In this episode of 'Puck Academy,' host Jason Jacobs interviews Sean Hogan, Executive Director of College Hockey Inc. This nonprofit organization, primarily funded by the NHL, aims to grow and promote college hockey. Hogan discusses College Hockey Inc.'s evolution since its inception in 2010, addressing issues such as the significant role of college hockey in player development, feasibility studies for starting new college hockey programs, and educational outreach for players and families. The conversation covers the impact of recent rule changes on player pathways, the trickle-down effects on youth and prep hockey, and strategic priorities for expanding and elevating the profile of college hockey over the next 12 to 18 months. Hogan also touches on the challenges of expanding the sport, the importance of celebrating all levels of college hockey, and the potential for increasing the number of NCAA Division I teams.
Exploring the Future of College Hockey with Sean Hogan from College Hockey Inc. In this episode of Puck Academy, host Jason Jacobs welcomes Sean Hogan, Executive Director of College Hockey Inc. They discuss the origins, mission, and strategic priorities of the nonprofit organization which is dedicated to promoting college hockey. Key topics include the evolution of development pathways in hockey, the impact of rule changes on the sport, and the importance of making hockey more accessible. Hogan details various initiatives College Hockey Inc. is working on, such as conducting feasibility studies for new college teams and participating in events like the Spengler Cup. The conversation also delves into the challenges and opportunities in the current landscape of youth and collegiate hockey.
00:00 Introduction to Puck Academy
00:28 Meet Sean Hogan: Executive Director of College Hockey Inc.
00:44 The Evolution and Mission of College Hockey Inc.
01:42 Strategic Priorities and Development Pathways
02:13 Discussion on Rule Changes and Their Implications
02:25 Sean Hogan's Vision for the Future of Hockey
02:33 Starting the Interview: Sean Hogan's Background
03:40 Overview of College Hockey Inc.'s Activities
04:17 Feasibility Studies and Partnerships
04:41 Research and Education Initiatives
05:29 The Importance of College Hockey in Player Development
05:43 Historical Context and Rule Changes
07:21 NHL's Support and the Importance of College Hockey
08:57 Measuring Success and Increasing College Hockey's Profile
11:31 Challenges and Opportunities in Expanding College Hockey
14:58 Barriers to Growth and Facility Challenges
16:34 Convincing Schools to Add Hockey Programs
19:29 Balancing Trends and Steering the Future
20:40 Elevating College Hockey's Profile
23:47 Geographical Trends and Player Sources
24:59 Trickle-Down Effects of Rule Changes
26:40 NIL and Transfer Portal Impact
27:55 Third Party NIL and Player Opportunities
29:14 Funding College Hockey Programs
30:56 Youth Hockey Accessibility Issues
34:10 High School vs. Club Hockey Debate
38:26 Prep School and Junior Hockey Trends
42:56 College Hockey's Strategic Priorities
45:26 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
[Jason Jacobs] (0:14 - 2:35)
Welcome to Puck Academy, a show about how hockey players grow on and off the ice. I'm Jason Jacobs, the host. And each week I talk with players, coaches, and experts shaping the future of player development.
Today's guest is Sean Hogan, Executive Director of College Hockey Inc. College Hockey Inc is a non-profit whose mission is promoting and growing college hockey, men's and women's, and helping guide players, families, and coaches through collegiate hockey pathways. The organization started back around 2010, and at the time, this was a period where many of the top players in the game were starting to bypass the NCAA and going to the Canadian major juniors, which of course at the time meant that they lost their eligibility to play college hockey.
So, the NHL funded this non-profit whose mission initially was to keep more players on the college hockey pathway. Today, their mission has evolved where they're trying to put college hockey at the center of the development universe on the path to the NHL, and part of that is as a free education resource. Part of that is doing events, and part of that is around doing feasibility studies, working with college programs who do not have hockey, who aspire to have hockey to assess the feasibility of putting a Division I hockey program in place.
We cover a lot in this episode, including the charter of College Hockey Inc, the strategic priorities for the organization, and then tactically how they work to achieve those priorities over the next 12 to 18 months. We talk about the development pathways in hockey and how they've been changing and how they will change what's going well, what's not going so well, and where all of this is heading. We also have a fascinating discussion about the trickle-down effects, you know, how some of the rule changes have manifested in college hockey, what the implications are for youth players coming up in the game, for prep school, for juniors, and for the pros.
And we also talk directionally about Sean's vision for where the game should be heading in the future. This is a great one, and I hope you enjoy it. Sean, welcome to the show.
[Sean Hogan] (2:35 - 2:42)
Thanks for having me on. Yeah, any time I have a chance to talk about hockey, college hockey, youth hockey, any level of hockey gets me excited, so appreciate the opportunity today.
[Jason Jacobs] (2:42 - 3:26)
Well, I appreciate you making the time, and so I'm, as I'm kind of entering the sport as a learner and trying to get up to speed, I've just been trying to find well-placed people that are with interesting backgrounds to learn from, and that's kind of the point of the show, and I hadn't heard of College Hockey Inc before, but gosh, it seems like a fascinating organization, and, you know, as the head of it, you're in a pretty interesting spot, especially with a lot of the changes that are happening that are kind of rippling throughout the sport, and certainly that have implications on college hockey, so yeah, I'm grateful for you making the time, and I'm psyched to learn from you today.
