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College Hockey Recruiting Girls Hockey USA Hockey Nationals Women's College Hockey Youth Hockey

5 Observations From Attending USA Hockey Nationals

USA Hockey Nationals 2023

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first USA Hockey National Championship.  I was in both Dallas for the Girls Tier I round robin games and New Jersey for several Youth 15O games. Here are a few things I learned while I was there – mostly from my time in Dallas.

1. Accurate Seedings

For Girls Tier 1, 23 of the 24 Top 8 seeds qualified for the quarterfinals from 14U, 16U and 19U.  Which shows how accurate and reliable the rankings that are used to decide the both the at-large invitations and seedings are. However, once in the playoff round, the lower ranked teams had a reasonable chance to win, with many of the higher seeds losing to lower seeds.  On the Youth side, only 24 of the 32 teams made it to the quarters.

2. Scouts Everywhere

In both locations, I saw coaches scouting players at every round robin game. On the youth side, there were junior and college coaches in every corner and in the stands.  For the girls,nearly every DI college and many DIII coaches were along the glass and in specially designated areas to watch all the 16U games and many 14U and 19U games.  

While Nationals, clearly isn’t the only opportunity to be seen, it certainly helps. It is a big deal. So I now understand why making Nationals from highly-competitive districts is so important to winning their district if they won’t be one of the 3 at-large invitation teams.

I also saw several DIII coaches talking to eligible players who hadn’t committed yet after games.

3. Many Scouts Left After the Preliminary Divisional Games

I flew back to New Jersey from Dallas at the end of the round-robin play, and saw many coaches checking out of our hotel or pulling their carry-on bags on that Saturday. Clearly they were heading home after 3 days of non-stop games.  Based on my previous conversations with coaches, if they are efficient in their scouting, they will have seen enough of all the players they were watching. 

4. Networking Galore

I happened to be staying in a hotel where many other NCAA coaches were staying.  I was able to view first-hand lots of talks happening between team coaches and college coaches in both the arena and the hotel lobby/bars.  Once again, reinforcing the importance of being at Nationals for the recruiting process.  I know of at least one eligible player who was contacted after Nationals based on their appearance at Nationals.

USA-Hockey

5. USA Hockey Scouts in Attendance

It was nice to see at least two USA Hockey representatives watching games and players.  I am assuming it was in anticipation of the upcoming USA Hockey District camps taking in place in May and June to select player for the 15’s, 16/17s and 18’s Camps.  This gives USA Hockey a bigger body of work to judge players rather and greater level of consistency across districts rather than just relying on the coaches who may only attend one or two District camps.

Categories
hockey Minor Hockey Player Development Youth Hockey

Why Your Team Should Play AA Instead of AAA Youth Hockey

Do you want a chance at playing at the USA Hockey National Championships?

Did your team play AAA last year? 

If yes, what was your final ranking on MyHockeyRankings?

If your team wasn’t in the Top 50 teams for your age group, then this post is for you.

Last week, USA Hockey announced all the team that either qualified or were invited to Tier I and Tier II National Playoffs taking place at the end of the month. Many low ranked AAA teams never had a chance of going to Nationals.

This post discusses why your AAA team might be better off being designated as Tier II (AA) instead of Tier I.  And while this post primarily focuses on youth (boys) hockey in the U.S., some of the same principles can be applied to girls hockey.

Here’s why…

1. Teams ranked below the Top 50 rarely qualify for USA Hockey Nationals

lowest ranked team qualifying for 2023 USA Hockey Youth Nationals Playoffs

If you aren’t at least a Top 50 team in your age group, there is almost no chance you will win your Tier 1 District playoffs – the exception being a team from Northern Plains (Team North Dakota for 16s) and the Rocky Mountain District (for 18s).

2. Lower ranked AAA teams are rated about the same as top AA teams

Here is how the bottom half of Tier 1 team ratings compare to the top teams in both Tier 1 and Tier 2

2023 USA HOCKEY tier i vs Tier 2 ratings comparison

As you can see, after the ~50th ranked team, the AAA teams are pretty competitive with top AA teams in each age group.  There is less than a goal differential between these teams – so games between 50th ranked Tier 1 teams would be close with the Top Tier 2 teams.

