November 13, 2024 • 22 mins
College Hockey Inc. executive director Sean Hogan joins hosts Jim Connelly (@jimmyconnelly) and Ed Trefzger (@EdTrefzger) to discuss the NCAA decision allowing Canadian major junior athletes to play Division I college hockey, including CHI's efforts in education, his organization's evolving focus, and recruiting from the CHL. Also discussed were the difficulties faced with all of the changes in the sport in the last year or two, and whether D-I hockey can continue to grow in light of that.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Usccho dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to us CHO Spotlight for Wednesday, November thirteen, twenty
twenty four. I'm Intrevsker alongside Jim Connolly. Since two thousand
and nine, College Hockey Inc. Has been an advocate for
the college route for hockey players, whether that's their final
destination or they're moving on to the pros.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And joining us.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Now on us ECHO Spotlight, he is the new newly
minted executive director for College Hockey Inc. That's Sean Hogan. Sean,
first off, welcome in and welcome to a new role.
I know you've been with CHI since twenty nineteen, but
now you're running the organization as the executive director, and
(00:54):
it's kind of a precarious time. So I guess I'll
congratulate you, but then I'll ask you just to maybe
take us through some of the big issues that we're
seeing right now, especially.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
The HL and college hockey. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Well, well, first off, I'm excited to be here. Jim
and I've been reading Falling us CHO since the late nineties,
since the inception of us Echo back when it was
I think it was called the United States College Hockey
Online out of a whole web address.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
So We're going back a long way.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
So excited to meet with you guys. Yeah, excited about
my new role. Mike snee left.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Will let me know in May that he was leaving
to move on to the Wild. Left hughes shoes to fill.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Mike was an unbelievable advocate for college hockey, grew the
game tremendously. But I'm certainly excited for his role with
the Minnesota Wild. Anybody that knows Mike knows that he's
deeply passionate about Minnesota high school hockey and that's his
role with with with the Wild. Now. So excited for him.
But yeah, I've been in this role since August. Began
in August, and a lot of changes that have happened
(01:54):
in that short period of time, and in regards to
college hockey, inc a lot of things change, but one
of the things that will remain consistent is I think
for the longest time, everybody knows that our main task
was to go out there and battle for players to
remain eligible against the chl right, make sure players played
(02:14):
college eligible. He understood the benefits of playing NCAA Division
One hockey on their road to the NHL. I think
what change is now is our messaging isn't so much, Hey,
this is what you have to do at sixteen to seventeen.
It's you can play anywhere you want junior hockey wise
in North America. Really, but when a college calls you
when you're eighteen, or a college calls at nineteen, or
(02:35):
a college calls you at twenty, these are the reasons
why you should play INSTAA hockey on your road to
the NHL. So the education component just changes from more
of a battle to more of a partnership with the CHL.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
We've already started that process.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
We've I've been in discussions with Dan McKenzie from the
president of the CHL, to start educating their educational advisors
on the requirements for NCAA hockey, working with them to
make sure that the families in the CHL and entering
the CHL understand, you know, eligibility requirements and again the
benefits pursuing instead of LA Division one hockey on their
(03:11):
road to the NHL. The other the parts that won't
change for us is we're also tasked with a partnership
through the NHL to try to continue to grow Division
one hockey on the men's and winless side, and we're
doing a little bit in Division three as well, So
the growth component won't change. We're out there, you know,
bird dogging, really meeting with nstable A Division one athletic departments,
(03:33):
trying to create more Division one teams again.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
On both the men's and women's side. And then the
research component won't change.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
We're still going to do all of our research players
in the NHL, their road to the NHL, where they
played at certain ages on their road, density of late
Division one average commitment ages, breaking it down, gego graphically,
all of those things staying in school stats that we
like to call a package we put together for coaches
to help players understand when and if they should leave
(04:00):
for the NHL. So exciting times at college hockeyee and
excited to be the new leader at top of the organization.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I want to address the CHL.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And this is a question that I've had and I've
been around for thirty three years and never really knew
the answer. But players that are in the CHL, how
many of them are playing hockey and still trying to
attain their high school education or the necessary education to
qualify to play NCAA Division IE hockey.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
So all of that remains to be seen to see
how many players, it's about fifteen hundred players in the CHL,
how many of those players will meet all the requirements
necessary with the Eligibility Center.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
And again, we're at initial discussions with three CHL leagues
in their educational advisors to make sure that the players