[Sean Hogan] (3:27 - 3:29)
I appreciate it, excited to talk about it.
[Jason Jacobs] (3:29 - 3:47)
Well, for starters, I mean, we could use the whole episode going through your background and journey in the sport, and to be honest, I listened to some of that already, and you know, listeners haven't, but I want to kind of jump to the good stuff. Maybe we can just start with an overview of what College Hockey Inc. does, because I bet a lot of people like me in the hockey world don't know.
[Sean Hogan] (3:48 - 5:43)
Yeah, so we do a variety of things at College Hockey Inc. It's probably in the last year we've grown to do even more than we were doing before, but one of the things that we do, and part of the mission is to grow College Hockey. So we partner with NCAA Division 1 Athletic Departments, and now Division 3 Athletic Departments, and even at the ACHA level, and we work with those athletic departments to try to create more hockey teams, or college hockey teams, and that outreach project is working.
We've done three feasibility studies this year, so our partnership with the NHL allows us to partner with these NCAA institutions and offer a free feasibility study, a confidential feasibility study for any school interested in adding NCAA hockey to their athletic departments. So that's something I'm passionate about, and something that we've been working on, so that's one of the things that we do. We also do a lot of research at College Hockey Inc, and what I mean by research is we're an education organization for families, and we're free organizations, there's never a cost for what we do.
So if you have questions about the player path, where do players play on their road to NCAA hockey? What's the average age of a commitment for players from my area? Just a variety of different research like that, so when we give presentations and we meet with families, we can provide data backing up, not just our opinions, but what it actually looks like to get to NCAA hockey, but really at the end of the day, we're a free education organization out there to educate players, coaches, parents, agents and advisors, use our services every day, about the benefits of playing college hockey on your road to hopefully the highest levels in the world. And we think with some of these new rule changes and this new legislation and just the way NCAA sports in general have changed, I think college hockey is now the top of the development pyramid, and we want to make sure the best players in the world play college hockey on the road to the NHL.
[Jason Jacobs] (5:44 - 5:46)
How and why did the organization come to be, and when?
[Sean Hogan] (5:46 - 7:20)
Back in, you know, in the late 2008, 2009, 2010 time, there was one mission for college hockey back then, and the mission was to make sure that the, because back then players had a choice between major junior hockey and college hockey, and that's recently changed. So the mission back then was to make sure the American-born player was not signing the play major junior. And back during that time, that was the peak time that some of the best American players were skipping college hockey, the Patrick Keynes of the world, for example, right, went and played in the OHL.
So the mission back then, that was a sole mission of college hockey, was to do that one thing. And that's changed over time, obviously, and before the rule changed, back in November, at the peak, the number of Americans was near 160 Americans playing in the CHL. And just last year before the rule changed, we were just in the high fifties.
So that mission was working, that part of the core mission of college hockey, and what we were doing was working, then the rule changed. And now players don't have to make that choice at 15 years old, 16 years old, which is great for the player. The player can play junior hockey really wherever he wants in the world.
But the next step on your road to the NHL is college hockey. And that's the charge that college hockey is changing. To make sure families, players, agents, coaches understand that, that you play junior hockey wherever you want.
But before you get to the NHL, you're going to spend time on NCAA Division 1 campus.
[Jason Jacobs] (7:22 - 7:50)
So correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that so college hockey, it's a non-profit and that the primary funder is the NHL. One, just verify that those are both right. But then two, why does the NHL care if a hockey player flows through the NCAA on their journey versus, as long as they make it to the NHL and they're good, what difference does it make, what path they take to the NHL?
[Sean Hogan] (7:50 - 8:57)
We are a non-profit organization, which is why we keep our services free. We're primarily funded directly from the NHL. And I think from the NHL's perspective, growing college hockey is important because when you watch an NFL broadcast, and you watch an NBA broadcast, the tie to universities all over the U.S. is enormous, right? So every time they mention a quarterback, you say, oh, he played it Alabama. He played it off, or he played a mission mistake. Wherever that is.
In an NHL broadcast, the more that we can tie college hockey, or a player to a university or college hockey, I think benefits the NHL. This is a new fan base, more eyes, more connections to NHL hockey. The more we can grow it, the more my organization can create teams out west, maybe one day we'll have SEC hockey.
Remember the old Pac-12, UCLA, USC? That's the primary goal. The more that we can attach the NHL and those athletes to institutions like that, the better it is for the game.
[Jason Jacobs] (8:57 - 9:27)
So you do a variety of different activities. I mean, there's the feasibility studies. There's the engaging with the community and answering questions for free.
Like you said, there's the events that you put on. If you forget about the tactics for a minute, just from a success standpoint, what do you track? How do you know if you're doing well as an organization?
