In a move that will increase the talent pool for NCAA men’s hockey, the NCAA Division I Council on Thursday changed an eligibility bylaw regarding preenrollment activities to allow major junior hockey players.
The change, which is not final until Thursday’s meeting ends and will become effective Aug. 1, 2025, comes as the NCAA faces an antitrust lawsuit over a ban of those players as well as one of its members, Arizona State University, reportedly receiving a verbal commitment from a Western Hockey League player despite the ban. The change also applies to skiers who compete professionally prior to enrollment so long as they are not paid more than actual and necessary expenses.
While the lifting of the eligibility prohibition obviates the need for a court-ordered injunction, litigation over the ban could continue since money damages for economic harms already inflicted on players are also at stake.
In August, 19-year-old Ontario hockey player Rylan Masterson sued the NCAA and 10 universities in a putative class action. The defenseman is ineligible to play D-I hockey because he previously played in exhibition games for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires.
Masterson insists the NCAA and member schools have violated antitrust law by conspiring to “boycott” him and similarly situated players. His case attacks a policy that forces talented teenage hockey players to make a life-altering decision on whether to play in the Canadian Hockey League (which features 60 teams across the OHL, QMJHL and WHL), and thus forgo the chance to play NCAA D-I hockey. The ban denies CHL players of educational and athletic opportunities afforded by D-I universities.
Masterson’s lawsuit frames the ban as a relic from a bygone era. While the ban is predicated on the idea that CHL players are pro athletes and thus not amateurs, the NCAA has recently moved away from the amateurism model.
College athletes can now earn unlimited amounts of money through NIL deals, some of which are negotiated by university-tied collectives and used to recruit athletes to play and remain at particular schools. Meanwhile, the NCAA allows D-I schools to play former pro hockey players from European teams even though they were pro athletes. More recently, the NCAA’s preliminarily approved settlement to resolve the House, Carter and Hubbard antitrust litigations explicitly envisions colleges as being able to pay athletes, subject to an annual salary-cap-style limit, for media rights, ticket sales sponsorships and NIL. A ban on CHL players on the basis that they forfeited their eligibility by functioning as pros has become increasingly difficult to justify.
The viability of the ban was also threatened in September when Braxton Whitehead, a 20-year-old on the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats, verbally committed to Arizona State University, an NCAA D-I school. Whitehead was ineligible to play for ASU, but NCAA rules didn’t stop his recruitment.
The lifting of the ban should gradually enhance the quality of play for D-I hockey. CHL players, some of whom will go on to NHL careers, will now have the chance to play at D-I schools. One group that might suffer are players who are squeezed out by more talented players, but under antitrust law, that’s a preferable trade-off: the market for hockey players is more competitive when better players populate that market.
In a statement, the CHL said it believes “this is a positive development that will provide our players with more opportunities to continue their hockey and academic careers following their time in the CHL.” The leagued added the NCAA’s move will “give young players and their families more options in choosing their development path.”
But Masterson’s case is not just about the hockey world going-forward. He also seeks monetary damages for himself and other players who played in the CHL at any point between Aug. 12, 2020, and the present.
As an antitrust lawsuit, Masterson can, and has, demanded trebled damages, meaning whatever amount of economic harm his case proves—including lost NIL opportunities that D-I hockey players tend to attract—would be multiplied by three. Masterson specifies some of the harm by noting that D-I hockey players “receive full-ride scholarships, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as the right to earn royalties on their name, image, and likeness used by commercial entities like video game developers.” While Masterson’s complaint acknowledges, “damages suffered by some of the individual class members may be relatively small,” for some players who lost a shot, the potential economic recovery might prove higher.
The NCAA could reach a settlement with Masterson to address the alleged economic harm, but in the meantime will continue to defend itself in the litigation. On Nov. 1, the parties filed a joint status report in a New York federal district court saying they “are still in the process of attempting to resolve the issues” at stake in the litigation and expressed they intend to file another joint status report by Nov. 15.
(This story has been updated with a statement by the CHL.)