who are currently in.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
High school make sure that they understand what those requirements
are and the players that are out of high school,
so there's a rule that they, I would imagine the
CCHL isn't familiar with with the twenty one year old
old a player was playing his overage year when he
needs to enroll in school to make sure he doesn't
lose any eligibility. Those types of things are things that
we're trying to get in front of right now with
(05:14):
the three different leagues.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I guess another murky situation there has been for some
time is agents and how they are allowed to represent
players who are actually in college hockey. I know that
some of these CHL players are already working with agents directly.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Would they be forced to drop those agents?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
What can you just I mean, we've called the family advisors,
but I know enough about agents and I've met enough
to know that they're really acting as much as an
agent as any other sport out there. Yes, they're a
family advisor, but what are they really doing and has
their role changed or does their role change? So I
guess that's my next question to you is where will
(05:58):
the role of an agent fall in all of this?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
So, so my understanding is going forward here with the
institable a divisual and council. This is being pushed by
not only hockey in the in the Commissioners Association, but
also the sport of baseball. The next step is to
take a look at this agent and advisor rule UH
and makes some annotations there UH to make sure that
(06:21):
that players aren't easing eligibility. So there's discussions on that
particular piece going forward. I don't have a timeline on it,
but my understanding is that that's another piece being looked at.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Sean right along, College Hockey, Inc.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Has really made the case about why the college route
is good for preparing for the next level. How does
the NHL feel about this? If you had input from
them on being able to get more players through the
college route.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Well, we we have a very good relationship with the
with the NHL. We we have a direct contact there
who's his his job, his name is Kevin Westair. His
job is to make sure that he has the reallytionship
with all the development leagues, the NCAA, the CCHL, the AHL,
the EHL, European pro leagues. So they have been hands
off in terms of how we go about our rules
(07:12):
and regulations going forward. But what I foresee happening is
and this is a great thing for college hockey. I
think more players matriculate through insta of a hockey on
their road.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
To the NHL.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
The current number right now is roughly a third of
the league is former NSTAA players. Twenty years ago the
number was like eight or nine percent of the NHL
was former college hockey players. If you go way back,
everybody knows Red bearringson. When Red was in the league,
he was the only college player in the NHL. So
it's gone from one player to one in three players
in the NHL. And with this new ruling with CHL
(07:45):
players becoming eligible, I foresee that number growing. So when
you watch NHL on TNT here in the States or
ESPN or in Canada and on CBC and TSN, you're
going to hear a lot more references to college hockey,
and that's fantastic thing for our game and for the
NHL because the better college hockey does and the more
(08:07):
players matriculating through, the more markets that that we can
be in college hockey wise, that's more NHL fans too.
That grows the game everywhere, not only for opportunities for
players in coaching in colleges, as a fan base as well,
and everybody across the board starts to win because the
game grows even more.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And I should mention that you've got quite a schedule
the first semester schedule for TSN, plus a whole lot
of games are going to be shown in Canada, and
I assume the same with second semester.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yes, absolutely, So we have a relationship where we facilitate
through the the hockey conferences games that are either streamed
or linear on TSN. We were extremely hard to get
get a broad sample and all the different teams and conferences.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Now there are some requirements there and some.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Different hoops that that that leagues need to jump through,
but something that we're excited about. And again I have
a sense that when we're looking back on this in
three years, college Hockey's top the development period pyramid. More
and more players come through college hockey on their road
to the NHL, and then we have even more college
hockey games on TSN, mark college hockey games on television.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
Role more with College Hockey Inc.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Executive Director Sean Hogan In a moment, we're back with
College Hockey Inc's Sean Hogan. Do you foresee a few
things that are still going to need to be sorted
(09:41):
out as far as how things relate with the CHL
For example, one thing that was brought up to us
is that they probably will feel okay about their twenty
year olds moving to college hockey, but what about when
somebody who's maybe eighteen or nineteen or even seventeen is
being recruited and coming out of there.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Something that has to be felled out.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Well, I think that's all relationship based right.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
So right now we are up until last Thursday, we
had college eligible junior leagues and the assistant coaches and
instead of lay are out there their building relationship with coaches.