3. It should be easier to qualify for USA Hockey Nationals

There are 48 spots for each Tier II age group. By classifying at the Tier II level, they would have a much better chance of qualifying for Nationals and playing competitive games in that tournament.

4. You can still play in AAA tournaments and showcases.

At the same time, they can continue to play in the same leagues and events during the regular season.

There are already tournaments specifically set-up for the bottom half of AAA teams.  Some tourneys are explicit about this by segmenting their division names (AAA and AAA elite – or Ribcor + Supertacks +  Jetspeed). Others make sure that similarly ranked lower rated teams attend the same event.

For some regular season Tier 1 leagues, they already do this implicitly. In one league, the weakest teams don’t even get to play in the leagues end-of-season playoffs, instead they are relegated to their own ‘Consolation’ division. This past season, there was a club which had all 4 of their Tier 1 teams in the consolation division due to poor regular season performance at each age group. Once again, these leagues are set-up to treat the lower ranked teams at the level they actually play – a tweener between AAA and AA.

Be Realistic

From a game and tournament perspective, weaker “AAA” teams are playing each other anyway, but not really playing for anything. It is unlikely any of them will with their districts and to be one of the 12 automatic qualifiers to Tier 1 USA Hockey Nationals, and they certainly won’t get an at-large invitation for the remaining 4 spots.

However, there are 48 spots for each Tier II age group.   By classifying at the Tier 2 level, they would have a much better chance of qualifying for Nationals and playing competitive games in that tournament. At the same time, they can continue to play in the same leagues and events during the regular season.

At the end of the day, these weak “AAA” teams will still be who they are – but now they would have a chance to play against their peers for a National Championship.   Considering that youth hockey is all about development, competing in a real playoff environment is a great development opportunity and playing competitive games.  Certainly better than what is happening today, where most of these teams are enjoying limited success – and when they do, it usually versus their true peer group.

Youth hockey is all about development. You really shouldn’t care how many letters your team has as long as players and teams are getting better every year. It’s not about being able to tell your friends that you (or your kid) plays AAA.

So, are you willing to trade playing triple-A for double-A in exchange for a legitimate chance to play for a National Championship?

Data Source: MyHockeyRankings.com

Categories
Development Camp Youth Hockey

The Early Birth-Month Advantage in Hockey

This week, the USA Hockey NTDP released the names of the 45 2007’s invited to their evaluation camp. Over 50% of the players were born in the first 3 months of 2007.  Malcolm Gladwell talked about this hockey phenomenon in his book Outliers, where the earlier you are born in the calendar year, the more likely you are to be get selected to elite teams. This is due to the size and age advantage over players born later in the year. It is a self-reinforcing cycle from atom/squirt ages – despite hockey being a late-development sport. 15 years later, this bias still exists.

Categories
Player Development Skating Women's Hockey

What does it take to be a truly elite player?

The Player Development Hierarchy

In past posts, I have discussed what it takes to become a great hockey player.  To keep it simple, I would say that those posts describe the path to becoming a true AAA-level player.  At every age group, there are roughly 150-200 AAA level teams for boys and 75-100 AAA teams for girls across the US and Canada.  That means that means there are over 1000 great hockey players at every age level. 

So what does a player who is the best-of-the-best look like?

Over the past couple of years I have watched many of the top teams and players on both sides of the border and have come up with a simple framework on the hierarchy of attributes that these top players possess.

The following diagram shows how these attributes build on each other and, when done in combination, display a top-level of excellence in hockey players.

Level 1: Fundamental Skills

Hockey requires a range of fundamental skills, including skating (e.g. speed and agility), stickhandling, shooting and passing. These are the essential capabilities a player must have in order to get to the elite level.  Clearly, becoming elite at one of the skills helps get you closer to becoming an overall top-level player, but it isn’t sufficient.

