Major junior player eligibility the latest change to hit college hockey

A week ago, Minnesota Gophers commit Hayden Reid announced he was leaving the U.S. Hockey League’s Sioux Falls Stampede and signed a contract with the Flint (Mich.) Firebirds of the Ontario Hockey League. For the past four decades or so, that move would have meant that Reid would never wear Gophers maroon and gold or hear the Minnesota Rouser after scoring a goal.

But in this era of Name, Image & Likeness and the de facto free agency that the Transfer Portal has brought to the sport, welcome to yet another new development in college hockey.

Reached via text message on Tuesday, Reid confirmed that he still plans on being a Gopher in the future, which, by next summer, will be allowed under NCAA rules.

For a generation, players in major junior hockey – specifically the OHL, the Western Hockey League and the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, the three of which are collectively known as the Canadian Hockey League – have been deemed professionals by the NCAA due to the compensation they receive for things like food and lodging.

But in this new era where some American college athletes are getting paid to run hockey camps and record commercials for their local bank, a lawsuit filed over the summer argued that CHL players should have the same shot at a college scholarship.

Last week, the NCAA Division I council agreed and deemed that as of August 1, 2025, players who have signed major junior contracts will still be NCAA eligible. That means a player like Reid can skate in Flint this season and still potentially join the Gophers next fall.

Due to proximity, major junior teams have had more success pulling kids out of Michigan and other hockey-centric states. But a handful of talented Minnesota kids over the years have made the choice to take what, at the time, was a one-way street to major junior hockey as what some believe is a quicker route to future employment in the NHL.

After he was drafted by the Dallas Stars, Cloquet star Jamie Langenbrunner skipped his senior season of high school and canceled the brewing college recruiting battle for his talents by signing with the Peterborough Petes of the OHL. For Langenbrunner, the move was a success. He played more than 1,100 games in the NHL and won the Stanley Cup twice.

Langenbrunner told the Pioneer Press that allowing NCAA eligibility for major junior players is overdue.

“It’s something that probably could’ve happened earlier. I’ve always thought, having played there back in the ‘90s, that the rule didn’t make sense, as the majority of the players in (major junior) are not getting paid,” said Langenbrunner, 49, who is an assistant general manager with the Boston Bruins and has a son, Mason, playing college hockey at Harvard. “I think it’s good overall for college hockey. We’ll see how it is for everybody else.”

For other athletes, the route from major junior to a paycheck has not been so smooth and direct.

While Minnetonka’s Tim Hanus was one of the first standout players at St. Cloud State in the late 1980s, his son Clay skipped out on Minnetonka High School’s first state title run to sign with the WHL’s Portland (Ore.) Winterhawks in 2017. After five seasons there and two games in minor league pro hockey, Hanus today is playing Canadian college hockey for Mount Royal University in Calgary.

The move toward granting NCAA eligibility to CHL players gained steam in August when a Canadian defenseman named Rylan Masterson, 19, instituted a class action lawsuit and named 10 American private colleges, including the University of St. Thomas, in the filing.

In 2022, Masterson had played in a pair of OHL preseason games with the Windsor (Ont.) Spitfires, thus negating his NCAA eligibility. The lawsuit references NCAA athletes like swimmer Katie Ledecky, who has been compensated for her athletic prowess and still maintained college eligibility.

Likely knowing that they would lose the court case, the NCAA changed its long-held stance on CHL player eligibility starting with the 2025-26 season.

Gophers coach Bob Motzko thinks we will need a few years to see how the huge increase in talented players who are now NCAA eligible affects the game. But he is optimistic that more players could mean more colleges adding men’s hockey, particularly in the western U.S., where many of the better players coming out of California have gone to the WHL.

“We need a path forward for expansion. And I know in this world of revenue sharing and NIL that might scare people, but the National Hockey League has got their footprint across the entire United States and they’re doing great,” Motzko said. “We’ve always been hopeful, and now there are going to be more players. We are a money-producing sport, and we can be that for a number of other schools if they’re willing to give it a go. But in the short term, it’s going to take three or four years until you have an answer about how it’s really going to work.”

St. Thomas head coach Rico Blasi could not comment on the changes, citing his school’s involvement in the on-going lawsuit.

As for what the future holds, the most likely outcome means many more talented players from the U.S. and Canada will consider college hockey as an option, and the CHL as a way to get there.

Some have predicted a negative impact on the talent level in American junior leagues like the USHL and NAHL, and Reid’s immediate migration to the OHL seems to be an indicator of what could come from this change. Although Glen Heffernan, the USHL commissioner, noted that while Reid was moving from the USHL to the OHL, forward Tai York left the OHL’s Barrie (Ont.) Colts and joined the top line in Sioux Falls. So it is a two-way street.

“I think there’s more to this discussion as time will go on, but I certainly believe that the NHL and USA Hockey want a vibrant USHL. They want a vibrant path for players to the highest level of the game which includes college hockey and I think that continues,” said Heffernan. “There’s always going to be a shake-out any time you have a major change in roles. That’s just what happens. I think anybody making dire predictions is just looking to be a provocateur.”