As the puck drops on Harvard's 2013-14 season, student newspaper The Harvard Crimson explored the growing success NCAA hockey has enjoyed in sending players to the NHL. Ted Donato's team features nine NHL draft picks, among the most in college hockey, and each of those players has faced the decision to pursue both education and athletics, rather than simply focus on hockey.
As Crimson writer Michael D. Ledecky writes, there hasn't always been a clear-cut path from NCAA hockey to the pros:
When Herb Brooks coached 20 American college students to the Miracle on Ice, college hockey was still considered a fringe path to the NHL. All 42 prospects picked in the first two rounds of the 1980 Entry Draft opted to forego their NCAA eligibility to play in the Canadian major junior leagues.
Times have changed. The rapid growth of youth hockey across the United States has elevated the quality of the NCAA’s go-to talent pool of American-born players. College hockey alums populate the front offices of NHL franchises. The recent MVP-level success of college players like Martin St. Louis, Jonathan Toews, Tim Thomas, and Jonathan Quick hasn’t hurt either.
“If you look back when [Harvard coach Ted Donato ‘91] was playing, the number of NHLers who came from college was probably in the ballpark of 15 percent,” said Nate Ewell, Director of Communications for College Hockey, Inc., a non-profit marketing arm of NCAA division I hockey. “If you look at the NHL now, 30 percent of players come from college.”
To read the entire Crimson story, click here.