DI Women’s Hockey Commitment Rate by Months Prior to College
2023 Commits
2023 commits are tracking at about 18% less than the last two years (34 less commitments). Due to 5th year eligibility, red-shirting and grad transfers this is consistent with our recent analysis on forwards and goalies. It appears as though many of the 2023 Forward spots are already taken but there is likely still another 20-30 spots available across a handful of schools.
2024 Commits
The 2024 commits are slightly behind the 2023 commitment rate as of December, 2022 by about 12% (64 2024’s vs 73 2023’s).
The first couple of commits for 2025 have been announced. Both are for the forward position and are Canadian players who are 2006 birth years, but will only start in 2025.
In both the US and Canada, LiveBarn is the most popular hockey streaming service. What is great about LiveBarn is that you can easily download either 30 second clips or full games. While sometimes the quality isn’t great or the camera is sometimes not focused on the puck, in general it is one of the most consistent sources of footage that you can use.
The second most popular game streaming available is from HockeyTV. Depending on the event and/or rink, the service has a very good browsing capability to find specific games and navigating within games. The big drawback for HockeyTV is that you need to pay an extra fee to download specific games – which makes it expensive to use for editing full games. My trick is to just use my phone’s camera to record specific highlights from of the HockeyTV screen.
Additional Streaming Services
There are also other hockey streaming services available in specific regions or events. For example, in Minnesota there are rink-specific feeds that you can pay to watch games. And there is also the GameOn streaming service in Canada that is available for major events and specific rinks. Once again, the fees vary either by one-time access to events (e.g. tournament or showcase) or subscriptions.
Recoding Games Yourself (or by someone on your team)
At almost every rink, you will find at least one parent with either an iPad or video camera on a tripod recording or streaming a game. The quality is usually very good and as long as they camera person pays attention the entire game, there is usually some great footage.
In addition, I consistently see at least one parent along the glass takes out their phone every time their kid is on the ice and start the recording their shifts.
One more method is to use GoPro cameras. This is my personal favorite source of game footage as a supplement to LiveBarn. It is especially good for goalies. While you only need one camera and you can decide which end is more appropriate to record based on your player and period, I like to use two cameras at both ends of the rink behind the goalies. The only challenge with using GoPros is that it is a lot of work. Beyond shelling out ~$200 or more for a camera, memory card and necessary accessories to stick it to the glass, you also need to make sure you have enough power to last the entire game. This can be through charging the in-camera batteries or connecting an external battery pack. And remembering to charge the batteries and empty the memory cards before/after games is another chore. However, the payoff is that the quality of the video for offensive plays and goalie footage is about as good as it gets. I can’t tell you how many goalies (and their parents) have asked me to send them video of their end when they know that I recorded their game.
OTHER FOOTAGE SOURCES
Sometimes a game or a highlight is available from some third party that I have seen on social media or know about from our team chat.
Many games are live broadcast or posted to YouTube either by the opposing team or a tournament/showcase organizer (e.g. NAHA Winterhawks games and more). You may be able to find game footage just by doing a search on YouTube. If you have a premium YouTube subscription you can download videos with your account. There are also “free” websites to download YouTube videos, but since many of the sites are filled with suspicious ads and potential malware, I won’t link to any of them here. I would just suggest you use caution when using one of these services.
Similar to YouTube, many parents live stream games using their personal social media accounts. I have used footage from Faceboook Live and SeasonCast . You may not be able to download the full game video, but you can use your phone to capture short highlights.
Social Media
Every once in a while I will find a short highlight I want to use on Twitter or Instagram. Usually someone else posted a great play from an angle or a shot that is better than what I have on my footage, so I find a way to capture or download it.
One more trick I use is a screen recording software (sometimes I use Screencast – but you can also just use Zoom to record your screen) to capture and download video from a 3rd party source that is not available for easy download.
I am sure I am missing some additional sources of footage and other methods of capturing game video, so please feel free to send us your methods and we can add them to this post.
As a reminder, the research compiled all the roster information for players from current DI women’s hockey team websites and combined them with the latest public women’s college hockey commitment data to help determine where spots have been filled and which schools may still be looking for players to start in the 2023 and 2024 school years.