Level 2:  Good Habits

There are several on-ice habits that hockey players need to develop and demonstrate on every shift.  These include technical behaviors like shoulder-checking and staying between the dots if you are a D.  Or sticking with your man or going hard to the net and stopping at the goalie if you are a forward. Quite frankly, for every position there is a long list of good habits a player needs to learn and continually maintain.  More broadly, here are some of the other good habits that separate the elite from the rest. 

  1. Hustle: Hockey is a fast-paced game that requires players to move quickly and efficiently. Players who hustle and work hard on the ice are more likely to make plays and create scoring opportunities for their team. Scouts notice which players hustle every shift versus those that take some shifts off during a game.
  2. Communication: In a game, players need to communicate with their teammates on the ice, using clear and concise language to call for passes, provide direction, and coordinate defensive strategies.
  3. Positioning:  Being in the right place at the right time is critical to elite players. Knowing where and when to move to the right areas of the ice separates top players from the rest of their peers.
  4. Anticipation: Anticipation is the ability to read the game and predict what will happen next. Players who are able to anticipate their opponents’ movements and read the play effectively are more likely to make plays and create scoring opportunities for their team.
  5. Discipline: Discipline is important in hockey, both in terms of  staying out of the penalty box and maintaining good habits on the ice.

By developing these good on-ice habits, hockey players can have a strong foundation to play at the elite level.

Level 3: Decision Making

To become an elite player, decision making is a critical skill that must be constantly developed and honed.  Specifically, decision making spans multiple dimensions and situation for players:

  1. Reading the Play: Hockey players must be able to read the play and make decisions based on what they see on the ice. This involves being aware of the positions of teammates and opponents, predicting where the puck will go, and anticipating the movements of other players.
  2. Puck Management: Puck management is an essential aspect of decision making in hockey. Players must decide when to shoot, pass, or carry the puck, and must be able to make those decisions quickly and confidently.
  3. Positioning: Good positioning is key to making effective decisions in hockey. Players must be able to position themselves in a way that maximizes their effectiveness and allows them to make quick decisions based on the flow of the game.
  4. Communication: Effective communication is essential for good decision making in hockey. Players must be able to communicate quickly and clearly with their teammates, both on and off the ice, to ensure that everyone is on the same page and can make decisions based on a shared understanding of the game.
  5. Adaptability: Finally, hockey players must be adaptable and able to make decisions in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. They must be able to react quickly to changes in the game and adjust their decisions accordingly, often on the fly.

Level 4: Deception and Protection

Deception and puck protection are important skills for ice hockey players to develop in order to create scoring opportunities and maintain possession of the puck.  In my experience, it is the highest order of development to display, because it relies on all the other attributes for players to be able to successfully perform them during games. 

  1. Deception: Deception is the act of misleading or confusing an opponent in order to gain an advantage. Players can use deception in a variety of ways, such as faking a shot, passing in the opposite direction, or changing direction suddenly. To develop deception skills, players should focus on maintaining good body posture and making quick, decisive movements to keep opponents guessing. There is a long list of fakes, but knowing which one to pick at the right moment is a skill in itself.
  2. Puck Protection: Puck protection is the ability to maintain possession of the puck while being checked by an opponent. To protect the puck effectively, players should keep their body between the puck and the opponent, use their body to shield the puck (e.g. mohawks or pivot turns), and maintain good balance and body position. They can also use quick fakes and sudden changes of direction to throw off the opponent’s timing.
  3. Reading the Defense: To be effective at deception and puck protection, players should be able to read the defense and anticipate their opponent’s movements. They should look for gaps in the defense, predict where the opponent is likely to go, and adjust their movements accordingly.

Deception and protection can be high risk, especially if they aren’t executed properly. If players attempt a fake or fancy puck protection move and fail, it can easily end up in the back of your net and you can be stapled to the bench by your coach. This is why players who can successfully perform these moves are considered elite.

It is certainly possible to demonstrate parts of these four attributes independently of the other, but to be a high end AAA player, these capabilities create synergies with each other when performed consistently together.  

Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

The Current State of Recruiting for DI Women’s College Hockey Defense

This is the Third and Final Post detailing the current opportunities for potential female Hockey recruits at DI Schools

In our previous posts we reviewed the status of goaltender recruits at all the DI women’s hockey programs and a similar post for the forward position.

As a reminder, the research compiled all the roster information for players from current DI women’s hockey team websites and combined them with the latest public women’s college hockey commitment data to help determine where spots have been filled and which schools may still be looking for players to start in the 2023 and 2024 school years.

Keep in mind, due to Covid, players who started playing in 2018 or 2019 were given an extra year of eligibility. In addition, 12 schools (all the Ivys, most of NEWHA plus Union and RPI) did not play in 2020-21 – so their 2018 or 2019 players can still be on their rosters for another season or two.

Finally, many of these extra-year players have the option to either stop playing after their 4th year of playing, transfer & play one more year elsewhere or stay-and-play for a 5th year at their current school. This makes predicting which teams would be looking for freshmen goalies in 2023 and 2024 tough, since many schools might prefer an experienced transfer student. It is very possible that even the coaching staffs for these schools may not know for sure what their student-athletes will do.

Here is the analysis which tries to shed light on where defenders are committed and current players are getting to the end of their college careers (by year).

DI Womens Hockey DEfense By Grad Year & Class

The following (ugly looking) table shows the number of D by class year on their current roster and their anticipated graduation year. Then the currently publicly known number of D commits by start year is also provided.

Note: Gray teams did not play in 2020-21 and thus have players with an extra year of eligibility even though they are currently listed as a Jr or Sr.

Players that are designated as 0.5 F and 0.5D if they are listed as both positions on their team’s website.

If you are a 2023 or 2024 D, the above table may help guide you to certain teams that may still be looking for defenders.

A few observations and notes:

  • If there are ~340 D positions, then usually ~85 D should be recruited every year.
  • It looks like ~15 D spots have shifted from 2023/24 to 2025. So ~15 less spots will be available for 2023/24 grads combined (~155 spots)
  • Average D players on a team is ~8, but there are 4 teams with 10 or more D that will likely not replace 1 or 2 of those slots
  • It appears as though many of the 2023 Defense spots are already taken but there is likely still another ~15 spots available across a handful of schools.
  • If you are a 2024 grad, many spots still appear to be open. However, 2025 looks like it will have more openings than usual, so you could also consider taking a Post Grad year (~100 for 2025 vs ~70 for 2024).

If you had a different experience or have additional thoughts or questions, feel free to reach out on social media or here to share your thoughts or experience.

Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey Youth Hockey

Creating Player Videos: Where to Post Your Recruiting Highlight Reels

This is the fifth and final post in a series on creating player videos college coaches want to see from potential recruits.

#1 How to Create Player Videos for Recruiting
#2 What Are The 3 Types of Recruiting Videos Coaches Want to See?
#3 Sourcing Game Footage For Highlight Reels
#4 How to Edit Video for Recruiting Highlight Reels

This is the last post on creating recruiting videos and it focuses on where to upload your video to share with coaches.

There are two types of situations to share videos with coaches.  The first, is directly one-to-one with a specific  coach and the second is one-to-many.

Video Analytics

Ideally, in both situations your want to post the video in a manner where you can track some metrics about your video. This could include various attributes like who has watched you video, how many times the video has been watched. In addition, you might also be able to track location, how long users watched the video and where the user came from prior to watching your video (e.g. search, email, social media etc.)

YouTube

The easiest method to upload a video to share is using YouTube.  A public YouTube video lets your video be found via search engines and within YouTube and you can easily track views and additional measurements about your video.  You can also upload the same or personalized videos for specific coaches or schools separately to track viewership by team.  In most situations, YouTube offers all of these hosting services for free.

Vimeo

Another similar service is Vimeo which offers both free and paid options depending on which capabilities you might want for hosting , tracking and possibly editing capabilities.