[Sean Hogan] (9:27 - 10:51)
One of the things that we measure is a number of players in the NHL that played college hockey, and it's been 33% of the NHL for the last half a decade. I always say, so about one of three players in the NHL have played college hockey. If you went back 20 years ago, that number was like eight or nine percent of the NHL played college hockey.
If you go back far enough, late 60s, early 70s, there was only one former college hockey player in the NHL, and that was Red Berenson. And for the audience of my age, we know who Red Berenson was, but Red Berenson went out and coached University of Michigan was a Hall of Fame player. But when he was in the NHL, he was the only college hockey player in the NHL at the time.
So it's gone from one player in the NHL to one in three players in the NHL, played college hockey. And these new rule changes with the new legislation and pre-enrollment, the NHL player is eligible. I expect that number, I would not be surprised if over half of the NHL is former college hockey players here in the very near future.
And again, I think that's great, in my opinion, I think that's great for the NHL. I think that's great for hockey. College sports has huge, enormous fan bases that are ultra passionate about the universities that they went to.
And if we can create more teams and create more opportunities, I think that's more of a connection for what I think is the greatest game in the world to new fan bases all over the US and all over North America.
[Jason Jacobs] (10:52 - 11:31)
When you think about more people coming out the other side of college and entering the NHL, there's, I mean, there's two ways to look at it. One is just grow the funnel of college hockey players because if you keep the percentage flat, but you increase the, you know, just the pure numbers, right, then the number of players that make it will increase even if the percentage stays the same. But then the other side is increasing the quality.
Which one of those are you focused on or is it both? And just how do you think about that tension between growing the pie and diluting the quality?
[Sean Hogan] (11:32 - 12:43)
Well, I don't think we're in any danger of diluting the quality of college hockey right now. The pool is bigger than it's ever been. And it's going to be increasingly difficult to play NCAA Division 1 hockey because the best players in the world are now eligible to play college hockey from all over.
So diluting the product is, is we could double the size of college hockey on the men's side. And in my opinion, not dilute the product. So for me, I do think it's important that we create more quantity.
I guess the supply and demand side, right? So we want to create more on the supply side. We need more college hockey teams because we have so many more players available to play hockey at the NCAA level.
So we need more opportunities. And more teams creates obviously more roster spots, but it creates more coaching opportunities. It creates more athletic department opportunities.
There's a lot of things that go into when you add a college hockey team and creating opportunities, not just for the player, but for the coaches and athletic trainers and just so much that goes involved with the college hockey team, there's opportunities for everyone.
[Jason Jacobs] (12:43 - 13:45)
I came out of a public high school that barely had a program and kind of stumbled into Division 3 hockey. And I didn't end up playing four years, but the fact is I could have without being that great a player, right? And I look at the kids coming up now.
And I mean, even the exceptional ones, it is incredibly unlike. I mean, in some cases, it's like, well, they even play in high school, let alone playing in college. And even if they're going to play in college, then juniors and build it family.
And it's just unbelievable how hard the road seems. So I think as the families of youth players coming up, more opportunities to play in college would be great. Not because we think our kids are going to make a living in the sport or something, but just because it's a great life experience and brings valuable lessons, like the same reason why the kids are playing the sports in the first place.
What are the biggest barriers to getting more teams and maybe making that pathway less daunting?
[Sean Hogan] (13:46 - 16:18)
I'll back up a little bit. I think one of the things that we need to do in hockey, and this is everybody. This is USA hockey.
This is Asians and advisors, coaches, families, players, we need to celebrate more the opportunity of playing NCAA Division 3 and playing ACH a hockey because the pool is so much bigger for players and playing NCAA Division 1. Like you said, the funnel is big here, but the top of the spot is pretty narrow right now. So we need to celebrate the fact that playing Division 3 is a big deal.
Playing ACH a, some of these ACH a programs I coached there for a long time. There's two, 3,000 people in the stands. There's season ticket holders.
They treat the program as NCAA Division 1 team. We need to celebrate that and make sure that when players reach those levels, that's a big deal. Because if your only goal is to play NCAA Division 1, that's a very difficult goal and you're not going to be happy playing Division 3 or ACH a so we need to do a better job.
Everybody of celebrating the players at those levels. So some barriers to growing NCAA Division 1 hockey is as we know. We've talked, you and I've talked about this before.
Hockey is an expensive sport. Facility is not just adding like a lacrosse team on a field, right? You need to have a facility.
But fortunately, there are many institutions out there that have acceptable facilities nearby. We just had a feasibility study this past week on the east coast. The school remained nameless because it needs to be confidential.
But they had a facility close by that was suitable. One of the biggest hurdles is facility and just the cost of our sport. And those are things that I think as a whole, if we can get more communities to build more ice rinks.
I use Minnesota as an example. In the state of Minnesota, they view an ice rink the way that I live in Michigan. The way that I view a basketball court at a park, right?
I don't look at that basketball court at a park and try to figure out how I can monetize it. I look at it. Hey, that's a service to the public.
