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Minnesota Women's Hockey 2025-26

Enrolling a semester early makes a lot of sense to me for volleyball, so long as the player can handle it academically. Wisconsin has five doing so this spring (an unusually large incoming freshmen class for VB). They get extra practice time developing the connection and timing with the setter, get to play a few no-pressure spring matches, get acclimated to campus and college life during the off-season from their sport.

Skipping a full year of development in high school to enroll a full year early for ice hockey makes no sense to me, at all.
 
I suppose with the proposed new rule that grants you five years of eligibility from the time of your high school graduation you could see more people try this. Probably not too many though.
 
robertearle said:
Skipping a full year of development in high school to enroll a full year early for ice hockey makes no sense to me, at all.
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It depends on how you look at it. Consider men's hockey, where players routinely go play juniors after HS and delay their college entrance. Those going straight to college from HS have become a smaller percentage compared to decades passed. In theory, even the best recruits would maximize their readiness for a first year of NCAA competition by playing juniors first. However, the top players usually do go straight to college, because they don't plan on competing in the NCAA for all four years of eligibility. Each one has to make a decision based on what they think is right for them.

In women's, there are still players who aren't sold on playing hockey at the highest levels for as long as they can. Former Gophers Rachel Ramsey and Dani Cameranesi come to mind. Ramsey didn't show a lot of interest once she graduated, but got into other pursuits. Cameranesi won a gold medal and soon moved on to the next phase of her life.

There are also scholastic considerations. Several family members have combined the final year of HS with a first year of college courses. People want to challenge themselves in different ways. Everyone has their own plans for life, and I don't feel qualified to judge what I don't know.

People are always comparing Primerano to Harvey for some reason. IMO, it is hard to do, when one accelerated a year and the other was centralized, and thus, her college entry was delayed a year. There are advantages to being older in college, no question. Depending on goals, there can also be advantages to finishing a degree earlier.
 
BuckyB said:
They will graduate high school early and enter college in the fall.
Just like Primerano did… not a good idea as she showed but you can’t tell them that.
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All knowing one, please open your curtain just a little further for us uninformed peons and tell us where they are going to school next year. :rolleyes:
 
eastcoastgopher said:
Avery Pickering at Colgate did this. And there was a goalie at Princeton this year but she didn't play much. I think Duluth signed an 09 for next year as well.
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If the goal is the PWHL, I don't think it wise because you have to let yourself physically and mentally mature. Once you get behind and college overwhelms you, your development is stunted for the PWHL. Play the long game in that case, heck, I'd even consider an extra year between HS and college so when I get to college, I'm ahead of my age group and not behind. If you are playing college then getting a real job, get through it as quickly as possible like ARM said.
 
Timothy A said:
If the goal is the PWHL, ... I'd even consider an extra year between HS and college so when I get to college, I'm ahead of my age group and not behind.
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This has merit. However, I would say that the model for females is different than males. Physically, girls develop faster than boys. I remember those 3rd/4th grade years where the tallest kids in the room were girls, but their height also quit increasing at an earlier age. Mentally and emotionally it can be harder to measure, but thinking back on relatives, friends, and classmates, I'm still having more faith in an average girl than a typical boy of the same age.

Most of our examples of females taking an extra year before their first varsity season are players who took a year off for centralization (advantageous, but they are training and competing at the highest level), injury/illness (if there was a developmental advantage to missing a year due to injury, I fear what some parents would inflict on their children), or other redshirts (in women's hockey, this is usually only done with goalies behind a star for top-caliber players). Kendall Coyne was one of the more recent examples I can think of who was a high-profile recruit who delayed a year. Was that an advantage? She had a great college career, but her frosh season was roughly equivalent to Amanda Kessel, slightly better than Alex Carpenter, and not at the level of the first year of Hannah Brandt. It's hard to say if that year of development altered her career arc that much; it likely didn't help as much as her centralization after her first two NCAA seasons.

For players moving forward, are they better off with the additional year to hopefully develop, or is there an advantage to having an additional year before reaching whatever is viewed as retirement age? As with many things, I'd say it will vary by the individual.
 
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