But guess what, every time that assistant coach talked to
a junior coach and said, hey, we want your kid
for next year, that junior coach would always say, I
think he needs another year junior because they want to
keep their players as well, right, so, and that's going
to be the same as a CHL.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
So recruiting is a relationship relationship based business.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
So the coaches are out their ability relationships not only
with the player, but with that player as an advisor,
that player's coaches, that player's families, and they have to
build a relationship to the points of when is the
best time for this player to make the jump to
that next level. That next level is college hockey, and
the same decision needs to be made, when is that player,
if he's good enough to play in the NHL, when
is he going to be ready to play in the
(10:51):
NHL Instead of a coaches they don't want to lose
their sophomores to the NHL, they don't want to lose
their freshmans to the NHL.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Well, there's a discussion there.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
They figure out what's the best next up for that player,
and that'll continue to hold true.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Switching gears just slightly.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
You mentioned one of the missions of college Hockey INK
is to try to help grow the sport, and we've
seen tremendous growth at the Division III level a little
by little at the Division I level. But yesterday the
announcement still not officially announced by the university, but by
their head coach Eric lying that AIC will be dropping
(11:25):
from Division one after this season.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Is there a situation.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
That's making it more difficult for schools to add programs
when we look at things like a name, image and
likeness and a talk of twenty six scholarships almost creating
like an arms race.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
That is a great question, and that the announced by
yesterday by AIC was obviously troublesome and worry some. I
did not see that comment. I haven't spoke to anybody
that knew it was, so that is worrisome. Some of
the biggest hurdles we face when we're out there trying
to grow.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
College hockey to the Division one level.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
I'm asked most often about the big name brand schools, right,
they're like the old Pack twelve schools for example, or
probably the ones I get asked about the most. And
if you're a school like that, and you're going to
opt into to the House settlement in April, and now
you're being told that twenty two million dollars of what
used to be revenue now needs to be an expense
(12:23):
back to essentially revenue sharing with players. It's hard to
add any sport at a level in ice hockey. It's
hard to add any sport when you're when you're told
your revenue is now changing to an expense. Now that
can change if we have a donor that's willing to
pay pay for everything and say I'll add the sport
for you.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I'll pay for everything, don't worry about it.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
So where we're going to see growth is this, in
my opinion, is at the Division one level with schools
that might not have major college football. And what makes
our Burnt Mikes hockey so successful in appealing to athletic
parmenas to me is the big major national brands don't
always win our national championship in terms of you know,
(13:04):
football and basketball for example, our sport has great parody
across the board, and if done well, you can compete
nationally at an elite level right away, and you can
be and you can bring a national championship level sport
to your campus, build excitement around on that sport, have
sellouts in your building, and really have have a hockey
(13:27):
brand that's nationally known and that can be very appealing.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yes, you mentioned teams that step up right away. I
think of Penn State and Arizona State. Both have made
the NCAA tournaments in their first five to ten years,
which is I think amazing. Before I let you go, Sean,
I guess the question that keeps coming, or maybe it's
not even a question, it's more just a fact that
the timing of all of this is probably what is
making everything most confusing.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
You have at IL, you have.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
The transfer portal really became full on, you have the
house first NCAA settlement, and now you have major junior.
How much of a challenge is that making it top
to bottom inside the athletic programs and even inside say
league offices in your office.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, it's a huge challenge.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
I like to think it provides job security of so
many changes and somebody needs to be out there in
front of it making sure that people understand it. But yeah,
there's been more changes in the NCAA landscape across all
sports in the last eighteen months to two years, and
there's probably been in one hundred years. And it's mostly
as you guys are, We're mostly being sped up because
(14:33):
of litigation or the threat of litigation. So for us
at College Hockey, Inc. Our job is to make sure
that we're the number one resource, free resource. We're there's
never a charge for what we do, and that we're
on top of all these things and we can have
answers and factual information not only for the players, but
their families, coaches, really anybody who hasn't influenced on those players.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And I think a good example of that was when
the CHL.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
At the h L announcement Elgibily announcement happened last Thursday.
