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Tag: NCAA DI Commits

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2024 2025 College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey

The Transfer Portal and Implications for Recruiting

Since the NCAA DI women’s hockey season ended for each team, individual players have been adding their name to the transfer portal seeking a new school to play for next season. 139 players entered the portal since it reopened last summer.  40 out 44 schools have at least one player in the portal.

Why Players Enter the Transfer Portal

There are many reasons a student-athlete would choose to go into the transfer portal.  Here are the most common:

  • They have a 5th year of eligibility due to Covid
  • Grad student (graduated) with remaining years of eligibility
  • Player wants more playing time (most common with goalies)
  • Player wants to play for a better team;  upgrade team ranking
  • Issue with the coach /coaching change – one or both sides feel that there is no longer a fit for team / player
  • Off-ice concerns – school (academic or culture) is not a fit for the student-athlete
  • Financial reasons / NIL (Name-Image-Likeness) opportunities

Transfer Portal Player by Years of Eligibility

Analyzing the actual the list of 139 players, here is how they breakout by remaining years of eligibility. It is no surprise that most only have one year left:

NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Transfer Portal

Impact on Prospective Recruits

Depending on how many years of eligibility a transfer player has, it will either impact the number of recruits for 2026 or it may impact the slot where incoming 2024/2025 recruits fit in the lineup.

For example over the last few days, Ohio State added a F from Clarkson, a D from Boston University and a G from Minnesota Duluth, all with two years of eligibility left.  Thus current and future OSU commits may be impacted by these signings for the 2024/25 and the 2025/26 seasons.

On the flip side, this creates an opening in 2024 or 2025 at Clarkson, BU and UMD, depending on how many existing recruits there are for these schools.

For 2026 recruits, if a player with 3 or 4 years of eligibility transfers to a school your were interested in and plays your position, there may be one less spot available on that team on June 15th.

While at USA Hockey Nationals last week, I spoke with a couple of coaches who mentioned they are hosting transfer portal students this month for visits. So I would suspect that we will see many more announcement of players changing schools over the coming weeks.

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2024 2025 College Hockey Recruiting Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey

Q4 2023 DI Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update

This is an update to our quarterly posts which track the number of publicly announced commitments in DI women’s college hockey.

We’ve Changed our Commit Tracking Methodology

For this update, we have significantly changed our data collection methodology on tracking women’s college hockey commits.  In previous quarterly updates, we primarily relied on data from the Women’s College Commitments (WCC) tracking page. Using their data we were able to track announcements on a monthly bases and show trends month-over-month and year-over-year:

Q3 2023 DI Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update

However, we always knew that their data only represented a percentage of all commits for a given year (and relied on the data to be “consistently incomplete” year over year).   For example, for the 2023-24 NCAA DI women’s college hockey season, there are 284 first-year players.  While WCC only recorded 185 of those commits – so, only about 65% of all commits.  While it is almost impossible to track every commit, since many players don’t make public announcements & it is much harder to track European commits, we have endeavored to be more holistic in data collection.

Our new method includes not just WCC, but also information from Elite Prospects, social media posts by players and teams, youth team website rosters and any other public information we can find.  As a result, we have redesigned how we present the data and will only present the data from a quarterly perspective going forward.

As a result, we believe we are closer to tracking ~90% of all commits which is much higher than our previous tracking of ~65%.

Q4 Commitment Details

We recently published the status of women’s college hockey DI commits by position and discussed our analysis on “where and why” about the numbers:

Forward Recruits: The Current State of Division I Women’s College Hockey Recruiting for the Class of 2024 & 2025

Analyzing the Defensive Lineups: The Current State of Division I Women’s College Hockey Recruiting for the Class of 2024 & 2025

Navigating the Tight Goalie Market: The Current State of Division I Women’s College Hockey Recruiting for the Class of 2024 & 2025

Below is how the overall data is trending for commits & by position. As discussed in the previous posts, the incoming class of 2024 is almost full, but there seems to be many spots still open (especially at NEWHA schools) for 2025.

However, it appears that the total size of the incoming 2024 class will be smaller than previous years – mostly due to 5th year Covid eligibility for many student-athletes reducing the number of available spots. For 2025, it is a little too early to tell, but it looks like it will be a regular sized class with over 280 commits – especially with the addition of new DI women’s hockey team, the Delware Blue Hens.

