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2024 2025 College Hockey Recruiting Men's College Hockey Women's College Hockey

The NCAA’s New Scholarship Model: A Double-Edged Sword for Women’s Ice Hockey

As part of a recent settlement agreement, the NCAA will be expanding scholarships across all sports, replacing previous scholarship restrictions with roster size limits. This new structure option will take effect in the 2025-26 academic year, coinciding with another significant change: the sharing of revenue with student-athletes.

Old Model: 18 Flexible Scholarships

Under the current model, Division I ice hockey teams can offer up to 18 scholarships, which can be divided among as many players as the coaching staff sees fit. There is no limit on the number of roster spots, allowing teams to carry an unlimited number of non-scholarship players.

New Model: 26 Fixed Scholarships

The new option presents a different approach: teams must roster exactly 26 players, each of whom will receive a full scholarship. No partial scholarships are allowed, and teams are required to maintain 26 players throughout the entire season. If revenue-sharing dollars are available, they would be distributed among these players.

The Dilemma for Men’s and Women’s Hockey

For men’s ice hockey, where the average roster size last season was around 30 players due to frequent injuries, limiting the roster to 26 spots could be problematic. Teams may find it difficult to maintain a full squad throughout a grueling season.

On the women’s side, the new structure might offer more scholarships than necessary. Last season, Division I women’s teams averaged about 25 players, a number slightly inflated by graduate students taking advantage of a fifth year of Covid eligibility. Most coaches suggest their ideal roster size is between 24 and 25 players, including three goalies. Typically, teams only need 20-22 skaters and two goalies for the season unless a significant number of injuries occur.

Key Considerations

1. Financial Viability: Many programs, especially in women’s ice hockey, may struggle to afford 26 scholarships. Women’s hockey is not a revenue-generating sport for most schools, and increasing scholarships from 18 to 26 could significantly raise operational costs.

    2. Top Programs’ Advantage: Schools with large athletic budgets, like Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, are most likely to consider adopting the new scholarship model. These programs benefit from substantial revenue streams from TV deals and their football and basketball programs.

    3. Optimal Roster Size: Most women’s teams only require 22-24 players, making the new 26-player requirement potentially excessive. Even last season’s national champions, Ohio State, had just 24 players, while runner-up Wisconsin primarily utilized 22 players.

    4. Playing Time Concerns: Elite players might opt for programs where they are more likely to play, rather than sitting in the stands as the 24th, 25th, or 26th player on a top team. This trend has already been observed with the current transfer portal, and it may intensify under the new scholarship model.

    5. Impact on Ivy League and Smaller Programs: Ivy League schools, which do not offer athletic scholarships, and other programs unable to afford 26 scholarships, could find it increasingly difficult to compete for top talent. This could further widen the gap between the elite and less-funded programs in women’s hockey

    The Road Ahead

    While the new scholarship model has the potential to increase opportunities for women’s ice hockey players, the actual impact will depend on how many schools can and will adopt it. The coming months will reveal which programs opt for the expanded scholarships and how this change will shape the future of collegiate women’s hockey.

    Learn More on CHAMPS+

    CHAMPS+ Subscribers can watch former DI coach, Harry Rosenholtz from College Hockey Showcases discuss the new scholarship rules during the August CHAMPS+ Webinar:

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    College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

    Deciding Between NEWHA and Top DIII Women’s Hockey: Factors to Consider

    If your choice is between going to a NEWHA team and a top-rated DIII team, you should seriously weigh a number of factors into your decision rather than just being able to say “I play DI hockey”.

    Before discussing the inputs to your decision between a NEWHA and a top DIII hockey school, let’s first set some context comparing the NEWHA conference and the top programs in DIII women’s hockey.

    A while ago, I interviewed Kerstin Matthews back when she was the Head Coach at St Anselm College and she discussed how her team was really a DII team but played a DI schedule. She also explained how there are some DII and DI schools in the NEWHA. She gives a great explanation on how the NEWHA conference is now able to compete for the NCAA Women’s Hockey National Championship: 

    NEWHA Hockey

    The NEWHA conference is very competitive and pretty well-balanced. Assumption and Stonehill were added over the past two seasons and they both had some success right away. There hasn’t been a single dominant team in recent years, with different conference champions the past few seasons. So within the NEWHA, players will experience a good level of competition throughout the season. In addition, as the programs mature at the DI level, one would hope that the level of play continues to elevate year-after-year.

    However, the reality is that the NEWHA conference as a whole doesn’t fare very well against the rest of the DI women’s teams right now. This past season, the NEWHA Conference went 1-44 in their non-conference games. The one win was a 1-goal mid-week game in early January at the end of Christmas Break by Franklin Pierce against Dartmouth.

    It’s great that the winner of the NEWHA Conference gets an automatic spot in the NCAA Women’s College Hockey playoffs. Every conference winner should get a berth. But the numbers show they aren’t even close to having one of the top 11 teams in the country to compete in the NCAA Playoffs.  According to MyHockeyRankings, all 8 NEWHA teams were rated at the bottom of the DI Women’s Hockey rankings this past season. Thus, it is no surprise that the team representing NEWHA in the NCAA Playoffs has been outscored a combined 16-2 in the two games of the opening round the past two seasons.