We were one of the first organizations out there with
a frequently asked question. She'd got ahead of it. We
knew that there'd be a lot of questions about this
and we wanted to make sure that people don't understood
that we were the resource to get that information.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Well. A resource College Hockey Inc.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Certainly is their website www.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
College Hockeyinc.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Dot com is a phenomenal resource for player eligibility. And
as you just said, the Q and A on the
CHL that you have posted is really helpful. John Hogan,
the executive director of College Hockey, We always appreciate everything
CHI does and it's will we look forward to working
with you a lot in the coming years and hopefully
(15:43):
in a very successful, fruitful relationship, because I think we
all have to be in this together right now.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
One hundred percent. It's exciting times and changing times.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
But I think our product and civil individual and hockey
and the ability to put players in the NHL hasn't changed.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Then we'll all get better.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
That's College Hockey, Inc. Executive Director Sean Hogan Jim. It's
an unenviable position right now for Sean and the folks
at CHI, and maybe college hockey in general, just because
there are so many moving parts right now there are.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
It does make a job like Shawn's very difficult, but
he's he certainly feels like the right man for the job,
and I think of a lot of people lied for
that over this past summer, and there's a part of
me that is glad that he was the person who
came out on top because of the fact he was
(16:39):
already ingrained in the messaging and understanding a lot about
what CHI does, so there wasn't big learning crip. He
came from a position where he was out with CHI
basically facing families and players and educating for the last
five years.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
So I think that naturally he can just transition.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Now it is a big transition, and as he mentioned
at the end, there's been more change in well to
eighteen months, and there has been one hundred years. It's
very difficult, and I think that College Hockey Inc. Has
done a good job of trying to be as forward
thinking and as ahead of situations as possible. Now you
(17:22):
mentioned something like AI see nobody even saw that coming
them dropping back to Division two. He can only be
ahead of so many things, I think, so I think
there will still be some curveballs along the way, but
it does feel like Sean and he is really he
is a really good staff there at College Hockey, Inc.
(17:42):
And they're doing a good job of marketing this game
and really educating.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Players and current coaches.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I think Chi has been leaned on by the coaches
to help explain along the way. And it's I feel
like you have to be everything right now if you're
at college hockey. If you have to understand law, you
have to understand finance, you have to understand logistics, all
(18:11):
of those things that schools are going to go through
and to determine whether college hockey is right for them
or whether as an AIC's case, it's not right that
you have to have a lot of information. Chi I
think has done a good job of providing that to schools.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
You mentioned the AIC situation, and I brought up with
Sean about how things are getting more financially precarious in
some areas, especially with the house v NCAA and NIL
and transfer portal. He brought up an interesting point that
schools without major college football are some could make the
(18:54):
jump to Division one or start a program, and we
have seen that with a lot of smaller schools, whether
they have football or not. Are there are a number
of Division III and Division two programs playing D one
hockey where hockey is their premier sport, and it was
interesting to hear him take that approach to it.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah, but I hadn't given a ton of thought to
how profit centers and athletics. College athletics we know have
been major profit centers for some of these big universities,
and obviously that comes in through the bigger sports college football,
college basketball, and the television rights deals that are associated
(19:36):
with those really good large college stadiums. You think of
Michigan State, Wisconsin, big ten schools, especially with those big
stadiums that they're filling every weekend and the profits from that,
but now there's a lot of it. There's going to
be a lot of expense. It's not just through nil,
(19:56):
it's going to be that the house, the NCAA and
increasing the number of scholarships and then the basically profit
sharing with the players. That is going to be a
major expense for some of these schools. So if you're
looking at it, you don't have the leftover money to
(20:17):
fund smaller sports like Olympic sports for example, Kinkacky I
always I know that people consider it one of the
top four major sports. I still group them in as
the Olympic sports. When it comes to colleges, I know
that universities often don't. But in terms of the overall profit,
(20:39):
you're not going to turn a major profit off most
of your sports. So if you're trying to find sports
that have a little bit of a profit center. You
talk about schools that don't have college football, maybe that
becomes the big profit center for them to make it
even more affordable to maintain some of the other sports.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
In their department.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So it's a long way to go with that house
settlement and see how team, how individual universities colleges approach it,
but it's going to be something that it could do
more harm to college athletics than anybody's really thinking right now.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
The next three to five years will be interesting to
see how things reach equilibrium with major junior and the colleges,
and we'll certainly be watching that closely here at usccho
dot com.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Once again, College Hockeyinc.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Dot Com is a great resource, whether you're a fan
wanting to know what's going on, a coach wanting to
point somebody somewhere, or maybe a young athlete who wants
to know how to stay eligible, and we encourage you
to check that out.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
For Jim Connolly, I'm Ed Trevsker and this has been
us Echo spotlight
Usccho dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to us CHO Spotlight for Wednesday, November thirteen, twenty
twenty four. I'm Intrevsker alongside Jim Connolly. Since two thousand
and nine, College Hockey Inc. Has been an advocate for
the college route for hockey players, whether that's their final
destination or they're moving on to the pros.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And joining us.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Now on us ECHO Spotlight, he is the new newly
minted executive director for College Hockey Inc. That's Sean Hogan. Sean,
first off, welcome in and welcome to a new role.
