He's put up very solid numbers in the O despite not being drafted. He's the type of player that could really boost Notre Dame, who doesn't score a ton. Not saying Fimis will become Jason Blake at UND, but he should have significant impact. Better for Fimis playing against age appropriate competition in the NCAA than having to grind at the bottom of the A or in the Coast.
He's the type of player who would have signed a PTO with an AHL club, played for a season then most likely would have ended up on a high end USport team like UNB.
But that will predominately be because of NIL money. Porter Martone is rumoured to be going to Michigan as well. I think a lot of it rests on if the make the NHL next season or not. Martone might realistically make the NHL with his frame and talent.
Could see some more youth if the recent draft picks start bolting, seems like for now at least the NCAA teams are being respectful about only taking age outs, and many already drafted players have contracts signed as is. Will be interesting to see what the floodgates are the first time a player decides they'd like to leave the CHL early.
College sports are only older in ice hockey and I think skiing. All other sports have freshman at 18 or sometimes 19 in rarer circumstances.
I don’t think it will ever even out to where the other major sports are. They other sports don’t have the equivalent of junior hockey. It’s HS to NCAA at 18. Because hockey has this level of play that is exclusively 16-19, HS isn’t the feeder for college hockey. it just naturally offsets NCAA hockey to be older.
With the recent ruling, football is going to have a whole bunch of players going to JuCo first now to save their eligibility.
What NIL money? I haven't heard a single credible report of an American player getting significant nil money. There just isn't that much money in ncaa hockey.
NCAAH is the third highest revenue sport of all the male and female collegiate sports after throwball and basketball. Now there is a big gap between those two and third place, but the majority of hockey DI programmes either make money or break even at worst. There are some in the red for sure, but you can say that about every sport. Actually throwball is one of the biggest detrimental sports for a college due to the significant amount it costs to build a stadium, the significant amount to pay a good college coach, and the sheer number of scholarships you must give out to make your school competitive in the recruitment phase. The number for a throwball team is 105, but not everyone is getting a sports scholarship, I think it was around 40 to 50 if I remember correctly (quote me if I am wrong here). Giving 40 to 50 players a full ride is super costly to a school.