And that's been ingrained in the people of Minnesota. They view an ice rink as a service to the public. And if we can somehow get that mentality throughout the country where municipalities and counties are building ice sheets, that will vastly grow the game.
[Jason Jacobs] (16:19 - 16:33)
Do you find that it's more convincing colleges and universities that they should consider fielding a team or is it more, hey, we want to, but we don't know how or we need help or we don't know what the barriers are. We need education.
[Sean Hogan] (16:33 - 18:23)
Good question. I don't think we're in the business of convincing a school to adversity hockey. Every phone call I make.
Like if I see something online, I said, oh, this, the city's building the facility is nearby university. I'll call that athletic director. So every call is kind of a warm call.
But this is my opinion, right? When it comes to growing NCAA Division I hockey, I think our niche right now is the Division I school or the Division II school that doesn't have major college football. Because the cost to run college football right now is exponentially growing.
But every dollar that you put in a football seems to have a return. But what makes our game great, college hockey, what makes college hockey great, in my opinion, is the big brands and the blue bloods don't always win our national championship. Quinnipiac is one of national championship.
Denver wins national championships. So many of these schools, it's just unlikely that those schools will win a basketball national championship, right? In the, at the NCAA Division I level.
But they can beat the blue bloods in hockey and it can give you a national imprint and a something the university can be proud of in the campus. You're going to compete with the biggest brands. Linenwood in their very first year.
Linenwood University was able to beat the university Wisconsin. There's probably not another sport out there, especially football and basketball that Linen was going to be able to compete at that level. And that makes our sport great.
And it's a really intriguing idea for athletic directors to see that and say, Hey, these are the names you can have on your schedule and you can compete with those guys almost immediately. So it makes our sport great.
[Jason Jacobs] (18:24 - 18:41)
So you, I mean, you mentioned the cost and you mentioned the rink access and it sounds like those are some big ones when evaluating whether to build a team. What are the other key criteria in a feasibility study that you look at, like the highest leverage areas to solve for or remove barriers to number one is always the facility.
[Sean Hogan] (18:42 - 19:22)
Like I said, you just need a entirely separate facility. It's not something that like every every university has a gym or a field where they can add teams at that play in those. But the number one is the facility.
And then you need to have just alignment throughout your institution. So when we do a feasibility study, we'll get approached by people that are just interested to have connections to the school. We need to have throughout the hierarchy.
Everybody needs to be on the same page. The president of the university, the AD, the associate AD, university advancement. Everybody needs to be on the same page working towards this goal to make sure it's done at the highest level.
[Jason Jacobs] (19:23 - 20:03)
And I would think that that a part of your job is forming an opinion on where things should go and then fighting against the currents to help scoot on a better path. But then part of it is also probably figuring out which way the currents are naturally going and then, you know, trying to ride with the current since it's easier that way to get anything done. How do you balance those two things?
How much of it is trying to steer it in the direction it should go regardless of where the current is and how much of it is riding the current? And you know the follow-ups is going to then be what are the things that you're trying to steer and what are the things that you're trying to, you know, what are the currents that you're trying to ride?
[Sean Hogan] (20:03 - 22:30)
Yeah, so that's true for them, right? So when I just have my college hacking head on and I'm just thinking about college hacking and just college sports in general, there's a lot of headwinds that college sports is facing. The House Settlement, third party NIL, revenue sharing, media rights throughout college hockey, but that's for all sports.
So the Olympic sports, basically if you're a big time athletic director at a power four conference, you kind of have your football program and your basketball programs and then you have your Olympic sports. So our role, part of the things that college hacking is taking on, is to elevate the profile of college hockey. How do we have college hockey, a game of the week on TV, maybe every single week, to make sure that the profile of college hockey is elevated to the highest possible level, that we have a lot of eyeballs on our game.
There's a variety of different ways to do that. But there's also headwinds in our player funnel, right? It feels like, and I don't have the data to back this up, but it feels like that hockey in general, in many places, the barriers for entry are just enormous.
So if you're a mom or dad, I feel like part of our job at college hockey ink is to make sure that little kids pick up a hockey stick and want to participate in hockey and not always pick up a football, baseball or basketball, and have that be their number one sport. So there's headwinds at the highest level for college sports, but we're also facing headwinds on it. We need to remove barriers of entry and make hockey more accessible, more affordable and more appealing to families because right now, hockey is not appealing to families in many places.
Where I live in Michigan, the commitment for like a seven or eight year old, my son is seven years old, is a big financial commitment, and then as soon as he gets any good, the first time we've been on some triple A team, we travel all over the U.S. to play against other really good ten-year-olds. What are we talking about? That's not appealing to families at all, except for the ones that are like one can afford it, or maybe their dads played hockey or their moms played hockey.
So we need new players wanting to do that. So we're facing all sorts of headwinds. I don't have all the answers, but we certainly are working on it.
[Jason Jacobs] (22:31 - 22:41)
And then what are some trends that where it's like, oh, I see this is where things are going and this feels like, you know, an opportunity for us to capitalize on, if any.