I know you've been with CHI since twenty nineteen, but
now you're running the organization as the executive director, and
(00:54):
it's kind of a precarious time. So I guess I'll
congratulate you, but then I'll ask you just to maybe
take us through some of the big issues that we're
seeing right now, especially.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
The HL and college hockey. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Well, well, first off, I'm excited to be here. Jim
and I've been reading Falling us CHO since the late nineties,
since the inception of us Echo back when it was
I think it was called the United States College Hockey
Online out of a whole web address.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
So We're going back a long way.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
So excited to meet with you guys. Yeah, excited about
my new role. Mike snee left.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Will let me know in May that he was leaving
to move on to the Wild. Left hughes shoes to fill.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Mike was an unbelievable advocate for college hockey, grew the
game tremendously. But I'm certainly excited for his role with
the Minnesota Wild. Anybody that knows Mike knows that he's
deeply passionate about Minnesota high school hockey and that's his
role with with with the Wild. Now. So excited for him.
But yeah, I've been in this role since August. Began
in August, and a lot of changes that have happened
(01:54):
in that short period of time, and in regards to
college hockey, inc a lot of things change, but one
of the things that will remain consistent is I think
for the longest time, everybody knows that our main task
was to go out there and battle for players to
remain eligible against the chl right, make sure players played
(02:14):
college eligible. He understood the benefits of playing NCAA Division
One hockey on their road to the NHL. I think
what change is now is our messaging isn't so much, Hey,
this is what you have to do at sixteen to seventeen.
It's you can play anywhere you want junior hockey wise
in North America. Really, but when a college calls you
when you're eighteen, or a college calls at nineteen, or
(02:35):
a college calls you at twenty, these are the reasons
why you should play INSTAA hockey on your road to
the NHL. So the education component just changes from more
of a battle to more of a partnership with the CHL.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
We've already started that process.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
We've I've been in discussions with Dan McKenzie from the
president of the CHL, to start educating their educational advisors
on the requirements for NCAA hockey, working with them to
make sure that the families in the CHL and entering
the CHL understand, you know, eligibility requirements and again the
benefits pursuing instead of LA Division one hockey on their
(03:11):
road to the NHL. The other the parts that won't
change for us is we're also tasked with a partnership
through the NHL to try to continue to grow Division
one hockey on the men's and winless side, and we're
doing a little bit in Division three as well, So
the growth component won't change. We're out there, you know,
bird dogging, really meeting with nstable A Division one athletic departments,
(03:33):
trying to create more Division one teams again.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
On both the men's and women's side. And then the
research component won't change.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
We're still going to do all of our research players
in the NHL, their road to the NHL, where they
played at certain ages on their road, density of late
Division one average commitment ages, breaking it down, gego graphically,
all of those things staying in school stats that we
like to call a package we put together for coaches
to help players understand when and if they should leave
(04:00):
for the NHL. So exciting times at college hockeyee and
excited to be the new leader at top of the organization.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I want to address the CHL.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And this is a question that I've had and I've
been around for thirty three years and never really knew
the answer. But players that are in the CHL, how
many of them are playing hockey and still trying to
attain their high school education or the necessary education to
qualify to play NCAA Division IE hockey.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
So all of that remains to be seen to see
how many players, it's about fifteen hundred players in the CHL,
how many of those players will meet all the requirements
necessary with the Eligibility Center.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
And again, we're at initial discussions with three CHL leagues
in their educational advisors to make sure that the players
who are currently in.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
High school make sure that they understand what those requirements
are and the players that are out of high school,
so there's a rule that they, I would imagine the
CCHL isn't familiar with with the twenty one year old
old a player was playing his overage year when he
needs to enroll in school to make sure he doesn't
lose any eligibility. Those types of things are things that
we're trying to get in front of right now with
(05:14):
the three different leagues.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I guess another murky situation there has been for some