Keep in mind, due to Covid, players who started playing in 2018 or 2019 were given an extra year of eligibility. In addition, 12 schools (all the Ivys, most of NEWHA plus Union and RPI) did not play in 2020-21 – so their 2018 or 2019 players can still be on their rosters for another season or two.
Finally, many of these extra-year players have the option to either stop playing after their 4th year of playing, transfer & play one more year elsewhere or stay-and-play for a 5th year at their current school. This makes predicting which teams would be looking for freshmen goalies in 2023 and 2024 tough, since many schools might prefer an experienced transfer student. It is very possible that even the coaching staffs for these schools may not know for sure what their student-athletes will do.
Here is the analysis which tries to shed light on where forwards are committed and current players are getting to the end of their college careers (by year).
DI Womens Hockey FOWARDS By Grad Year & Class
The following (ugly looking) table shows the number of forwards by class year on their current roster and their anticipated graduation year. Then the currently publicly known number of forward commits by start year is also provided.
Note: Gray teams did not play in 2020-21 and thus have players with an extra year of eligibility even though they are currently listed as a Jr or Sr.
Players that are designated as 0.5 F and 0.5D if they are listed as both positions on their team’s website.
If you are a 2023 or 2024 forward, the above table may help guide you to certain teams that may still be looking for skaters.
A few observations and notes:
If there are ~600 F positions, then usually ~150 F should be recruited every year.
It looks like ~25 F spots have shifted from 2023/24 to 2025. So ~25 less spots will be available for 2023/24 grads combined (~275 spots)
The average number of F per team is 14 players. But there are 9 teams with 16 or more Fs (likely due to Covid) which means at least 1 or 2 of those players will not be replaced on those teams.
It appears as though many of the 2023 Forward spots are already taken but there is likely still another 20-30 spots available across a handful of schools.
If you are a 2024 grad, you might also consider taking a Post Grad year and plan to start in 2025 when it seems there will be a lot more openings (~175 for 2025 vs ~130 for 2024).
Having talked to almost 40 Division I women’s hockey coaches, this is the feedback I’ve received on different types of video compilations:
1. Highlight videos
There is nothing wrong with putting together clips of the best offensive and/or defensive plays a skater has made throughout the season. For goalies, it would be great saves from real games (not practice). While coaches know that whatever is in a highlight reel is not representative of how any player plays for a full game, highlight clips show off how you can play when you are at your best. Keep in mind that coaches only get snapshots of a player when they watch live or on video, and unless you are a superstar or they get lucky, it is unlikely coaches be watching those key highlight moments. Whatever the position of the player, make sure you have at least a 2-3 minute compilation of your best moments so coaches can see what you are capable of.
2. Full Shifts for an Entire Game
This is the most important type of video coaches who are serious about recruiting you want to see. Coaches want to watch you play a full game – ideally in the least amount of time possible. Cutting a single game down to just your shifts can allow a coach to watch you play a full game in less than 20 minutes which would normally take 60-90 minutes. This is a highly efficient use of a coach’s time instead of having to sit through whistles, ice cuts and trying to figure out when you will come out on the ice. Now, obviously coaches can’t see everything they want to see –like how you behave on the bench or how you handle mistakes after a whistle, but it certainly gets them a lot closer to knowing what kind of player you are.
The only other key point on this topic, is to make sure the game you choose is against a competitive, high quality opponent (check out My Hockey Rankings for how good the opponent is), since coaches don’t really want to watch a lopsided game. An exception would be if you are a goalie getting peppered with pucks by a much better team, and you stood on your head.
3. Compilation of Game-Specific Situations
This is a nice-to-have type of video to include in your profile. For every position there are key, fundamental game situations that each player encounters every game. Putting together a very focused highlight reel of just that one situation spanning several games, really helps coaches see how consistent you are with your game. A good example is a watching a defender go back to retrieve a puck in their end while being chased by an opposing forward – how often does the D use deception (a fake) before they touch the puck?
Here are some examples of game specific situation compilations you can put together for each position:
Forwards:
Offensive Zone entries
Power Play
Penalty Kill
Breakouts
Shots (e.g. wrist, slap, snap, one-timer)
Breakaways
Defense:
Defensive zone puck retrievals
1-on-1s
2-on-1s
Passing
Offensive production/shots
Goalies:
1-on-1s
2-on-1s
Penalty Kill
Penalty Shots/Shoot Outs
In the next post we will discuss how to compile all the different types of video footage you could use to create the above videos.