[Sean Hogan] (22:42 - 23:47)
I do think that now that the big trends we're seeing, at least in year one, we just have been over a year of this new eligibility pool. The new trends certainly does feel that college hockey started to position itself as top of the development pyramid. And you're going to see more, even more NHLers that played college hockey.
And that is great for our game. We want the best players in the world playing college hockey on the road to the NHL. And I think when we look back on this in three years or five years, like I said, I would not be surprised if over 50% of the NHL was college hockey players at that point.
So that's a positive trend for sure. Things that I worry about are just where college hockey is going to stand in an athletic department at a power four institution with all this money that's now has to go to paying athletes that will mostly be football players and mostly be basketball players. We want to make sure the profile of college hockey is still at the very top of those athletic departments.
[Jason Jacobs] (23:47 - 24:01)
When you think about the source of players from a geography standpoint, is there any charter there? Is it growing American players or is it more geography and country agnostic?
[Sean Hogan] (24:01 - 24:59)
The trend even before the new eligibility change was there was more Europeans than ever before playing college hockey. The number used to be like 20 or 30 every year. And it was up to 120 or 130 or most recent ones.
So that means players from outside North America, the best players from Europe, the best players from other parts of hockey as the top of the pyramid on their road to the NHL. They aspire to play college hockey. Just in year one here with the new eligibility, there was an uptick in Canadians.
But we'll see if that holds true. We don't know if that's going to hold true or not. But roughly, like I said, there's 120 or so Europeans, about a third of college hockey.
Around 30% of college hockey has traditionally been Canadian. The rest has been made up of the best American hockey players.
[Jason Jacobs] (24:59 - 25:21)
What do you think the trickle down effect is from the CHL rule change in terms of the other junior's leagues that if I understand right, we're already feeders to college hockey and what that you didn't lose your eligibility for. And then same question about the trickle down into prep hockey, for example, or triple A hockey or even youth hockey overall.
[Sean Hogan] (25:21 - 26:39)
Yeah, well, we'll start the trickle down of college hockey, right? So now that there's more players available, that means all levels of college hockey are going to get better. So the top of the, at the division one level, the best players available are going to play division one hockey and that's going to naturally make division three better.
It's naturally going to make a CHA hockey better. So that's what, when I talk about we need to celebrate these different levels of college hockey. We need to do that at college hockey.
We need to do that USA hockey needs to celebrate the ACHA. The junior leagues need to celebrate their division three commitments and their ACHA commitments. So players, it'll take a few years, but then players will aspire into those levels and we can have a very healthy game because there's all these different opportunities at the college level outside of division one.
Then the trickle down effect will be the same in all the leagues. The USHL is working extremely hard and doing a very good job of producing NCAA Division I players now, but you have a whole other three competing leagues now that are now producing division one player. So the North American League and these other junior leagues are going to just celebrate their division three players and still work to produce NCAA Division I players.
And the trickle down will be the same all the way down to prep school, to midget hockey, to minor hockey all the way down.
[Jason Jacobs] (26:40 - 26:59)
We've talked about the rule change with the CHL. I mean, the other two things that I hear about consistently are NIL and the portal. How much are those on your radar and to the extent they're on there a lot?
What do you think about them?
[Sean Hogan] (26:59 - 29:14)
Well, we do substantial work in third party NIL dealing with advisors and just trying to understand that process for families. The trance reportal and this is my opinion. You don't want to have an environment where, can you imagine if the NHL or the NHL operated with no salary cap and players could leave whenever they wanted that it's not really what you want, but it is good for a player to have options, right?
So if he goes to a school and he's sold a bill of goods and he doesn't like the academics or he doesn't like the hockey situation, that player should have an opportunity to choose where he wants to go to school, that that makes sense to me. So the trance reportal is an opportunity for players to explore just their different opportunities. Third party NIL, our side of it is to educate families on that process and what that looks like.
It is out there in the hockey world for sure. It is not at the level of the highest levels of college football and the highest levels of college basketball. In speaking to coaches, it does feel like hockey players and many of their sports too, but hockey players aren't making their school decision based solely on third party NIL.
The money is not that significant, but it is an opportunity for players now, right? So not only do you have it in civil aid division one scholarship, right? You have your athletic aid, they're paying for your room and board, they're paying for your education.
Now you have an opportunity to maybe, depends on the school that you're at, to get a little bit of spending money through revshare. And then, and this is true because before the NIL rule, players weren't even allowed to host their own hockey camp, right? So a division three player wanted to go home in the summer, host a hockey camp, they weren't allowed to do that.
They are now allowed to do that and that's what third party NIL and the name of your likeness is best used for, is opportunities for these players to capitalize on their college hockey experience.
[Jason Jacobs] (29:14 - 29:30)
Is there a world where these things were the NIL and where boosters and collectors, for example, can kind of intersect with trying to grow the game and establish more programs? Like is there any world where the dollars from one side can somehow fund the other that's ethical and transparent?