By-Position Year-Over-Year Commit Rate Comparison

Here is the same data as above, but broken out by position in comparison to previous years.

Comparing Q4 to Q3 2023 Total Commits for the Class of 2025

While not apples-to-apples, below is a table comparing the number of commits for the Class of 2025 from Q3 2023 to Q4 2023. As you can see about 125 commits have been announced during the last 3 months.

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College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Q3 2022 DI Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update

Q3 2022 Womens Hockey College Commits

This is an update to a previous post from April, 2022 on “Q1 2022 Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update”.

2022 Commits

There were four 2022 announced commitments since April (Syracuse, St. Michaels 2 and RPI). This shows there still may the odd opening at a school even just a few months before the start of the fall semester. Since the 2022 school year has started, this will be our last analysis of the 2022 commits.

2023 Commits

2023 commits are still tracking at about 23% less than the last two years (40 commitments). Due to 5th year eligibility and grad transfers this seems about right and should be similar for incoming 2024 and possibly 2025s. However, with Assumption and Robert Morris starting to play in 2023 those schools may help bridge the gap in total commits. Both Assumption and Robert Morris have already started announcing their first few freshman commits (two each) – with RMU already having some players on campus and/or 2022 commits who are now starting in 2024.

2024 Commits

The first coming have been coming in since July with 15 public announcements that have been tracked. Most of them are for top hockey or Ivy league schools. This is the first class of players that could not commit until June 15th of their junior year because of the new NCAA recruiting rules. As a result, the current total number of commits 24 months before their start year is significantly below levels from previous years. It will be interesting to see the pace at which the gap closes this fall as potential recruits visit campus and meet the staff and players.

Goalies

Four of the 15 2024 commits are goalies (Clarkson 2, Cornell, Brown). For 2023, St. Anselm, Lindenwood and Assumption have added goalies since our last analysis.

Data assumptions:

  1. Data commitment dates – source: collegecommitments.com and Champs App analysis
  2. Transfers between DI programs are not included in the number of commits
  3. Total number of publicly announced commitments for 2021 was 215 and for 2022 it was 210
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College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Q1 2022 DI Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update

DI College Commit Days Before Starting School Q1 2022

This is an update to a previous post from December, 2021 on “Q4 2021 Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update”.

2022 Commits

For 2022 commits, they have now surpassed the equivalent rate as 2021 commits.  There are now 206 2022 commits as of March 31, 2002 compared to 202 commits the same period last year. Based on previous years, there will probably only be 10-15 more commits for 2022.

2023 Commits

As of March 31st, 2022, only 97 commits have been made for DI programs compared to 163 (2021) and 139 (2022) at the equivalent time before starting for those grade years. With USA Nationals now complete, I would expect the commitment rate to increase in April and May. However, given the absolute numbers it seems that there will also surely be less 2023 commits than previous years (typically about 214 commits). My back-of-the-envelope math says that overall there will likely be between 30 and 40 less 2023 commits compared to 2021 and 2022. From talking to DI coaches, it seems the reasons extra year of eligibility and the transfer students from DI, DIII and Canadian universities.  On the positive side, Stonehill College starting in 2002 and Robert Morris University beginning their recruiting for 2023, I would suspect the gap closes slowly over the next 9 months with an additional 10-20 spots being available for those schools (otherwise my estimates would look even worse).

Goalies

Four goalies committed between January and March, 2022; one for 2022, one for 2023 and one for 2024.  This is consistent with what DI coaches have been saying on the Champs App Podcast, that the goalie process is later than for skaters. There are still only six 2023 goalie commits with an overall target of about 20 goalies per year.

Top 10 Schools

There were only four Top 10 commits in Q1 2022 and three of them were for Minnesota.

Data assumptions:

  1. Data commitment dates – source: collegecommitments.com
  2. Transfers between DI programs are not included in the number of commits
  3. Total number of commits for 2021 was 215
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College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Q4 2021 Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update

DI Womens College Hockey Commits By Year

This is an update to a previous post from October, 2021 on “How Does the Number of 2023 Women’s College Hockey Commits Compare to Previous Years?”.

2022 Commits

For 2022 commits, they are all caught up to the same rate as 2021 commits. There are 193 2022 commits as of Dec 31 for compared to 191 commits the same period last year. Based on previous years, there will probably be on ~20 more commits for 2022.

