I read your cautionary tale, but I am not worried as you are. Yes, investments in college hockey have increased in recent years, teams play before larger crowds and TV cameras, and there is an increasing sense that college hockey is becoming more of "big-time" sport. That's progress in my book. You see "big time" and assume that our sport is headed for the same moral bankruptcy and lack of academic success that plague college football and basketball, but the fundamental underpinnings are totally different.
The reason is socio-economic, and yes, race plays a big role. Despite the best efforts of the NHL to promote diversity and say "Hockey is for Everyone" hockey is still not popular in places where money is in short supply, or where education is not valued.
Academics have taken a backseat in football and basketball because there are huge talent pools of incredibly talented athletes who come from poorly educated, economically disadvantged backgrounds where education is either lousy or not valued by families (or both), resulting in ill-prepared and un-academically motivated athletes. Football and basketball coaches are pressured to win now, and with the large pools of these talented, undereducated athletes available to them, it's no wonder that you have the poor graduation rates and players not prepared for academic work.
Hockey is different. Hockey draws it's athletes from a wholly different socio-economic base. The fundamental economic basis of North American hockey players has shifted from a game played by the undereducated farmers and miners 60 years ago to a high-cost, highly structured, mostly suburban game played with upscale expectations. Most hockey players now come primarily from middle to upper income backgrounds where education is important and valued.
Sure, there are economic pressures on some players to turn pro, but for most of them, it's not a matter of providing for basics their families as it is the opportunity to take advantage of an economic doorway to lifetime financial security, and sometimes for testy hockey parents to see a return on their own extensive investment of resources (money, time and effort) into developing not-so-little Johnny's hockey career.
Sure there is some economic pressure on D-I hockey programs to win. But unlike football and basketball, there is no large secondary population of talented hockey players who can't do college work to enroll and never graduate. Those few hockey players who can't handle college work play Major Junior, and even in Major juniors, probably 75% of the players could do college work if they felt like it.
Someday, if hockey really becomes popular among people with limited financial means, you might start to have some issues, but for now, hockey is a sport played mostly by educated players and families who already have money, and as such, is in little danger of academic failure.