Social Media Platforms

Many student-athletes also use social media platforms, such as, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram, to share their recruiting videos. This allows coaches to view the videos at their convenience and share them with other members of their coaching staff.

You can also store video files in a private folder in the cloud using Google Drive, Dropbox or Box and share links to those files with specific teams or individuals.  Once again, using trackable links and privacy controls, you can control and specify who has access to you files and check if coaches have watched the videos.

Other Channels

It’s important to note that college coaches and recruiters may also use other resources to evaluate prospective student-athletes, such as game film, scouting services, and in-person evaluations. Therefore, it’s important for student-athletes to showcase their skills and abilities through multiple channels to increase their visibility to college coaches.

Team Website

One last category is the host the video on the same site where you publish you online hockey resume.  It can be on your team site, using a recruiting service or on your Champs App profile page. Currently Champs App only allows YouTube video links, but in the future you will be able to store your videos directly on your profile page then share and track who has watched you videos.

Feel free to share your method of hosting your highlight videos – please send us your preferred method and we can add them to this post. 

Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey Youth Hockey

Creating Player Videos: How to Edit Video for Recruiting Highlight Reels

This is the fourth post in a series on creating player videos college coaches want to see from potential recruits.

#1 How to Create Player Videos for Recruiting
#2 What Are The 3 Types of Recruiting Videos Coaches Want to See?
#3 Sourcing Game Footage For Highlight Reels
#5 Where to Post Your Recruiting Highlight Reels

This post is not about creating professional hockey videos for teams or coaches.  Nor is it intended to help with analytics or stat tracking like Hudl or Instat. Instead it is simply just to help players and parents make simple highlight videos college coaches want to see from potential recruits.  As a result, we will only cover basic tools to help edit and produce these types of videos to the exclusion of fancy stat software packages used for more sophisticated needs.

There are dozens of premium hockey-specific video editing tools out there. This post does not cover in any of them. Feel free to do an online search if you want to find some of the top names in this category. Instead, we will only discuss the common general purpose video editing tools that are most popular and relatively simple to use.

There are also many, many service providers who will be happy to make professional looking videos for you for a fee. Nothing wrong with hiring someone to make your video, but with a little effort, you can save yourself a lot of money.

Candidly, I have used very basic tools to help edit video and create graphics.  I’ve never paid for any additional software beyond what I already use either at home or at work.  There are many parents (and definitely most players) who have better media-making skills than I do.  But what matters is delivering presentable videos that meet the needs of coaches.

As for editing tools, there are many free programs and several movie editing tools which are relatively low cost. All  of them are pretty easy to use once you’ve gone up the learning curve on your first couple of videos. . These software packages include iMovie, Final Cut, Adobe, Windows Movie Maker and Microsoft Video Editor. And these days there are many browser-based video editing tools as well.

You can make your own graphics using common graphical editing and presentation tools like Keynote, Adobe, Powerpoint and Google Slides.  There are also good, either free or very inexpensive graphical design offerings like Canva and stock image sites.

What to include in all your videos

  1. An intro graphic which provides the basic information about the player. Ideally it includes most of the following:
    • Profile pic
    • Birthday
    • Height
    • Graduation Year
    • Current Team
    • Position
    • Jersey #
    • Current Coach
    • Contact Info (optional)
  2. During each clip/scene use some type of graphic (e.g. circle, arrow etc.) to identify the player
  3. Informational Graphics

Another common element I’ve seen in highlight video (not full games) is some type of on-screen graphic which communicates to the viewer what type of highlight they are about to see. It could be anything from a goal or assist, to a good defensive play or fancy pass.  If there are specific critical attributes of a player’s game that you want to emphasize, explicitly calling them out on-screen beforehand can be helpful.

Should you include music? 

That is a personal choice. Many coaches have told me they’d prefer not to listen to a soundtrack with the video, but they can always mute the sound of any video if they don’t want to hear it.

I am sure I am missing some additional editing tools and other methods of cutting video, so please feel free to send us your methods and we can add them to this post. 