time is agents and how they are allowed to represent
players who are actually in college hockey. I know that
some of these CHL players are already working with agents directly.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Would they be forced to drop those agents?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
What can you just I mean, we've called the family advisors,
but I know enough about agents and I've met enough
to know that they're really acting as much as an
agent as any other sport out there. Yes, they're a
family advisor, but what are they really doing and has
their role changed or does their role change? So I
guess that's my next question to you is where will
(05:58):
the role of an agent fall in all of this?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
So, so my understanding is going forward here with the
institable a divisual and council. This is being pushed by
not only hockey in the in the Commissioners Association, but
also the sport of baseball. The next step is to
take a look at this agent and advisor rule UH
and makes some annotations there UH to make sure that
(06:21):
that players aren't easing eligibility. So there's discussions on that
particular piece going forward. I don't have a timeline on it,
but my understanding is that that's another piece being looked at.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Sean right along, College Hockey, Inc.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Has really made the case about why the college route
is good for preparing for the next level. How does
the NHL feel about this? If you had input from
them on being able to get more players through the
college route.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Well, we we have a very good relationship with the
with the NHL. We we have a direct contact there
who's his his job, his name is Kevin Westair. His
job is to make sure that he has the reallytionship
with all the development leagues, the NCAA, the CCHL, the AHL,
the EHL, European pro leagues. So they have been hands
off in terms of how we go about our rules
(07:12):
and regulations going forward. But what I foresee happening is
and this is a great thing for college hockey. I
think more players matriculate through insta of a hockey on
their road.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
To the NHL.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
The current number right now is roughly a third of
the league is former NSTAA players. Twenty years ago the
number was like eight or nine percent of the NHL
was former college hockey players. If you go way back,
everybody knows Red bearringson. When Red was in the league,
he was the only college player in the NHL. So
it's gone from one player to one in three players
in the NHL. And with this new ruling with CHL
(07:45):
players becoming eligible, I foresee that number growing. So when
you watch NHL on TNT here in the States or
ESPN or in Canada and on CBC and TSN, you're
going to hear a lot more references to college hockey,
and that's fantastic thing for our game and for the
NHL because the better college hockey does and the more
(08:07):
players matriculating through, the more markets that that we can
be in college hockey wise, that's more NHL fans too.
That grows the game everywhere, not only for opportunities for
players in coaching in colleges, as a fan base as well,
and everybody across the board starts to win because the
game grows even more.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
And I should mention that you've got quite a schedule
the first semester schedule for TSN, plus a whole lot
of games are going to be shown in Canada, and
I assume the same with second semester.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yes, absolutely, So we have a relationship where we facilitate
through the the hockey conferences games that are either streamed
or linear on TSN. We were extremely hard to get
get a broad sample and all the different teams and conferences.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Now there are some requirements there and some.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Different hoops that that that leagues need to jump through,
but something that we're excited about. And again I have
a sense that when we're looking back on this in
three years, college Hockey's top the development period pyramid. More
and more players come through college hockey on their road
to the NHL, and then we have even more college
hockey games on TSN, mark college hockey games on television.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
Role more with College Hockey Inc.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Executive Director Sean Hogan In a moment, we're back with
College Hockey Inc's Sean Hogan. Do you foresee a few
things that are still going to need to be sorted
(09:41):
out as far as how things relate with the CHL
For example, one thing that was brought up to us
is that they probably will feel okay about their twenty
year olds moving to college hockey, but what about when
somebody who's maybe eighteen or nineteen or even seventeen is
being recruited and coming out of there.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Something that has to be felled out.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Well, I think that's all relationship based right.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
So right now we are up until last Thursday, we
had college eligible junior leagues and the assistant coaches and
instead of lay are out there their building relationship with coaches.
