward Matt Cullen when he signed with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. But he signed at the end of the 1996-97 college hockey season. St. Cloud State’s second best forward Mark Parrish (who led the WCHA in goals scored) waited until the end of August to (attempt to) sign a professional contract with the Colorado Avalanche. However, the loss of Parrish is much more damaging to the SCSU Huskie hockey program than is the loss of Cullen not because Parrish was better than Cullen, and not because one was older than another (both were sophomores), but because of the season of their signing. A spring signing of a star player gives a coach recruiting time to make an adjustment by signing a “replacement” player; but an August or later signing of a star player leaves a coach, his teammates, and a whole University no time to make any adjustment, nor time within the current season to adequately plan for adjusting to the player's absence.
The seriousness of this season’s “all-star college hockey signings” is not going to recede, but may reach a flood crescendo (all apologies to the citizens of the Red River Valley). As a number of coaches have said “The money is just too big.” Facing average signing bonuses of $500,000 and three-year contracts of $3 million dollars makes it easy for one to delay a college education and to sign a pro contract. (I’m not criticizing the players here, because I would have signed in a heartbeat - if the offer were made).
I wonder if there is a Dutch-boy finger that the NCAA might want to place in the dike. We all know the NCAA has enough trouble competing with Canadian junior hockey, much less with making intelligent college hockey rule decisions. But why wouldn’t the following suggestion work: when a player signs a letter of intent to attend a college or university and to play hockey for that school; and when that player receives a college hockey scholarship; the signing of a pro contract after the month of June obligates the player to repay the school for the total value of the scholarship money which they received (at any NCAA school).
Because it is a contract, it is something the player knows in advance, and can structure into their pro contract. Secondly, it does not restrict the player’s ability to sign a pro contract except for increasing the cost of signing that contract. And most importantly, it gives the school that lost a player whose skills they developed, some remuneration for their loss. And since the deadline is in June, it not only gives coaches time to adjust to the adverse situation of a player signing, but gives adequate time for the player to make a decision of when to sign. If the June date passes, the consequences of signing a pro contract change for the player, but not his option to sign. If this year is atypical for signings of college players to pro contracts, then no change in the current NCAA arrangements is necessary. But if it is either typical or the beginning of a deluge, then the rules which govern the “letter of intent” signees need to be changed in favor of college hockey programs. And this change should in no way disadvantage the NCAA in its recruiting competition against Canadian junior hockey nor disadvantage prospective signees and college students from signing pro contracts. Pro contracts are a good thing for college hockey - the more pro contracts, the more recruits. But pro contracts can be bad for college hockey programs if the school cannot make counterbalancing adjustments.
Nathan Eric Hampton.
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