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

Q4 2022 DI Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update

This is an update to a previous post from September, 2022 on “Q3 2022 DI Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update”.

DI Women’s Hockey Commitment Rate by Months Prior to College

2023 Commits

2023 commits are tracking at about 18% less than the last two years (34 less commitments). Due to 5th year eligibility, red-shirting and grad transfers this is consistent with our recent analysis on forwards and goalies. It appears as though many of the 2023 Forward spots are already taken but there is likely still another 20-30 spots available across a handful of schools.

2024 Commits

The 2024 commits are slightly behind the 2023 commitment rate as of December, 2022 by about 12% (64 2024’s vs 73 2023’s).

It looks like ~25 F spots have shifted from 2023/24 to 2025. So ~25 less forward spots will be available for 2023/24 grads combined.

2025 Commits

The first couple of commits for 2025 have been announced. Both are for the forward position and are Canadian players who are 2006 birth years, but will only start in 2025.

Goalies

There are 14 2023 commits and 8 2024 commits that have been publicly announced. In a “normal” year there should be about 33 freshman goalies per year (44 teams x 3 goalies per team / 4 years). As mentioned above, the extra year of eligibility or red-shirting has provided a glut of goalies already at the NCAA level who are filling spots that would normally be filled by the incoming classes.

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 214
Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey Youth Hockey

Creating Player Videos: Sourcing Game Footage For Highlight Reels

This is the third post in a series on creating player videos college coaches want to see from potential recruits.

#1 How to Create Player Videos for Recruiting
#2 What Are The 3 Types of Recruiting Videos Coaches Want to See? – Champs App
#4 How to Edit Video for Recruiting Highlight Reels
#5 Where to Post Your Recruiting Highlight Reels

Now that you decided you want to create videos for your player the first step is to get raw game footage you can use to create the three different types of highlight reels coaches want to see.

Live Streaming Services

In both the US and Canada, LiveBarn is the most popular hockey streaming service.  What is great about LiveBarn is that you can easily download either 30 second clips or full games.  While sometimes the quality isn’t great or the camera is sometimes  not focused on the  puck,  in general it is one of the most consistent sources of footage that you can use.

The second most popular game streaming available is from HockeyTV.  Depending on the event and/or rink, the service has a very good browsing capability to find specific games and navigating within games.  The big drawback for HockeyTV is that you need to pay an extra  fee to download specific games – which makes it expensive to use for editing full games.  My trick is to just use my phone’s camera to record specific highlights from of the HockeyTV screen.

Additional Streaming Services

There are also other hockey streaming services available in specific regions or events. For example, in Minnesota there are rink-specific  feeds that you can pay to watch games. And there is also the GameOn streaming service in Canada that is available for major events and specific rinks.  Once again, the fees vary either by one-time access to events (e.g. tournament or showcase) or subscriptions.

Recoding Games Yourself (or by someone on your team)

At almost every rink, you will find at least one parent with either an iPad or video camera on a tripod recording or streaming a game.  The quality is usually very good and as long as they camera person pays attention the entire game, there is usually some great footage.

In addition, I consistently see at least one parent along the glass takes out their phone every time their kid is on the ice and start the recording their shifts.

One more method is to use GoPro cameras. This is my personal favorite source of game footage  as a supplement to LiveBarn.  It is especially good for goalies.  While you only need one camera and you can decide which end is more appropriate to record based on your player and period,  I like to use two cameras at both ends of the rink behind the goalies.  The only challenge with using GoPros is that it is a lot of work.  Beyond shelling out ~$200 or more for a camera, memory card and necessary accessories to stick it to the glass, you also need to make sure you have enough power to last the entire game.  This can be through charging the in-camera batteries or connecting an external battery pack.  And remembering to charge the batteries and empty the memory cards before/after games is another chore. However, the payoff is that the quality of the video for offensive plays and goalie footage is about as good as it gets. I can’t tell you how many goalies (and their parents) have asked me to send them video of their end when they know that I recorded their game.

OTHER FOOTAGE SOURCES

Sometimes a game or a highlight is available from some third party that I have seen on social media or know about from our team chat.