But guess what, every time that assistant coach talked to
a junior coach and said, hey, we want your kid
for next year, that junior coach would always say, I
think he needs another year junior because they want to
keep their players as well, right, so, and that's going
to be the same as a CHL.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
So recruiting is a relationship relationship based business.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
So the coaches are out their ability relationships not only
with the player, but with that player as an advisor,
that player's coaches, that player's families, and they have to
build a relationship to the points of when is the
best time for this player to make the jump to
that next level. That next level is college hockey, and
the same decision needs to be made, when is that player,
if he's good enough to play in the NHL, when
is he going to be ready to play in the
(10:51):
NHL Instead of a coaches they don't want to lose
their sophomores to the NHL, they don't want to lose
their freshmans to the NHL.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Well, there's a discussion there.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
They figure out what's the best next up for that player,
and that'll continue to hold true.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Switching gears just slightly.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
You mentioned one of the missions of college Hockey INK
is to try to help grow the sport, and we've
seen tremendous growth at the Division III level a little
by little at the Division I level. But yesterday the
announcement still not officially announced by the university, but by
their head coach Eric lying that AIC will be dropping
(11:25):
from Division one after this season.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Is there a situation.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
That's making it more difficult for schools to add programs
when we look at things like a name, image and
likeness and a talk of twenty six scholarships almost creating
like an arms race.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
That is a great question, and that the announced by
yesterday by AIC was obviously troublesome and worry some. I
did not see that comment. I haven't spoke to anybody
that knew it was, so that is worrisome. Some of
the biggest hurdles we face when we're out there trying
to grow.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
College hockey to the Division one level.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
I'm asked most often about the big name brand schools, right,
they're like the old Pack twelve schools for example, or
probably the ones I get asked about the most. And
if you're a school like that, and you're going to
opt into to the House settlement in April, and now
you're being told that twenty two million dollars of what
used to be revenue now needs to be an expense
(12:23):
back to essentially revenue sharing with players. It's hard to
add any sport at a level in ice hockey. It's
hard to add any sport when you're when you're told
your revenue is now changing to an expense. Now that
can change if we have a donor that's willing to
pay pay for everything and say I'll add the sport
for you.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
I'll pay for everything, don't worry about it.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
So where we're going to see growth is this, in
my opinion, is at the Division one level with schools
that might not have major college football. And what makes
our Burnt Mikes hockey so successful in appealing to athletic
parmenas to me is the big major national brands don't
always win our national championship in terms of you know,
(13:04):
football and basketball for example, our sport has great parody
across the board, and if done well, you can compete
nationally at an elite level right away, and you can
be and you can bring a national championship level sport
to your campus, build excitement around on that sport, have
sellouts in your building, and really have have a hockey
(13:27):
brand that's nationally known and that can be very appealing.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yes, you mentioned teams that step up right away. I
think of Penn State and Arizona State. Both have made
the NCAA tournaments in their first five to ten years,
which is I think amazing. Before I let you go, Sean,
I guess the question that keeps coming, or maybe it's
not even a question, it's more just a fact that
the timing of all of this is probably what is
making everything most confusing.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
You have at IL, you have.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
The transfer portal really became full on, you have the
house first NCAA settlement, and now you have major junior.
How much of a challenge is that making it top
to bottom inside the athletic programs and even inside say
league offices in your office.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, it's a huge challenge.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
I like to think it provides job security of so
many changes and somebody needs to be out there in
front of it making sure that people understand it. But yeah,
there's been more changes in the NCAA landscape across all
sports in the last eighteen months to two years, and
there's probably been in one hundred years. And it's mostly
as you guys are, We're mostly being sped up because
(14:33):
of litigation or the threat of litigation. So for us
at College Hockey, Inc. Our job is to make sure
that we're the number one resource, free resource. We're there's
never a charge for what we do, and that we're
on top of all these things and we can have
answers and factual information not only for the players, but
their families, coaches, really anybody who hasn't influenced on those players.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And I think a good example of that was when
the CHL.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
At the h L announcement Elgibily announcement happened last Thursday.
