Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Maybe you are missing my point, or maybe I didn't state it very clearly. My point os not that prospects have not opted out of the college route, it is rather that the CHL presents their only option to play elite level hockey as a 16–17-year-old: an option that is unavailable at the college level. I believe that a primary contributor to the higher number of "high-end" prospects graduating from the CHL compared with NCAA is not a product of prospects CHOOSING the CHL over college so much as it is the product of the CHL being the ONLY good choice for 16-year-old players. Again, if NCAA eligibility were the same as the CHL, I think it is reasonable to expect a dramatic shift in the numbers to their favour. But as the system is currently structured, by the time young players are ready to go to college, a high number of the elite prospects are already preparing to make the move directly from Juniour to the NHL.
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I see. I suppose I agree with your points, but for now your points are rather pointless IMO. The NCAA is a college assocation and you need to be college eligible to be in college. So I'm not really sure how useful and relevant it is to argue hypotheticals that will simply never happen. Of course, there's a chance that the USHL will someday match the CHL in quality, but the NCAA isn't going to allow players who haven't graduated from high school to go to college and play on college teams.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
When was the last time a top-five draft pick coming out of the CHL opted to spend +3 years in college at the expense of one more year of Juniour, or a NHL roster spot? Has it ever happened?
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I don't quite understand what you're trying to get at. As soon as a teenager plays a single exhibition game for a CHL team that teeanager is no longer eligible for the NCAA. So of course there isn't a top-five draft pick coming out of the CHL who opted to spend +3 years in college at the expense of one more year of Junior or a NHL roster spot. It's an impossibility, unless you're referring to Canadian colleges and universities.