[Sean Hogan] (29:31 - 30:19)
Honestly, that's how college hockey at the highest level, the Arizona State and Penn State, for example, that those programs were funded by third party donations. So when a university wants to add a sport, that's typically is what happens, is a donor who's an alumni of the school, has great pride for his university and is passionate about college hockey, they'll pay for that investment at many schools. So I guess I've never really thought about it that way, I guess that is kind of third party NIL, it really is.
But raising money at schools through financial donations and through big money donors, seems like it's been part of universities since the dawn of time. But I guess that is third party NIL, it's a good point.
[Jason Jacobs] (30:19 - 30:26)
Is that a lever that you guys seek to cultivate on behalf of the schools or and if not, could you or should you?
[Sean Hogan] (30:26 - 30:56)
So we're not out there actively cultivating donor relations by any means, but I have had conversations with people that have the capacity to give to their universities, and I guess I sent a teaser, I had a conversation with somebody who has that capacity at a very large school that is interested in college hockey at that university. So I talked to somebody just last week about that. So that happens, but I'm not out there actively seeking alumni donations.
[Jason Jacobs] (30:56 - 31:45)
You talked about the lack of accessibility of the game and how, if your kid's any good, they expect you to play AAA in Michigan and travel all over the country to play other, you know, competitive 10 year olds and how off the rails that is. Do you, I mean, I get that the Ice Times expensive and that the equipment's expensive and so, you know, the facility, it's not just like a basketball court, that all makes sense, but in terms of that travel and that crazy life where, I mean, I hear about these AAA kids in non-major markets where they need a homeschool because they travel so much that they couldn't, you know, their attendance wouldn't be good enough for regular school. Is that specific to hockey or is that a trend across youth sports? And to the extent it's specific to hockey, why is hockey this way?
[Sean Hogan] (31:46 - 34:11)
Well, I can't speak for other sports. I can say it feels like it's a trend and like when you just see other sports baseball, for example, and kids soccer, it seems like they're kind of trending that way. It certainly doesn't have to be.
I mean, our number one watch sport in the US, I would argue the most popular sport in the US football, doesn't have any of that. We don't take the best high school football players, put them all on one team in the state of Michigan and have them travel all over the US to play against other AAA football teams. They all aspire to play for their high school and you would have to show me data because I've never seen this before.
I would have to see data that the best 13 year olds have to play against the best other 13 year olds to achieve athletic success. I always use Joe Burrow as an example because I coached at Ohio University for a long time in Athens, Ohio and when I was there, Joe Burrow was the local high school quarterback. And Athens, Ohio, for anybody who doesn't know is extremely rural.
There probably wasn't another Division I athlete around Joe Burrow for 90 miles. And he's arguably the best quarterback in the NFL. And so you'd have to show me data and people say, well, hockey's different or basketball's different, well, maybe.
But they don't do that again, I keep going back to Minnesota, I'm not from Minnesota. They don't do that in Minnesota. The kids, the high school kids play for their high school.
They don't put all the best high school, the best high school players on seven different teams and all compete against each other. There's 180-some Minnesota high school teams. That means there's 180 captains.
There's 181st power players. There's 180 Division I starting goalies. And all those players think they're gonna play NCAA Division I and they keep playing and they keep having that dream.
In other states, we cut off the funnel at like 10 years old and put them on in Michigan, we have seven triple A teams. And the best, they all will. I'll put them on one team and people will argue that's too many triple A teams.
What are we doing? You know what I mean? Everybody needs to be competing against everybody to keep developing all the way up the ladder.
And that's one of the biggest frustrations in hockey is we have this idea that we have to cut off the funnel at 10, 11 and 12, put them all in a few teams. And then those kids get all the opportunities, right? They stay on those teams typically, almost all the way through, many of them.
And that's not quite the development model that you want.
[Jason Jacobs] (34:11 - 35:09)
I feel like I kind of have a front row see to this. And it's interesting because on the one hand, it's like, oh, Minnesota model, you play for your school and then develop the same kids all the way through. And so I mean, I know there's people, like there's a guy scheduled to come on the show who played Division I hockey and then in the pros.
I'm like, he's gotten a eight and a 10 year old and his kids are only playing town. He will not let him play club here in the Boston area, right? So there's people that are well placed hockey people that are kind of consciously opting out.
But to your point, the tricky thing is that, you know, the top teams are the feeder to prep. And then certain prep schools are a feeder to the right junior leads. And then the right junior leads are the feeder to the D1 programs.
And so it, as much as you can say, well, the system doesn't need to be this way. It's like, that is the way the system is. So then you kind of feel like you need to chase it because it, because if you don't, like that's where the opportunities go, even if the opportunities shouldn't be going that way.
So how do you break that cycle?
[Sean Hogan] (35:09 - 36:47)
Well, that's the hard part, right? I will say this. If it continues this way in many places, I think hockey's number is dwindle.
I think that we have less players playing, which means we'll have less elite players and that'll be an issue. But it feels like, again, this is anecdotal. I don't have the evidence on this.
But that feels like, and you just give an anecdotal story and I have several in Michigan as well, that the pendulum is kind of swinging back. People are understanding that, wait, this is a little nuts. High school hockey in Michigan is probably seen as large as growth here in the last five or 10 years.