We were one of the first organizations out there with
a frequently asked question. She'd got ahead of it. We
knew that there'd be a lot of questions about this
and we wanted to make sure that people don't understood
that we were the resource to get that information.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Well. A resource College Hockey Inc.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Certainly is their website www.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
College Hockeyinc.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Dot com is a phenomenal resource for player eligibility. And
as you just said, the Q and A on the
CHL that you have posted is really helpful. John Hogan,
the executive director of College Hockey, We always appreciate everything
CHI does and it's will we look forward to working
with you a lot in the coming years and hopefully
(15:43):
in a very successful, fruitful relationship, because I think we
all have to be in this together right now.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
One hundred percent. It's exciting times and changing times.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
But I think our product and civil individual and hockey
and the ability to put players in the NHL hasn't changed.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Then we'll all get better.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
That's College Hockey, Inc. Executive Director Sean Hogan Jim. It's
an unenviable position right now for Sean and the folks
at CHI, and maybe college hockey in general, just because
there are so many moving parts right now there are.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
It does make a job like Shawn's very difficult, but
he's he certainly feels like the right man for the job,
and I think of a lot of people lied for
that over this past summer, and there's a part of
me that is glad that he was the person who
came out on top because of the fact he was
(16:39):
already ingrained in the messaging and understanding a lot about
what CHI does, so there wasn't big learning crip. He
came from a position where he was out with CHI
basically facing families and players and educating for the last
five years.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
So I think that naturally he can just transition.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Now it is a big transition, and as he mentioned
at the end, there's been more change in well to
eighteen months, and there has been one hundred years. It's
very difficult, and I think that College Hockey Inc. Has
done a good job of trying to be as forward
thinking and as ahead of situations as possible. Now you
(17:22):
mentioned something like AI see nobody even saw that coming
them dropping back to Division two. He can only be
ahead of so many things, I think, so I think
there will still be some curveballs along the way, but
it does feel like Sean and he is really he
is a really good staff there at College Hockey, Inc.
(17:42):
And they're doing a good job of marketing this game
and really educating.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Players and current coaches.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I think Chi has been leaned on by the coaches
to help explain along the way. And it's I feel
like you have to be everything right now if you're
at college hockey. If you have to understand law, you
have to understand finance, you have to understand logistics, all
(18:11):
of those things that schools are going to go through
and to determine whether college hockey is right for them
or whether as an AIC's case, it's not right that
you have to have a lot of information. Chi I
think has done a good job of providing that to schools.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
You mentioned the AIC situation, and I brought up with
Sean about how things are getting more financially precarious in
some areas, especially with the house v NCAA and NIL
and transfer portal. He brought up an interesting point that
schools without major college football are some could make the
(18:54):
jump to Division one or start a program, and we
have seen that with a lot of smaller schools, whether
they have football or not. Are there are a number
of Division III and Division two programs playing D one
hockey where hockey is their premier sport, and it was
interesting to hear him take that approach to it.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah, but I hadn't given a ton of thought to
how profit centers and athletics. College athletics we know have
been major profit centers for some of these big universities,
and obviously that comes in through the bigger sports college football,
college basketball, and the television rights deals that are associated
(19:36):
with those really good large college stadiums. You think of
Michigan State, Wisconsin, big ten schools, especially with those big
stadiums that they're filling every weekend and the profits from that,
but now there's a lot of it. There's going to
be a lot of expense. It's not just through nil,
(19:56):
it's going to be that the house, the NCAA and
increasing the number of scholarships and then the basically profit
sharing with the players. That is going to be a
major expense for some of these schools. So if you're
looking at it, you don't have the leftover money to
(20:17):
fund smaller sports like Olympic sports for example, Kinkacky I
always I know that people consider it one of the
top four major sports. I still group them in as
the Olympic sports. When it comes to colleges, I know
that universities often don't. But in terms of the overall profit,
(20:39):
you're not going to turn a major profit off most
of your sports. So if you're trying to find sports
that have a little bit of a profit center. You
talk about schools that don't have college football, maybe that
becomes the big profit center for them to make it
even more affordable to maintain some of the other sports.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
In their department.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So it's a long way to go with that house
settlement and see how team, how individual universities colleges approach it,
but it's going to be something that it could do
more harm to college athletics than anybody's really thinking right now.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
The next three to five years will be interesting to
see how things reach equilibrium with major junior and the colleges,
and we'll certainly be watching that closely here at usccho
dot com.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Once again, College Hockeyinc.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Dot Com is a great resource, whether you're a fan
wanting to know what's going on, a coach wanting to
point somebody somewhere, or maybe a young athlete who wants
to know how to stay eligible, and we encourage you
to check that out.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
For Jim Connolly, I'm Ed Trevsker and this has been
us Echo spotlight
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.