Many games are live broadcast or posted to YouTube either by the opposing team or a tournament/showcase organizer (e.g. NAHA Winterhawks games and more).  You may be able to find game footage just by doing a search on YouTube.  If you have a premium YouTube subscription you can download videos with your account. There are also “free” websites to download YouTube videos, but since many of the sites are filled with suspicious ads and potential malware, I won’t link to any of them here. I would just suggest you use caution when using one of these services.

Twitch, Facebook Live,  Livestream or Other Personal  Live Broadcasting  Services

Similar to YouTube, many parents live stream games using their personal social media accounts. I have used footage from Faceboook Live and SeasonCast . You may not be able to download the full game video, but you can use your phone to capture short highlights.

Social Media

Every once in a while I will find a short  highlight I want to use on Twitter or Instagram.  Usually someone else posted a great play from an angle or a shot that is better than what I have on my footage, so I find a way to capture or download it.

One more trick I use is a screen recording software (sometimes I use Screencast – but you can also just use Zoom to record your screen) to capture and download video from a 3rd party source that is not available for easy download.

I am sure I am missing some additional sources of footage and other methods of capturing game video, so please feel free to send us your methods and we can add them to this post. 

Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

The Current State of Recruiting for DI Women’s College Hockey Forwards

This is the second Post diving into detail on the current opportunities for potential female Hockey recruits at DI Schools

Updated January 21, 2023

We received a tremendous amount of positive feedback on our last post about the status of goaltender recruits at all the DI women’s hockey programs. As a result, we are publishing a similar post for the forward position.

As a reminder, the research compiled all the roster information for players from current DI women’s hockey team websites and combined them with the latest public women’s college hockey commitment data to help determine where spots have been filled and which schools may still be looking for players to start in the 2023 and 2024 school years.

Keep in mind, due to Covid, players who started playing in 2018 or 2019 were given an extra year of eligibility. In addition, 12 schools (all the Ivys, most of NEWHA plus Union and RPI) did not play in 2020-21 – so their 2018 or 2019 players can still be on their rosters for another season or two.

Finally, many of these extra-year players have the option to either stop playing after their 4th year of playing, transfer & play one more year elsewhere or stay-and-play for a 5th year at their current school. This makes predicting which teams would be looking for freshmen goalies in 2023 and 2024 tough, since many schools might prefer an experienced transfer student. It is very possible that even the coaching staffs for these schools may not know for sure what their student-athletes will do.

Here is the analysis which tries to shed light on where forwards are committed and current players are getting to the end of their college careers (by year).

DI Womens Hockey FOWARDS By Grad Year & Class

The following (ugly looking) table shows the number of forwards by class year on their current roster and their anticipated graduation year. Then the currently publicly known number of forward commits by start year is also provided.

Note: Gray teams did not play in 2020-21 and thus have players with an extra year of eligibility even though they are currently listed as a Jr or Sr.

Players that are designated as 0.5 F and 0.5D if they are listed as both positions on their team’s website.

If you are a 2023 or 2024 forward, the above table may help guide you to certain teams that may still be looking for skaters.

A few observations and notes:

  • If there are ~600 F positions, then usually ~150 F should be recruited every year.
  • It looks like ~25 F spots have shifted from 2023/24 to 2025. So ~25 less spots will be available for 2023/24 grads combined (~275 spots)
  • The average number of F per team is 14 players. But there are 9 teams with 16 or more Fs (likely due to Covid) which means at least 1 or 2 of those players will not be replaced on those teams.
  • It appears as though many of the 2023 Forward spots are already taken but there is likely still another 20-30 spots available across a handful of schools.
  • If you are a 2024 grad, you might also consider taking a Post Grad year and plan to start in 2025 when it seems there will be a lot more openings (~175 for 2025 vs ~130 for 2024).

The Current State of Recruiting for DI Women’s College Hockey Defense

If you had a different experience or have additional thoughts or questions, feel free to reach out on social media or here to share your thoughts or experience.

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