2023 Commits

As of December 31st, 2021, only 83 commits have been made for DI programs compared to 152 (2021) and 134 (2022) at the equivalent time before starting for those grade years. So the big questions that remains is: Will there be less 2023 commits than previous years (typically about 214 commits) or is the recruiting process just slower this year given everything that is going on with Covid and the extra year of eligibility?

Goalies

Three goalies committed between Oct and Dec, 2021, but what is interesting is that they were all for 2022. This is consistent with what DI coaches have been saying on the Champs App Podcast, that the goalie process is later than for skaters. There continues to only be four 2023 goalie commits with an overall target of about 20 goalies per year.

Top 10 Schools

There were quite a few commits (and transfers) from the Top 10 Schools in Q3 2021.

Data assumptions:

  1. Data commitment dates – source: collegecommitments.com
  2. Transfers between DI programs are not included in the number of commits
  3. Total number of commits for 2021 was 215
  4. Please keep in mind there were no adjustments in the number of schools each year (e.g. RMU, St Michaels, Stonehill)
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Coaching College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

How Does the Number of 2023 Women’s College Hockey Commits Compare to Previous Years?

DI-Womens-College-Hockey-Commits-by-month-prior-to-starting-college

One of the questions I’ve been discussing with some hockey parents has been how have the new recruiting rules and Covid impacted the timing of college commitments for female hockey players. So I decided to analyze the commitment dates by DI college start year for those student-athletes starting in 2021 vs. 2022 and 2023.  As you can see, the rate of 2023 Women’s College Hockey commits is significantly behind previous years.

As of September 30, 2021, what the data shows is that for 2023 grads, the % of commitments expected for 2023 grads is significantly below where 2021 and 2022 grads were. To be clear, 23 months before a player would start at a DI program, only ~26% (57) of the expected available spots have been filled compared to the equivalent time period for 2021 (64% / 132) and 2022 (49% / 105) players.

Goalies

The number is even more dramatic for goalies which have only seen a single 2023 commit (Holy Cross) occur since coaches were allowed to talk to potential recruits this summer. Only 4 goalies in total have committed for 2023 compared to 16 for 2022 and 22 netminders for 2021.

Top 10 Schools are Moving Slowly

For the Top 10 Schools, more than half of the 2023 commits were made before the recruiting rules changed in 2019, and only half have had a 2023 commit announced this year.

Interpreting the Data

My hypotheses for the significantly lower 2023 commitment rate are:

  1. Many girls still haven’t had an on-campus visit yet. Many have likely been waiting until after the summer to visit DI teams when teams are back practicing and playing.
  2. There is still some ambiguity for 2023 recruiting needs due to the extra year of eligibility for all NCAA players. This can be from transfers or 5th year players.
  3. Covid has restricted or impeded on-campus visits for many prospective student-athletes     

Data assumptions:

  • Data commitment dates – source: collegecommitments.com
  • Transfers between DI programs are not included in the number of commits
  • Total number of commits for 2021 was 215
  • Please keep in mind there were no adjustments in the number of schools each year (e.g. RMU, St Michaels, Stonehill)
Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey

College Commits Infographic

Women's College Hockey Commits Insights

Women’s College Hockey Recruiting Insights

So, how good do you need to be to play Division I women’s college hockey? Which clubs/prep schools have the most commits? When do players commit to women’s college hockey teams?

You can download our infographic about Women’s College Hockey Commits Insights here:

Champs App Women’s College Hockey Recruiting Insights Nov 2020Download

This post is part of series on 5 Insights about Women’s College Hockey Commits:

  1. What percent of D1 women’s hockey commits come from Canada vs. the U.S.?
  2. Which U.S. clubs/schools are the biggest D1 college hockey factories?
  3. Which D1 colleges have the most commits?
  4. Which colleges have the earliest player commitments?
  1. Nearly all of the data provided is from College Hockey Inc’s published page on Women’s College Commits.
  2. Secondary information is from Elite Prospects which was used to supplement missing club/school information for some players.
  3. The period covers 8/20/16 until 11/24/20 for players who are committed for the 2020 season and later.
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Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Which DI women’s college hockey programs have the earliest player commitments?

wisonsin badgers minnesota gophers womens hockey

In May, 2019, the NCAA introduced new recruiting rules which restricted college recruiting to only allow verbal commitments to start August 1st of a player’s Junior year. This fundamentally changed the timeline for women’s college hockey recruits.  We looked at almost 550 Division I college hockey commitment dates that are posted on the College Hockey Inc’s women’s college hockey commits web page. As you can see, the impact of the new rule has been dramatic.

