Maine Recruits: When Ashes Fall, Legends Rise

[Sparkee]

Someone educate an old guy, sparkee?, I know nothing about the CHL, but what is the attraction to transferring to ncaa for these players? Is it mostly those who arent ready for pro can get a few more years playing /developing in ncaa since chl ages out at 20.
I guess I was always under the assumption that chl was more competitive, better talent, than ncaa. Maybe thats changed.

Also, they aren’t transferring from major junior to NCAA. In major junior they aren’t required to go to school. They play a more pro schedule where they are on an 80 game schedule half time on the road on long bus trips. It is similar to the junior A leagues such as USHL, BCHL, NAHL, etc… So they have full 4 years of eligibility just like junior A guys.

So before, the NCAA didn’t consider them amateurs because the major junior players would get stipends to cover living expenses. But when NCAA decided NIL was ok for ncaa athletes it didn’t have a leg to stand on in maintaining that major junior players aren’t amateurs and can’t play in NCAA. So sure enough lawsuit was filed and rightly so. Hard to point at a kid getting meals and room and board money and call him a pro, but not an American 1st round NHL pick making $100k per year above and beyond full tuition and living expenses in college. So now we will see an immediate influx of overagers coming into NCAA because those three major junior leagues are on par or better than the USHL.

 

[Sparkee]

Ripple effect of NCAA allowing major junior eligibility… Penticton Vees of BCHL applying to become an expansion team of the WHL. https://www.radionl.com/2025/02/14/126067/

Big loss for BCHL.

 

[Sparkee]

Maine recruit Loic Usereau(LD- Chicoutimi(QMJHL)) had a solid game tonight. Picked up a couple assists and went +4. Though in watching highlight film he had a bad turnover that luckily his goalie baled him out of. https://chl.ca/lhjmq/gamecentre/31516/

Also, each week OHL streams a free game. So here is what turned out to be a great game between London and Brampton. London won in OT. London is the team that Maine recruit Van Gorp plays for. Though he didn’t get many shifts in this one since he was playing on 4th line. But if you want to see what the OHL hockey is like then check it out. https://www.youtube.com/live/sCh5XEnc2WU?si=U_Cj_1-psesco76C

Friday the free OHL game this week is Ottawa vs North Bay. So it will have two Maine recruits - Will Gerrior(Ottawa) vs. Nick Wellenreiter(North Bay). I won’t watch it live since Maine plays at the same time. But will watch the archive once it is on YouTube. I will post here when it is available. https://chl.ca/ohl/article/friday-night-faceoff-battalion-at-67s/

 

[cinnamoroll]

For some reason they deleted original tweet on Van Gorp, but then put a new one up. This new one says he will start in fall of 2027. https://x.com/A1Advancements/status/1894221326946070560

I'm guessing someone on the OHL side wanted the time he would be leaving stated explicitly, because the big fear right now is that eventually the top tier players will jump early from the OHL to a top NCAA program, such as the Michael Misa to BU rumors earlier this year. The carrot the CHL teams have is revoking the scholarship provided for players if you leave early, but that doesn't matter nearly as much if you're a top 3 pick being offered the big bucks. It has the same reasoning behind the NHL/CHL agreement, which kept players like Shane Wright from AHL eligibility before this season–teams want to keep their superstars.

Also, that scholarship agreement is binding until the end of your 19-year-old season, because every CHL team is only allowed to have 3 overage (20 y/o) players on their roster. Until the trade deadline passes, it is not a very secure position. Overage players are often traded early in the season or released after a more useful one is acquired. e.g. Austin Elliott, Knights' 1B goalie started the year with WHL's Saskatoon, the Blades had too many OAs, waived him (any CHL team can claim), he was claimed by an OHL team, and that team traded him to the Knights. You'll see Elliott next year- UMass Lowell commit.

A lot of the players committing in this first wave are the overagers planning to enroll in the fall, but I'm guessing as the dust settles there will be more multi-year commits like this. There might be some friction on if a team wants that player to come back for OA, or discussions of where he would go if he gets released later in his OA year but won't join NCAA until the next season. EVG would complete his OA season 26-27, but theoretically he could leave to Maine that season instead with little complaint.

There's some weird quirks in the major junior landscape. A similar rule exists for import players (2 max per team).

Also, in case you have any recruits in the WHL, their free-view game of the week is on Wednesday nights. Don't think the Q has one though.