For many high schoolers across Minnesota, spring brings the promise of college announcements and dorm room packing lists. But for the state’s population of boys hockey players, joining a college roster anytime soon is an increasingly far off dream.

In Nov. 2024, the NCAA announced major junior hockey players competing in the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) — an umbrella term for the Ontario Hockey League, Western Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League — would be eligible to play Division I men’s college hockey in the U.S. starting Aug. 1, 2025.

Formerly considered professionals ineligible for amateur hockey, a wave of CHL players flooded college rosters and created what Warroad head coach Jay Hardwick described as a “bottleneck” in the path from high school and junior hockey to D-I programs in just one year.

“There are only so many teams and so many spots in D-I,” Hardwick said.

The number of U.S. hockey players on D-I rosters plummeted by 147 between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. Meanwhile, Canadian players in D-I hockey increased by 97.

After CHL players’ first season in college hockey and with competition for limited D-I roster spots rising, high school coaches across the state are beginning to untangle what the future holds for their players and for Minnesota, the nation’s top producer of D-I hockey talent — in the 2024-25 NCAA men’s hockey season, there were a record 249 Minnesotans on D-I rosters across the nation’s 63 D-I programs.

Some coaches are seeing a clear trend of fewer Minnesotans who are D-I commits and are concerned what it will mean for college hockey hopefuls who no longer have a guaranteed roster spot.

Since the NCAA announced the eligibility change, 297 players across the WHL, OHL and QMJHL committed to D-I college hockey programs, making up 38% of all D-I commitments as of April 9, 2026, according to College Hockey Inc.’s commitment tracker.

Others expected the worst and have been pleasantly surprised by the ruling’s effect of slowing down the pipeline, allowing kids to remain at home instead of leaving high school early for the juniors.

The rule change allowed Americans between the ages of 16 and 20 to compete in the CHL without forfeiting their NCAA eligibility.

“Personally, a year ago, I would have anticipated that more options means more kids leave,” said Moorhead head coach Jon Ammerman. “The numbers might justify that, but frankly, it felt like the opposite actually happened. It slowed down the exodus.”

Entering the 2025-26 high school season, a number of Minnesotans decided to stay home for their senior seasons, knowing the gap between high school and college is only becoming larger.

Players like former Moorhead standout and 2025 Mr. Hockey winner Mason Kraft, who will join the Minnesota State Mankato men’s hockey team in the fall, were able to have their cake and eat it too: win a state title their senior season and play in the Canadian major juniors after high school, all while having a D-I roster spot waiting for them.

“I know ultimately what it’s going to do is it’s going to make all levels of hockey better,” Ammerman said.

A college hockey bottleneck

Hardwick, a former University of Minnesota Duluth and CHL player, stood behind the bench when Warroad’s boys hockey team made it to the state tournament for the first time in 10 years in 2020. The Warriors’ season ended by the semifinal round, and a week later, Gov. Tim Walz ordered the temporary closure of public schools because of Covid-19.

The pandemic granted college hockey players an extra year of eligibility, leaving graduating high school seniors and players aging out of the junior leagues with an uncertain future. Hardwick watched Minnesota high schoolers committed to D-I hockey teams spend extra time playing junior hockey or lose their roster spots altogether.

“I know there were kids that maybe were talking to schools and being recruited, and then all of a sudden everybody in college got an extra year, and they didn’t need those recruits anymore,” Hardwick recalled. “That obviously pushed some kids, and a lot of Minnesota kids especially, down to the Division III level because the colleges didn’t need as many players as they previously would have.”

The NCAA’s CHL ruling did something similar, Hardwick said.

As universities grabbed onto the prospect of boosting performance with a diversified, elite group of CHL players, a pressing question emerged: What would happen to D-I commits waiting their turn?

Minnesota still produced the most D-I men’s hockey players in the U.S. during the 2025-26 season, but the number of Minnesotans playing D-I hockey dropped by 27.

Former Eden Prairie head coach and current Shakopee assistant coach Mike Terwilliger said it feels like there are fewer commits than in previous years, even as the NCAA’s scholarship limit increased from 18 to 26 per team in 2025.

“There’s X amount of commitments from the CHL. That trickles down, takes spots away from kids,” Terwilliger said. “Some players that in the past may have been bubble D-I players — really good high school players, play juniors for a couple years and then hopefully hook up with a D-I program — it’s going to be harder for them to thread the needle and play D-I. They’re going to maybe be looking at more of a D-III experience.”

Coaches agreed the CHL ruling made college hockey more competitive. Teams with CHL talent dominated the 2025-26 college hockey season, making it necessary for universities to adapt recruiting strategies.

The University of Minnesota, recording one of its worst seasons since 1971-72 with an 11-22-3 finish, was the only Big Ten school without a CHL player on its roster in 2025-26. Former head coach Bob Motzko, who mutually parted ways with the Gophers on March 18, compiled a roster of 20 Minnesotans.

Ammerman fondly remembers being recruited by Motzko at St. Cloud State for his 2006-07 freshman season and admired his commitment to signing Minnesotans.

“I was, just as somebody that knows Bob, incredibly impressed by his loyalty to his recruits,” Ammerman said. “They had a gap. They had some kids that signed earlier than maybe anticipated. The casual fan I think said, ‘Well, why? You know you’ve got a gap. You’ve got to go and find whoever’s best available.’ I think it says something about Bob that he was loyal to the kids that they had recruited.”

The door to CHL players could open with new head coach Brett Larson at the helm.

“We’ve got a really unique situation where we can adapt quickly and fast,” Larson said at a news conference in March. “With the transfer portal, NIL and CHL players being eligible, this puts us in place to be really aggressive, to get after the recruits that we want. … We’ve got such great homegrown talent that you’re going to base your recruiting out of here, but boy, there’s some opportunities now to supplement with difference-makers.’’

The Gophers and the five other Minnesota D-I men’s hockey schools — St. Cloud State, Minnesota-Duluth, Bemidji State, the University of St. Thomas and Minnesota State Mankato — have already added future CHL commits. Twenty-two CHL players have committed to Minnesota’s D-I teams for the 2026-27, 2027-28 and 2028-29 seasons, but high school coaches across the state still believe the trend of recruiting Minnesotans will continue.

“It’s just the shiny new toy,” Hardwick concluded. “But I think once it works itself out, colleges might pull back a little bit because they’re going to realize that, ‘Oh, this guy that we brought in from the CHL isn’t any better than the kid that we brought in from Minnesota.’”

“I would guess that there’s still going to be a trend where the local player is still going to not only dream, but the local colleges are still going to have access to those players and familiarity with them,” Ammerman added. “To be competitive, the colleges have to at least keep that option [of recruiting CHL players] open.”

Larson recruited 13 local players on the 2025-26 St. Cloud State roster, meaning Minnesotans made up nearly 50% of the team. St. Thomas’ roster included 16 Minnesotans, while Minnesota-Duluth had 10.

As college hockey hopefuls attempt to plan for their uncertain futures, one thing is clear: for better or worse, the NCAA path is becoming crowded, competitive and moving slower than ever.

“Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s bad or wrong,” Ammerman said. “It’s going to force our kids to think bigger than just where they’re at locally. It’s probably going to slow down the process. Those elite kids are still going to advance at the rate that they are, but being a true freshman in college hockey is probably going to continue to trend to a thing of the past. A lot of people are probably going to be 20 or 21 when they get to college.”