We receive a lot of questions and comments about the recent Goalie recruiting classes for DI women’s college hockey teams. Almost all of them related to how tough it is has been for 2023 and especially 2024 goalies to find DI opportunities.
Recently I compiled all the roster information for goalies from current DI women’s hockey team websites and combined them with the latest public women’s college hockey commitment data to try and makes sense of the what and why it seems so tough for goalies right now.
Due to Covid, players who started playing in 2018 or 2019 were given an extra year of eligibility. In addition, 12 schools (all the Ivys, most of NEWHA plus Union and RPI) did not play in 2020-21 – so their 2018 or 2019 players can still be on their rosters for another season or two.
Finally, many of these extra-year players have the option to either stop playing after their 4th year of playing, transfer & play one more year elsewhere or stay-and-play for a 5th year at their current school. This makes predicting which teams would be looking for freshmen goalies in 2023 and 2024 tough, since many schools might prefer an experienced transfer student. It is very possible that even the coaching staffs for these schools may not know for sure what their student-athletes will do.
Here is the analysis I compiled which tries to explain why goalie recruiting seems tighter than previous years and which teams could be looking for goalies (by year).
DI Womens Hockey Goalies By Grad Year & Class
The following (ugly looking) table shows the number of goalies by class year on their current roster and their anticipated graduation year. Then the currently publicly known number of goalie commits by start year is also provided.
Note: Gray teams did not play in 2020-21 and thus have players with an extra year of eligibility even though they are currently listed as a Jr or Sr.
If you are a 2023 or 2024 goalie, the above table may help guide you to certain teams that may still be looking for a goalie.
A few observations and notes:
In a “normal” year there should be about 33 freshman goalies per year (44 teams x 3 goalies per team / 4 years)
Several schools (e.g. Clarkson, Merrimack, Ohio State) already have four goalies on their roster – so they likely would want to get that number down to three – thus not replace all their current upper-class goalies one-for-one.
It appears as thought most of the 2023 Goalie spots are already taken (other than maybe a handful of spots that remain open).
I am no expert on NCAA eligibility, but I can imagine it is also possible that some current underclass goalies could also redshirt due to lack of playing time or injury, which could also reduce the number of goalies needed for 2024 (or even 2025 & 2026).
Depending on how many current senior (2023 or 2024) goalies stick around for the 2023-24 season, it is possible that only 10-15 goalie spots remain for the incoming class of 2024 – which is not very many.
If you are a 2024 grad, you might also consider taking a Post Grad year and plan to start in 2025 when it seems there will be a lot more openings.
This is the first post in a series about how to create hockey highlight videos to help with your player’s recruiting process.
In my experience, while an online hockey profile from Champs App is like a resume in the recruiting process, videos are similar to taking an aptitude test for a job. Rarely will your profile and video get you an offer (now that Covid restrictions have gone away), but it can certainly move you up a team’s priority list. Posting and updating game-related videos to your Champs App profile throughout the season can also keep you top-of-mind for coaches as they track your progress over several months.
How to edit your video in a way that coaches want to watch them?
Where should you publish your videos?
Anyone can create these videos, it doesn’t need to be a parent. If your player has a computer or iPad, they could do it themselves if they have the inclination. In addition, while expensive, there are third-party service providers who can perform some if not all of the editing on your behalf for a fee. Thanks to AI, the costs for these services have been coming down in recent years. However, these posts will focus on how to do it all yourself. All you will need are some basic computer skills and the most important ingredient – your time.
Note: During my research into this series on creating hockey player videos for recruiting, I learned that some hockey programs use InStat for video tracking and analytics. As a result, all the teams using InStat share their videos with other teams/schools and therefore the video clips of player shifts are available to college coaches to review. While it is a another option for how coaches can watch your player videos, I would still recommend creating your own videos so that you are sure the “right” types of videos are available to the teams & coaches of interest.
