College hockey struggles with trend toward recruiting younger and younger players
By Chad Graff | cgraff@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: September 16, 2017
A few days before 13- and 14-year-old brothers committed to play hockey for the Gophers, Don Lucia sat in a board room in Chicago with Division I athletics directors and head coaches debating the merits of college hockey’s trend toward recruiting players barely in their teens.
One coach, one administrator, and one AD from college hockey’s six conferences took turns expressing dismay in how the modern landscape has led to coaches scouting 12-year-olds and offering scholarships before they even reach high school.
“Craziness,” one called it.
“Nutty,” said another.
For the most part, the room was unanimous: Recruiting kids still years away from a driver’s license isn’t in the best interest of college hockey. They left Chicago hopeful they’ll soon implement rules to curb the trend.
Not yet.
Brothers Chaz, 14, and Cruz, 13, Lucius, of Grant, Minn., committed to play for the Gophers on Aug. 31. Earlier that month, a 14-year-old committed to play for Miami of Ohio. A week after the Lucius brothers committed to Lucia, a 14-year-old committed to play for Penn State.
“It’s gotten crazy with kids committing so young,” said Minnesota-Duluth coach Scott Sandelin, one of the coaches at the Chicago meeting. “Hopefully we get something that slows the process down so seventh and eighth graders aren’t committing to college.”
WHY COACHES DO IT
Lucia, the 18-year Gophers head coach, said he’s in favor of a rule that would curb the recruiting of pre-teens. Yet until a rule is in place, the Gophers will continue recruiting 13- and 14-year-olds.
In Lucia’s eyes, if the Gophers aren’t recruiting these kids, a rival school will.
“It’s become a race to see who can get a younger kid committed before someone else sees them and knows how good a player they are,” Lucia said. “So, let’s get kids locked up so they can’t be recruited by somebody else.”
That’s not the only reason for the boom in youthful college hockey recruiting, Lucia said.
One of rules proposals discussed at the Chicago meeting would ban conversations between schools and players until their sophomore year of high school, but Lucia fears that could mean college hockey missing out on some of the best players. Because even if college coaches stop recruiting bantam-level players, he said, the Canadian Hockey League will continue to.
Those clubs offer the most traditional route for first-round NHL draft picks and, in Lucia’s words, “have no rules” for recruiting young players.
“If a player isn’t hearing that they might have a scholarship opportunity, then they’ll go sign and play in the CHL,” Lucia said. “That’s been a driving force that’s unique to our sport that other sports don’t have.
“If you’re going to play in the NBA, you pretty much have to go to college. If you’re going to play in the NFL, you pretty much have to go to college. But in our sport, we have the CHL that we’re constantly battling for elite players.”
Ten years ago, college coaches couldn’t initiate contact with players until Jan. 1 of their junior year. That was moved to June 15 after a player’s sophomore year, then to Jan. 1 of a player’s sophomore year. A decade ago, only one phone call was allowed; now there’s no limit.
“I liked the fact that you can communicate with those kids earlier,” Sandelin said, “but I think that’s probably contributed to this.”
Certainly, not all college coaches are scouting pre-teens.
Sandelin said the only bantam-level games he’s ever watched were the ones his son played in. Yet his Minnesota-Duluth program has arguably been the most successful in the state the past four years, reaching the national championship game last season.
They’ve still landed some of the states top recruits, too, including Blaine’s Riley Tufte, a first-round NHL pick in 2016.
“We certainly weren’t recruiting Riley Tufte at 12 years old,” Sandelin said. “I’m not running around the country going to those bantam tournaments, I can tell you that.”
Despite the comments, his program isn’t immune to the youth movement.
In 2014, 14- and 15-year-old brothers from Hill-Murray committed to play for Sandelin.
At Minnesota State-Mankato, a recruiting youth movement hasn’t changed the plans of head coach Mike Hastings, whose teams are perennially one of the oldest in college hockey. Whenever he sees a 14-year-old commit to a school, Hastings can’t help but think about his daughter when she was that age.
“I think of the decisions we were asking her to make at 13 and 14 and they weren’t even close to that – it was what color bedspread she wanted,” he said.
WHY PLAYERS DO IT
Five years ago, College Hockey Inc. hired Mike Snee from the Wild as their executive director, in part to help educate players about the advantages of choosing to play college hockey rather than the Canadian Hockey League.
As part of his job, he has spoken with several players who committed to college before sophomore year of high school. Often, he said, players say they committed early to secure a roster spot.
But then Snee asks them a hypothetical question.
If the player weren’t able to tell anybody – not friends, not family, and not able to broadcast their commitment on social media – would they still commit?
“And the response is often, ‘Well why I commit then?’ ” Snee said. “There might have been some aspect that he wanted, but what he most wanted was to tell people that he was committing. That’s not uncommon.
“Ask those two kids last month – if you weren’t allowed to have anyone find out about it, would you have still committed? I’m very confident the majority of early commits would say, ‘Why would I commit if no one finds out?’
“I get it. I’m a human. It’s fun to have that kind of attention. But there’s a time that’s right for it and there’s a time that’s not. I don’t know what the right age is to start committing to schools. But it’s not 13.”
Snee said families often feel pressure to commit to a school to justify the money and time they and their child have poured into hockey. Parents, Snee said, often want to justify the expensive sticks and skates and lessons they’ve paid for with an athletic scholarship.
“It isn’t just the kids’ identity; it’s mom’s and dad’s identity too,” Snee said. “I think that plays into it.”
