I agree there’s going to be more fluidity. Weirmair is much closer to an average junior player that you find in the CHL/USHL. Most of these kids would be better off playing junior til 20 and then making the jump to the NCAA at 20. The one complaint for the USHL is that they lose their talent at 19. Maybe the influx of CHLers will convince American kids to stay down a level instead of getting 4th line minutes.
Wiermair is the exception to the rule as most players do enter college at 20. In fact less than 8 percent of incoming freshman were true freshman and less than 25 percent were under the age of 20. What the USHL loses is their best talent, and even at that the numbers, in the aggregate, are not that significant as most of those loses come from the NTDP (and you can argue if that team is truly a "member" of the USHL),
So yes, the very cream of the crop leaves the USHL before their 20 year old season but the large majority of their 18 and quite significant number of their 19 year old players remain in the league.
Of course in this thread the main emphasis is on what impact this rule change will have on the absolute best 16 and 17 year old players and the NHL drafted elite 18 and 19 year old ones. Some believe the changes will only be at the margins and most leagues will not be all that impacted, others that the top 16-17 year old will concentrate in the CHL and they jump to the NCAA as the preferred route to the NHL while others believe most will bypass the NCAA all together.
We don't really know but we can look at trends, follow social media accounts and for some talk to people who are insiders. This will all play out within the next few years, however so we won't have to wait that long to find out.
I do know (and again, you can use my words as toilet paper and wipe your arses with it if you'd like...no matter) that ownership groups in both the BCHL and USHL are approaching the WHL/OHL respectively to join. This gives me a pretty good indication of where most of the best young 16-17 year old players will be within the next few years.
I also know that Bob Turow is talking to various college coaches and commissioners, pleading with them to get younger or risk turning into U-Sports. I don't think that either will happen (curious to see what happens the NCAA meeting this spring when the council will be reviewing things like age of enrollment...unfortunately for Bob the D-1 coaches are lobbying for no change in hockey) and I can understand exactly what Brandon Naurato was saying that his main competition will not be the CHL but the AHL. I think we can take from that that he understands the top players will be in the CHL and the real battle will be between top prospects signing ELCs to play in the NHL/ AHL or spend a year or two in college.
All eyes are on Gavin McKenna right now for next season and believe me, every top school has made inquiries and have been blowing up his agent's phone. Some think that his standard player contract ties him to the dub, but as I've argued, the dub would not hold him back just because of the optics and potential blowback from agents (as the USHL will soon experience due to their 15-50 k transfer fees holding players in).
Agents are what really run the world of prospects now folks, the CHL knows it, college programs hate it but live with it and even the NHL bends to some of their demands. His agent will have a large say in determining what is best for McKenna and of course what McKenna wants as well.
I know some think that NIL will be the big deciding factor and that 1st and 2nd round picks are commanding six figure salaries, meaning that right now there is 3 to 3.5 million NIL money spread out among 32 players in college today. You can believe that if you want and you can also think that a generous benefactor will swoop down and pay 125k for McKenna's services like the wife of billionaire founder of Oracle did but while plausible, unlikely and not to mention the fact that being Canadian complicates what ever NIL deal he may receive.
I know the link I provided previously by the reporting of the Athletic/NYT was behind a paywall and most may not have access to it but the black book value (used by agents in determining compensation for NIL deals) for hockey players was under 3K. As for brand companies and NIL, social media following is huge, so unless McKenna has hundreds of thousands of followers, then he really won't get much of a payout there. Here is a link to the NCAA dashboard
This data dashboard is intended to be a resource and not the sole basis for making decisions or identifying individual student-athletes.
nilassist.ncaa.org
Money isn't just swimming around like that in college hockey and most likely won't be for the foreseeable future
, no chance of that happening.