There were four 2022 announced commitments since April (Syracuse, St. Michaels 2 and RPI). This shows there still may the odd opening at a school even just a few months before the start of the fall semester. Since the 2022 school year has started, this will be our last analysis of the 2022 commits.
2023 Commits
2023 commits are still tracking at about 23% less than the last two years (40 commitments). Due to 5th year eligibility and grad transfers this seems about right and should be similar for incoming 2024 and possibly 2025s. However, with Assumption and Robert Morris starting to play in 2023 those schools may help bridge the gap in total commits. Both Assumption and Robert Morris have already started announcing their first few freshman commits (two each) – with RMU already having some players on campus and/or 2022 commits who are now starting in 2024.
2024 Commits
The first coming have been coming in since July with 15 public announcements that have been tracked. Most of them are for top hockey or Ivy league schools. This is the first class of players that could not commit until June 15th of their junior year because of the new NCAA recruiting rules. As a result, the current total number of commits 24 months before their start year is significantly below levels from previous years. It will be interesting to see the pace at which the gap closes this fall as potential recruits visit campus and meet the staff and players.
Goalies
Four of the 15 2024 commits are goalies (Clarkson 2, Cornell, Brown). For 2023, St. Anselm, Lindenwood and Assumption have added goalies since our last analysis.
Data assumptions:
Data commitment dates – source: collegecommitments.com and Champs App analysis
Transfers between DI programs are not included in the number of commits
Total number of publicly announced commitments for 2021 was 215 and for 2022 it was 210
For 2022 commits, they have now surpassed the equivalent rate as 2021 commits. There are now 206 2022 commits as of March 31, 2002 compared to 202 commits the same period last year. Based on previous years, there will probably only be 10-15 more commits for 2022.
2023 Commits
As of March 31st, 2022, only 97 commits have been made for DI programs compared to 163 (2021) and 139 (2022) at the equivalent time before starting for those grade years. With USA Nationals now complete, I would expect the commitment rate to increase in April and May. However, given the absolute numbers it seems that there will also surely be less 2023 commits than previous years (typically about 214 commits). My back-of-the-envelope math says that overall there will likely be between 30 and 40 less 2023 commits compared to 2021 and 2022. From talking to DI coaches, it seems the reasons extra year of eligibility and the transfer students from DI, DIII and Canadian universities. On the positive side, Stonehill College starting in 2002 and Robert Morris University beginning their recruiting for 2023, I would suspect the gap closes slowly over the next 9 months with an additional 10-20 spots being available for those schools (otherwise my estimates would look even worse).
Goalies
Four goalies committed between January and March, 2022; one for 2022, one for 2023 and one for 2024. This is consistent with what DI coaches have been saying on the Champs App Podcast, that the goalie process is later than for skaters. There are still only six 2023 goalie commits with an overall target of about 20 goalies per year.
Top 10 Schools
There were only four Top 10 commits in Q1 2022 and three of them were for Minnesota.
Data assumptions:
Data commitment dates – source: collegecommitments.com
Transfers between DI programs are not included in the number of commits
For 2022 commits, they are all caught up to the same rate as 2021 commits. There are 193 2022 commits as of Dec 31 for compared to 191 commits the same period last year. Based on previous years, there will probably be on ~20 more commits for 2022.
2023 Commits
As of December 31st, 2021, only 83 commits have been made for DI programs compared to 152 (2021) and 134 (2022) at the equivalent time before starting for those grade years. So the big questions that remains is: Will there be less 2023 commits than previous years (typically about 214 commits) or is the recruiting process just slower this year given everything that is going on with Covid and the extra year of eligibility?
Goalies
Three goalies committed between Oct and Dec, 2021, but what is interesting is that they were all for 2022. This is consistent with what DI coaches have been saying on the Champs App Podcast, that the goalie process is later than for skaters. There continues to only be four 2023 goalie commits with an overall target of about 20 goalies per year.
Top 10 Schools
There were quite a few commits (and transfers) from the Top 10 Schools in Q3 2021.
Data assumptions:
Data commitment dates – source: collegecommitments.com
Transfers between DI programs are not included in the number of commits
Total number of commits for 2021 was 215
Please keep in mind there were no adjustments in the number of schools each year (e.g. RMU, St Michaels, Stonehill)