As colleges have recruited younger, NHL agents have, too. They regularly attend tournaments with the top 12- to-14 year-olds in search of future pro players they can represent. The agents work with players as “advisers” until the players sign a pro contract is signed, because having an agent would make the player ineligible to play in college.
“I think that advisers have to justify their role, otherwise why would you have an adviser?” Snee said. “Part of how they can justify that role is by getting a commitment. So that plays into it, too.”
SPECIAL TALENTS
Four years ago, Tami and Chuck Lucius, the parents of Chaz and Cruz, founded Gentry Academy in Vadnais Heights with hopes of surrounding their prodigious sons with, in the words of athletics director Joe Jensen, “like-minded kids.”
“So, they thought, ‘Well, why don’t we create a school where the kids are allowed to train during the day, but we can also get really good teachers to teach the kids,’ ” Jensen said. “That’s how the whole thing started.”
At Gentry, students train before and after the school day, some days spending as much as four hours on the ice.
“The training part and the academic part are melded into one,” Jensen said.
The school is still deciding whether they’d like to join the Minnesota State High School League, but for now plays a travel-intensive schedule with games against teams from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Michigan.
In their games against top players from across the country, Chaz and Cruz have stood out.
Chaz, the elder brother, is a center and goal scorer already ranked as the top player eligible for CHL affiliate, the Western Hockey League. Cruz, 13, is the playmaker who plays on Chaz’s right wing. They’re the youngest hockey players to ever commit to the Gophers, and Cruz may be the youngest college hockey commit ever.
The Gophers weren’t the only team that offered scholarships to the brothers, Jensen said, though he declined to say just how many schools pursued them.
“They weren’t pressured at all,” their longtime coach Billy Hengen said. “They knew that they wanted to stay close to home and pick a school in the area. When they visited (Minnesota), it just felt right. And Minnesota felt fortunate to land them.”
Jensen and Hengen were asked to speak on behalf of the Lucius family, which declined an interview request for this story.
After the brothers committed, critics came quick.
City Pages wrote a story with the headline “Gophers hockey robs the cradle.” Online commenters wondered how a 13-year-old could possibly know where he wanted to go to college five years from now.
“Do I think it’s too young? I think that’s a question where it’s different for everyone,” Jensen said. “For them, I don’t think it’s too young because they’ve treated the game of hockey and have trained for hockey like a business ever since they were young. To them, this is just the next step that you take.
“There are some kids that at 16 or 17 aren’t ready yet. Everybody’s path is different. But I think it’s funny for people from the outside world that don’t know anything about these kids to say this is way too young. I think you have to know the full story before you make a judgment on something like this.”
WHAT CHANGES?
Chaz and Cruz’s story is one of a hockey obsession.
Three years ago, their parents tried to build a 27,000 square-foot private arena for them to practice in before those plans were foiled by wary neighbors.
“These boys and their peers train and play hockey 12 months out of the year,” said Hengen, the head coach at Gentry.
Hengen played at St. Cloud State with Jensen from 2002-06. Neither committed until after they were juniors in high school. But with changing times, and players more dedicated to the sport at an earlier age, they don’t have an issue with colleges recruiting 13-year-olds.
“I think the rule is fine,” Hengen said. “At the end of the day, we’re talking about kids going to get a college education. That’s a pretty special opportunity. If you look at what the end road is for this, it’s a real positive outcome. If colleges are going to commit to young players, I have no problem with that because the end game is going to get a university education.”
College hockey’s venture into recruiting players that are barely teenagers is hardly new to the NCAA. Already this year, sixth and seventh-grade football players have received scholarship offers. In volleyball, girls receive offers before they enter high school.
Five years ago, a Rosemount girl, Gabby Sprang, committed to play softball at Tennessee while she was still in eighth grade. She’s a freshman now, prepping for her first season at in Knoxville.
“In the hockey scene, it hasn’t happened a ton, and that’s another reason why people are really scratching their heads over this,” Jensen said. “But the Gophers, who have a great tradition and a great program, were interested in these kids like a lot of other programs were. These are great hockey minds that were interested. So who is crazy? Is it the Gophers and other schools that wanted them? Or is it people that don’t know anything about their particular situation and want to say this is nuts?”
Unlike other sports, coaches said, hockey programs tend to honor verbal commitments. Verbal commitments are non-binding; neither side is committed until a player signs a national letter of intent, which they can’t do until the spring before enrolling.
“For the most part in hockey, 80 or 90 percent of the time, nobody (else) will talk to those kids that verbally commit,” Lucia said. “It’s not that way in football or basketball or some other sports. But it’s really been that way in hockey, and I think that’s part of what led to recruiting earlier. If you get somebody committed before other people really see him, that helps.”
Under college hockey’s current rules, coaches can’t initiate contact with a recruit until Jan. 1 of the player’s sophomore year. But prospective players can call a coach at any point and take an unofficial visit to a school at any point. And there’s no rule for when coaches can orally offer a scholarship.
For years, lacrosse had similar rules, but coaches of that sport decided to put an end to early recruiting. In April, they voted to ban all communication between prospective athletes and schools until Sept. 1 of a player’s junior year.
But while college hockey coaches discussed moving to a similar format at their meeting in Chicago, they also note that lacrosse doesn’t have another league – like the Canadian Hockey League – also trying to recruit players.
“No other sport deals with that,” Sandelin said. “But it’s still crazy, in my opinion, to recruit so young. I hope we can do something to slow it down.”
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