From Rivals to Partners: How the CHL and NCAA could grow stronger together

KELOWNA, BC – Christian Humphreys scored his final CHL goal on Sunday, an empty-netter that clinched the Memorial Cup for the Kitchener Rangers. 

Next season, he’ll be playing college hockey for Minnesota.

Jack Pridham also scored in the championship game for Kitchener, he’ll play college hockey at Denver next season, while Rangers’ goalie Christian Kirsch is headed to Quinnipiac. 

In early April, when Denver hoisted the NCAA title in Las Vegas, goalie Johnny Hicks was the story of the tournament after a remarkable 16-0-1 run in net. Hicks was less than a year removed from playing in the WHL for the Victoria Royals. 

While there’s been a lot of consternation and in some cases bitterness in the new NCAA-CHL landscape, the reality appears that in the long term, a symbiotic relationship is only going to elevate both and strengthen their grip on hockey’s development path. 

“The CHL is going to lose some players in their draft year,” one NHL GM told Elite Prospects during the Memorial Cup. “But they are gaining more, in my view, look at this Kitchener team. There are players here that would have never come to the CHL before.”

In Kitchener, in particular, Pridham was originally going to be a BCHL product. Pridham played in the BCHL for the West Kelowna Warriors during the 2024-25 season and made the jump mid-season to the OHL because of new NCAA rules. 

Pridham, speaking last week in Kelowna, said it was a move that made a ton of sense. He had originally picked the BCHL for the flexibility, the chance to figure out things with college, but when things changed, Kitchener presented an opportunity to chase both OHL glory and eventual college opportunities. 

It’s this wave of players that are probably going to best define the future of the CHL and NCAA, one agent said. 

“Is there a better path than playing CHL until you are 19 or 20 and then playing a couple years of college?” the agent said. “For years, we heard about the pros and cons of each, how the two sides fight each other, now they can just body everyone else.”

There are wrinkles to this, especially with the new proposed “5-for-5” legislation, where athletes, in all sports, would be able to play five seasons in a five-year window that starts after high school graduation, or an athlete’s 19th birthday, whichever happens first. 

Hockey’s governing powers have universally pushed back against this, including the NHL, creating a rare united front in the sport where things are hardly ever united. It’s also a situation ripe for lawsuits with players, especially those caught in the potential mushy middle of this. 

But the potential winners here, if the “5-for-5” goes into effect, are actually still the CHL and college hockey programs. 

“I think it’s a big deal, and it’ll change things, but in reality, the CHL to NCAA pipeline still looks pretty good here,” one NHL assistant GM said. “Was a player really going to use all five years? Probably not. So I think you might have even more players look at the CHL-NCAA combo going forward.”

One NCAA coach did say in college hockey, it’ll make the rich get richer in their view. 

“I think one of the things about the CHL stuff is that it could have levelled the playing field a bit, with teams outside of the Big 10 and NCHC getting a longer run for some CHL guys, kind of evening out a bit of the effect of the impact 20-year-olds,” they said. “But if players are getting aged out after two or three seasons, the big fish will just be impossible for anyone to catch.”

Money obviously comes into play here, and with Name Image and Likeness (NIL) budgets on the rise, the recruiting pitch goes way beyond facilities and chances to win. 

“I’ve got a player that could get a little bit of NIL money, not a ton, from a weaker program and none, but can play at a school that could win,” one agent said. “That was a fascinating thing for the kid and his family to figure out.”

In the end, and CHL President Dan MacKenzie has been clear that there are still many things that can and will evolve, the CHL and NCAA are getting drawn closer and closer together. Like it or not, eventually, they’ll often be part of the same pitch.