Some of the, there's some really, really high end players now playing high school hockey and choosing to play high school hockey. Part of it is not the commitment. The kids want to play, right?
They want to play hard. They want to play against good players. But they're seeing that you can develop in the high school hockey model.
You can practice all week, work out all week. It's kind of a college model, right? You play your games one or two games a week instead of five games every weekend and it takes up your entire personal life and your entire personality becomes you are a hockey player.
So I think you're starting to see the pendulum swing a little bit, which I think is good for the game. I think it's good for families. And then the guys that do play high school or school based sports, you develop a deep connection to your school.
You go to school with your teammates. I think all that's really good as a development, as a person. So I think the pendulum is swinging a little bit, which I think is good for hockey.
[Jason Jacobs] (36:47 - 37:00)
I've been seeing some of those in the last few weeks in Minnesota specifically. It's hard to imagine them happening here in the Boston area. It's like, you know, so-and-so is leaving, you know, Dexter and returning to Waltham High, right?
[Sean Hogan] (37:02 - 37:21)
I think it might get there. It might not be the leaving prep school to do it. Cause I think prep school is still a good development model.
I think you are, you can outstand an education. You know, it's very similar to a college structure. But I could see the private hockey type model starting to change a little bit.
[Jason Jacobs] (37:21 - 37:56)
Yeah, I mean, I've seen, you know, there's like a rise in academies, for example. And I mean, I get the value prop. Like one of the value props is, you know, play more hockey and get surrounded by better expertise and stuff.
But like, another one that might be more compelling to parents is stop driving an hour this way and then 90 minutes that way and then 45 minutes this way. And then, you know, and that's just on a Wednesday, right? Like, like, you know, have it all central in one place as part of your day such that it's a lot more efficient for the kid.
They get more sleep. They have more time for homework. They still get the same amount of development.
And then you can actually like be employable.
[Sean Hogan] (37:56 - 37:56)
Good be.
[Jason Jacobs] (37:58 - 38:08)
Yeah. Yeah, put the, put the down, but then the downside is like, but then you're shipping your kid off to an academy. And in some cases, like the school's at the rink and the school's just zoom school, right?
[Sean Hogan] (38:09 - 38:26)
And so it's like, Yeah, well, I think there's a difference between prep school, like true prep school model that there's prevalent in the East Coast and then like the actual academy, the schools in the rink. I think those are two very, very different things. So, and we could go deeper than that if you like, but those are two different models in my opinion.
[Jason Jacobs] (38:26 - 38:46)
Well, one question I have is, I mean, it seems like increasingly the top prep school hockey players aren't finishing prep school. They're, you know, they're taking off for juniors before, you know, like not, I mean, I know, I mean, several schools locally, like some of the best players didn't return for their senior years. Why do you think that's happening?
And what do you think about that trend?
[Sean Hogan] (38:47 - 40:43)
Specifically to prep school or high school hockey, our stats show that, you know, the average commitment age for an NCAA Division I player, it's actually now getting older with a new group of players that is over 19 years old. So, leaving your high school team or leaving, you know, where you're from to rush to junior hockey at 16 or 17, there's no evidence showing that. Really, all it shows is you're playing an extra year of junior hockey.
You can get, if you're gonna play more at the high school level, you're gonna play more at the prep school level, you're gonna be a captain, you're gonna be on the, you know, first power play. There's probably much more evidence to show that you should stay and do that for a year. I call it marinating at a certain level.
Be great at the level you're at before you try to climb to the next level. Some of the best advice I was ever given, it was given to me as a coach, actually, but I think it's true across the board. It is, I worked for Jeff Blaschle at Western Michigan University, he wanted to be the head coach in the red wings, now he's the head coach in the black ops.
But the players there, we're just like the players at the high school level. They would come in the coach's office and say, coach, what do I need to do to get to the NHL? Everybody's kind of always in a rush to do the next thing, get to the next level, get to the next level.
And he would say, hold on, man, you can't do, you can't focus on your next job and see you do a great job where you're at. So let's focus on where we're at. Let's do a great job here, and if you do that, you'll earn an opportunity at the next level.
If you're great here, but guess what? When you get to the next level, the same thing holds true. You can't, you have to do a great job when you get there too.
So that's the most important thing. I think everybody's, I hear stories all the time about teams here in Michigan in October, November. The parents and the players are already talking about where they're gonna play next year, what they're gonna do next year.
Like, whoa, let's focus on where we're at. Let's be great here. And then the opportunities will arise.
[Jason Jacobs] (40:44 - 40:53)
Same question about the kids taking off early from college. You know, the ones that get drafted and then the week after the season ends, they're lacing them up for an NHL game.
[Sean Hogan] (40:53 - 42:10)
That's a little bit different in the sense that now you're going to the highest level in the world for significant sums of cash. So it's a little bit different. But the same thing holds true.
The players that are evident, again, are data shows. Most players in the NHL that played college hockey played at least three or four years of college hockey. And the ones that have opportunities at the NHL have earned, you know, awards at the college level.