    Note: The NCAA just announced they will move from 11 to 12 teams in their NCAA Women’s DIII Hockey Playoff tournament.

    Beyond the level of play, potential recruits should also be factoring in roster size and athletic scholarship money. Half the NEWHA teams had 27 or more rostered players, with Sacred Heart carrying 33 players. Given a maximum of 18 athletic scholarships per program, many student-athletes are paying there own way.  And with a team only able to dress 20 or 21 players per game, several are being healthy scratched each game. 

    Do your research on academics

    This post doesn’t cover the quality of academics at the schools being discussed because I don’t really know all the details of each school.  However I have heard many times that the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) schools are top-notch.  The NESCAC includes top rated teams like Amherst, Middlebury, Colby College and Hamilton College. At the same time, every NEWHA and DIII school has disciplines that they are strong in that may line up with a potential recruits intended major. Doing your research and seeing if there is a good match is critical when looking at your options.

    All of this should weigh into the decision of playing NEWHA vs high-level DIII.

    NEWHA vs. Top DIII Hockey

    Let’s now compare the level of hockey between the 8 NEWHA teams and the Top 8 DIII women’s hockey teams this past season.

    NEWHA Conference 2023-24 MyHockeyRankings

    DIII Women’s Hockey 2023-24 Top 8 MyHockeyRankings

    As you can see, the top 8 DIII ratings are very similar to the NEWHA ratings – implying they are comparable in levels of play and would have competitive games between them. This is also likely why you hear some DIII coaches say that they could beat a DI team.

    How to decide

    Rather than just focusing on just DI vs DIII, the following factors should really be prioritized before making a decision:

    • Academics / Education
    • Cost
    • Potential for individual and team hockey success (winning, playoffs etc.)
    • Cultural fit with team and school
    • Playing Time
    • Being able say “I play(ed) DI hockey”

    Depending on your expected role on the team, it seems that all else being equal, the school/academics should be the most important factor in your decision.

    At Champs App, we have discussed at length all the attributes to consider when deciding on a women’s college hockey program, but this specific choice of alternatives seems to really highlight the need to figure out your personal priorities and the importance of selecting the right academic opportunity for you.

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    Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

    5 Insights about Women’s College Hockey Commits

    As a parent of a 14-year old girl hockey player who has only played with boys, we are trying to figure out her best path to playing Division I college hockey. However, there is no playbook that is given to parents or players on how follow the process. In fact, from talking to several coaches, each player’s journey is unique. However, if you live in a non-traditional girl’s hockey market like we do, the route can be even more complex.

    NCAA Women's Ice Hockey

    As we look to decide when and where she play girls hockey for both development and recruiting purposes, I thought I would see what data already exists to help guide our decisions.

    Insight #1 – Less than 0.3% of Women’s College Hockey Commits only played boys hockey

    In my research, I have only found two female players who only played on boys teams for their club or school teams prior to college.  And this is after looking into about 1000 Division I college players or commits.  Those two players were Dominique Petrie, who only played AAA Boys hockey in California before attending Harvard. And a goalie from Alaska, Hannah Hogenson prior to attending Bemidji State. 

    College Hockey Inc

    Additional Questions to be Answered

    In my upcoming posts I will answering the following questions:

    1. What percent of D1 women’s hockey commits come from Canada vs. the U.S.?
    2. Which U.S. programs are the biggest D1 college hockey factories?
    3. Which D1 colleges have the most commits?
    4. Which colleges have the earliest player commitments?

    It’s all about the data

    Before these posts are published, I want to make sure the sources of the information are documented and the limitations of the data is clearly defined.

    NCAA Women's Ice Hockey

    Data Sources:

    1. Nearly all of the data provided is from College Hockey Inc’s published page on Women’s College Commits.
    2. Secondary information is from Elite Prospects which was used to supplement missing club/school information for some players.
    3. The period covers 8/20/16 until 10/21/20 for players who are committed for the 2020 season and later.

    Data Integrity:

    1. The data on Women’s College Commits website may not be complete and likely does not include all D1 commits
    2. If a team/club was not listed, I referenced eliteprospects.com for additional information. Thank you to Beau Marchwick who populates most of the girls hockey data and stats.
    3. A player’s designated club/school is chosen based on the commitment date. If a player played on both a school and a club team, then the club or school with which the player was playing on longer was selected (because they were responsible for developing the player for a longer period of time).
    4. For time period calculations, we assumed Sept. 1st as the start of the college academic year to calculate the number of days from the date of commitment.
    5. The analysis does not include any U.S. Division III or Canadian University Sports commits.

    This post is part I of a series on 5 Insights about Women’s College Hockey Commits:

    1. What percent of D1 women’s hockey commits come from Canada vs. the U.S.?
    2. Which U.S. clubs/schools are the biggest D1 college hockey factories?
    3. Which D1 colleges have the most commits?
    4. Which colleges have the earliest player commitments?