Some interesting insights:

  • Five prominent schools (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dartmouth, Princeton, Clarkson) have not had any publicly announced commitments since the new NCAA rules were implemented in May, 2019
  • The days-before-starting-school commitment days have been halved since the new NCAA recruiting rules were implements (1113 before, 553 after). Which essentially means the average player’s commitment has moved from mid-February of their Junior Year, to Mid-August of Sophomore Year
  • Before the new rules were implemented, Wisconsin women’s hockey players committed on average 4 years prior to starting at U of W
  • Currently, only 5 school average less than a year for their commits – 294 days (St. Lawrence University, RIT, Sacred Heart University, Post University Lindenwood University)

Now: Here are the Top 10 schools that are the most aggressive to sign recruits (since the new rules were implemented):

Before: Top 10 School who used to sign the earliest commits prior to the rule changes:

This post is part of series on 5 Insights about Women’s College Hockey Commits. 

  1. What percent of D1 women’s hockey commits come from Canada vs. the U.S.?
  2. Which U.S. clubs/schools are the biggest D1 college hockey factories?
  3. Which D1 colleges have the most women’s hockey commits?
  4. Which colleges have the earliest player commitments?
Categories
Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Which Division I colleges have the most women’s hockey commits?

Brown Yale Women's College Hockey

This post is part of series on 5 Insights about Women’s College Hockey Commits.  As described in the methodology, please note that this data is incomplete since it is not from an official NCAA women’s college hockey commitment source. College Hockey Inc. does not list their sources, which we can only assume are from public announcements (via personal Twitter accounts or team websites). So which DI women’s hockey schools have the most commits?

Division Commits By School

Division I colleges most women’s hockey commits

Some interesting insights:

  • Top 3 colleges are Ivy League schools (Brown, Cornell, Yale)
  • The average number of commits is ~13 across all 41 DI schools
  • The bottom 10 schools average ~8 commits

Here are the outstanding questions:

Candidly, we don’t really know how to fully interpret most of this data.

  1. Why are there so few commits for the “traditionally” weaker Division I teams?
  2. Why doesn’t Harvard have more commits?
  3. What percent of school commits are never publicly announced?
  4. Why is Brown University tied for first given they have not been a powerhouse school? Is it primarily because of the academics and/or location?
  5. St Cloud St also seems like an outlier given that they are consistently a Top 25 team

Over the coming year I hope to get some insights and will post my learnings and link those findings back to this analysis.

This post is part of series on 5 Insights about Women’s College Hockey Commits. 

  1. What percent of D1 women’s hockey commits come from Canada vs. the U.S.?
  2. Which U.S. clubs/schools are the biggest D1 college hockey factories?
  3. Which D1 colleges have the most commits?
  4. Which colleges have the earliest player commitments?
Categories
Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Which Girl’s Hockey Programs Produce the Most D1 Women’s College Hockey Commits?

Top 25 Girls Hockey Programs

If you want to know which girl’s hockey clubs or schools produce the most DI women’s college hockey commits, here is your answer:

Top-25-Clubs-or-Schools-for-Div-I-Womens-Hockey-College-Commits

We looked at 526 college hockey commits that are posted on the College Hockey Inc’s women’s college hockey commits web page starting with the 2020 academic year and beyond.  There were 94 programs that produced at least 2 DI commits, but the Top 25 represented about 50% of all the commits.  And the Top 50 represented about 75% of all the committed players. So, while there is a long tail of places a player can come from, the significant majority are recruited from some of the most well-known girls hockey organizations.

Not surprisingly, Shattuck St. Mary’s Girls Prep is at the top of the list, followed closely by Chicago Mission and Selects Academy.

This post is part of series on 5 Insights about Women’s College Hockey Commits:

  1. What percent of D1 women’s hockey commits come from Canada vs. the U.S.?
  2. Which U.S. clubs/schools are the biggest D1 college hockey factories?
  3. Which D1 colleges have the most commits?
  4. Which colleges have the earliest player commitments?

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