The irony is that many of the same people who say that the CHL is an exploitive system will turn around and tell you that NCAA hockey is a better route for young players. Several problems issue from that—three that are practical and another posing a bit of a moral conundrum. The first is a matter of, what else, money.

To be NCAA eligible the player at age 16 and 17 has to bide his time while he graduates high school and qualifies academically for college play. The interim seasons are likely spent in a junior league at least one level below the CHL—Tier II in Ontario or the BCHL and AJHL out west as examples. The snag: Junior A teams might help out players with some expenses but other costs, including equipment, fall to the parents. Further, there’s the matter of team fees. According to one agent who has advised several NCAA-bound players, costs in Ontario Tier II run in the range of $5,000 to $7,000 per season. And further yet, with the exception of elite prospects, NCAA hockey programs aren’t interested in “true freshmen,” those who graduated from high school the previous spring. Rather, NCAA coaches are looking to recruit 19-year-olds, thus requiring players to suit up for more than two seasons in Tier II or Junior A. Lastly, on the practical end, while NCAA programs offer four-year rides, nothing is truly guaranteed. If an NCAA program or coach doesn’t take a shine to a player, he can be hung out to dry with no options. If he hopes to transfer, schools aren’t eager to underwrite his redshirt year. That player can end up paying part or all of his tuition for the year he sits on the sidelines.

If you’re willing to go down this road simply to bypass the supposedly exploitive CHL system, consider this: Only a few NCAA hockey programs break even or make money. Most are a cost to athletic departments, one that’s underwritten by the blood, sweat and toil of, yes, those same exploited football and basketball players. That’s not exactly the moral high ground that proponents of NCAA hockey might imagine it to be.