It's just, it's increasingly difficult to play in the NHL as a teenager. There's a handful of guys every year. You'd like, you see the Maclin celebrities and you see the Coniberdards.
And people think that's normal. That's not normal. Those are, there's a handful of guys in the NHL every year that can play as teenagers.
Most guys don't get there, at the average rookie age is over 23. So they usually don't get there to their 23 or 24. And in fact, just a couple of years ago, there was two guys that made NHL debut, they've used a 28.
So it's just really understanding what the development model looks like. And marinating at a level, be great at that level, earn an opportunity to the next level, but then it starts all over. Yeah, you gotta do the same thing again.
You gotta be great at that next level, to earn opportunities.
[Jason Jacobs] (42:10 - 42:27)
Yeah, it's confusing for me as a BU season ticket holder because you keep seeing these young kids come in and then it's like a revolving door straight into the NHL. So you come to think it's normal and it's like, well, that's just their model. It's not like that.
That's what I'm telling you about.
[Sean Hogan] (42:27 - 42:55)
I'm in college hockey. You heard that term before one and done. It's a basketball term.
Come to college for one year and then go to the next level. It really is rare. And people think that's the norm.
It's just not the norm. It's just the average rookie age in the NHL. Like I said, it's close to 23 years old.
So the college model fits perfectly into that. Go to play college and play junior hockey until 18, 19 or 20, play three or four years of college hockey, bringing it right to that original NHL rookie age. You can earn that opportunity.
[Jason Jacobs] (42:57 - 43:24)
So bringing it back around to college hockey, Inc. I mean, we talked about the mission of the organization to make college hockey the pinnacle of the development path to the NHL. Technically, if you look over the next 12 or 18 months, or I guess strategically, what are the key strategic priorities and then how will that manifest tactically in terms of the types of initiative you guys will be putting weight into as an organization?
[Sean Hogan] (43:25 - 45:24)
Yeah, well, one, we're out there working hard, trying to create more NCAA division one team. So that's important to us. We want to create more college hockey opportunities, meet many universities as we can, get feasibility studies started and get some teams in the pipeline that.
And again, these things don't happen overnight. We're working with a team that we did a feasibility study for eight years ago. So, but you need to have them in the pipeline in order to create more teams.
There's several initiatives on the women's side. We didn't talk much about women's hockey, but we have City Lundquist, our deputy director, overseas, our women's hockey. We're building partnerships with the PWHL.
That's the new world. Now there's opportunities, the highest level now for women. How do we strengthen our partnership in college with the PWHL?
And then college hockey is working hard on the future of college hockey. What is this going to look like in the future? In terms of how can we raise the profile of college hockey, keep our sport sustainable, keep our sport viable for college athletic departments, and how do we raise the profile of college hockey?
But then also, we're doing everything that we've always worked on, right? We're making sure we're marketing college hockey. It's the top of the development pyramid.
We're out there educating families. We're out there educating coaches, players, parents, agents and advisors. Like I said, use our services all the time.
But finally, one thing I am excited about, and it's the first time ever, college hockey players will participate in the Spangler Cup over Christmas, this is in Davos, Switzerland. Pick the team, then simulate Division I players to participate in the Spangler Cup. That's been about a year and a half.
Well, it's been probably 10 years in the process of making this happen, but it's been a real hard work for the last year and a half to get this team off the ground, and we'll have that team over and year up over Christmas, and excited about that. Are you gonna coach? No, I'm not coach.
I'm the assistant general manager, which is a fancy title for figure out insurance and logistics.
[Jason Jacobs] (45:27 - 45:37)
Well, Sean, this has been an awesome discussion. I mean, speak to the audience for a sec, is there anyone out there that you want to hear from, or any parting words for listeners?
[Sean Hogan] (45:38 - 46:11)
No, I just think if you're a young hockey player and you're a family going through this process, one that know that college hockey is a free resource for you. You have questions about college hockey, feel free to reach out to us. It is a great game, it teaches players resilience, tenacity, grit, I think hockey's the greatest game in the world, but we need to do everything we can to make this game more accessible for everybody, not just the ones that can afford it, and I think we all need to work on that.
[Jason Jacobs] (46:11 - 46:19)
And I would just say, I don't just think hockey's the greatest game I think college hockey is the greatest game. I love college hockey.
[Sean Hogan] (46:19 - 46:31)
I'm a huge college sports guy in general. Like, I spend my nights, and I'm lucky, my wife works in college athletics. We spend our nights watching random college football, basketball, and hockey games all the time.
So, yeah.
[Jason Jacobs] (46:31 - 46:42)
Yeah, well, thanks again, Sean, for coming on the show. Thanks for all the work that you and the college hockey and are doing to grow this great, great game and best of luck to you and to the team.
[Sean Hogan] (46:42 - 46:43)
All right, thanks, Jason. Appreciate it.
[Jason Jacobs] (46:44 - 46:55)
Thanks for listening to Puck Academy. If you enjoyed this episode, follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share it with someone serious about their game. See you next week.