The anticipated deregulation of NCAA rules on amateurism has the entire amateur hockey community on edge this fall. It appears that change is coming and it will be significant.

For the record, the source of this change is the Division I Subcommittee on Amateurism and Agents of the Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet. Chaired by Christine Grant of the University of Iowa, this subcommittee recently forwarded seven recommendations to the NCAA Management Council for their October meetings. The Council tabled discussion on these recommendations until April, which allows the hockey community to better understand what is being proposed. Here is a brief summary of the recommendations:

1. That prospective student-athletes be permitted to accept prize money or other forms of compensation from the sponsor of an athletics event, the United States Olympic Committee, or the appropriate national governing body in the sport, based on one's place finish without losing one's eligibility in that sport.
   
2. That legislation similar to 14.2.4.2 (Tennis - Division I) be sponsored which limits a prospective student-athlete's participation in organized competition for one year after the student-athlete's expected date of graduation. For every year of organized competition beyond that date, the prospective student-athlete would sit out a year and lose a year of college eligibility.
   
3. That a prospective student-athlete may enter a professional league's draft without losing one's amateur status.
   
4. That a prospective student-athlete may sign a professional contract with- out losing one's amateur status.
   
5. That a prospective student-athlete may participate on a professional team without losing one's eligibility in that sport.
   
6. That corporations and other organizations who might establish athletics events for prospects be subject to con- ducting their activities within NCAA legislation.
   
7. That prospective student-athletes be allowed to accept pay or other forms of compensation for athletics participation without losing one's eligibility in that sport.

It should be noted that all of these proposals deal only with pre-enrollment issues. Once athletes are enrolled, they would no longer be able to accept prize monies, sign a contract, enter a draft, etc, The subcommittee may deal with post-enrollment issues at a later date but for now, the current proposals address prospective student-athletes.

What does this all mean?
Again, in summary form, here is what will happen if these recommendations are adopted:

• A student-athlete would be allowed to sign a contract, enter a draft, play with professionals, and accept pay-for play without forfeiting any eligibility for a one-year period from the date of his or her high school graduation.
  
• Any rules not specifically overturned by these proposals remain in effect. Therefore, a student-athlete still cannot, for example, have an agent or be paid for promotional or commercial activities.
  
• A hockey player can play any organized hockey (Prep School, USHL, OHL, IHL AHL, NHL,, etc.) up through one year after the expected date of high school graduation without affecting college eligibility.
  
• For every year that a hockey player plays organized hockey.(again, this goes for Prep School, USHL, OHL, IHL ... ) after the expected date of high school graduation, he must, a) sit out a year, and, b) lose a year of eligibility.

As hockey coaches and administrators try to figure out what this will mean to their program or their league, the following seems likely:

• A new pool of Canadian junior players, heretofore ineligible for college hockey, will now open up. For these kids, choices have increased.
  
• The U.S. kid who, in the post, might have followed high school with a year of prep school and a year in the USHL, can now only do one of those years without losing a year of college eligibility, The some is true for the high school grad who might want two years in the USHL. For these kids, their choices have decreased.
  
• With just one post-high school year to play hockey before the clock starts ticking on one's eligibility, college hockey is about to get younger. Rosters accustomed to 21-year old freshmen in large numbers will be a thing of the past.
  
• Some U.S. and Canadian blue-chip prospects, who previously would not consider Major Junior hockey because of its immediate 'tainting' of their college eligibility, will now be free to 'test the waters' of Major Junior hockey. The fear to U.S. college coaches is that many of these will never find their way to college hockey.
  
• Tier II junior hockey in Canada may see a flight of kids to Major Junior in a way not experienced before, now that their eligibility would no longer be immediately at risk.

While these scenarios are likely to play out, no one is quite sure of what the yield of all this will be. College rosters will be younger but will they be better? Or weaker? Or will they be more Canadian than American? Can we even generalize? Will some programs find a pool of players they haven't had access to and end up liking this change ... while other programs find that they are losing quality players they've had a decent chance to get in the past and instead are facing a bigger pool of third and fourth line players?

And the early reaction?
The initial reaction to this news within the college and American junior hockey community has been mostly negative but not unanimously so. One of the most concerned - and potentially most affected - observers of the situation has been USHL Commissioner Gino Gasparini, the former head coach and athletic director at North Dakota. In a letter recently written to subcommittee chair Christine Grant, Gasparini pointed out how many college hockey players avail themselves of two years of post-high school play.

'The blanket application of this rule to all sports and leagues would have an extreme negative effect on the sport of hockey,' wrote Gasparini, 'The statistics presented reflect how many Division I athletes from the USHL alone would have been affected by this rule over the last four years. Obviously, the percentage (62%) is extremely high even though this league (and other similar USA leagues) never have presented a question regarding their amateur status. The application of this eligibility rule to all levels of hockey presents a death blow to leagues that have been very cognizant of NCAA rules over the years.'

Gasparini went on to identify one of the questions that has troubled many people, who originally thought this was just about restoring eligibility to Canadian juniors: 'If deregulation of amateurism is the motive of simplifying the post regulations, why institute regulations that penalize leagues, athletes, and all levels of Junior A Hockey that never have presented questions regarding amateur status?'

College coaches, many just learning of how pervasive these new legislative proposals would be, echo Gasparini's concerns. 'The 'second-year out' would currently affect six quality players on my roster and mine is one of the youngest teams in college hockey,' said Notre Dame coach Dave Poulin. 'I don't think we should be blanketed into something that affects our sport so drastically without at least taking it to the convention floor and presenting our reasons for opposition.'

Still, some leagues and programs may find the changes to their liking.

'The MAAC generally supports many of these proposals,' said Richard Ensor, Commissioner of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. 'Our membership believes it benefits student-athletes and will allow us to recapture in the recruiting pool athletes who may have overestimated their professional sport potential or may have crossed over current amateurism prohibitions.'

Ensor leads one of the two Division I hockey conferences that is a multi-sport conference (the ECAC being the other) and whose conference position may not necessarily be the position of that league's hockey interests alone. Herein lies a strategic problem for the hockey community as it struggles to find consensus on yet another hot button issue. Does it matter in the NCAA world if a single-sport conference (CCHA, CHA, Hockey East, WCHA) has strong opposition to an issue if the multi-sport conferences support it? In matters NCAA,, what the Big Ten and the Big East say is more important than what the CCHA and Hockey East say.

Ensor, who serves on the NCAA's Management Council, understands how the NCAA operates today. And he cautions those who think they can sculpt the deregulation model to address hockey's singular needs.

'As an NCAA Council member, I believe it will be difficult in the current antitrust climate to pass any rule that does not apply evenly to all student-athletes,' he says. 'Coaches who have concerns over these proposals need to work with their athletic administrators to submit all amendments that will work equally well for all team sports. I do not expect that all the proposals, or even elements of the proposals, will be passed by the NCAA Council in their original draft language.'

How did we get here?
It is important to remember that this isn't just a hockey issue. If these proposals pass, it effects all sports across the board, The subcommittee that studied this issue has learned of difficulties many compliance officers have had dealing fairly with all athletes. There was a sense that since we knew more about America (and North American) student-athletes, they often lost eligibility more frequently than foreign student-athletes, about whose leagues we knew very little.

The key to the pending changes come about when the subcommittee members came to the conclusion that the simple acts of signing a contract or entering a draft or even accepting money did not by themselves give a student-athlete an unfair advantage over other student-athletes when they arrived at college. What did affect competitive equity, said the subcommittee, was the length of time you played before you came to college.

The tennis community was the first to address this issue. Tennis players would get out of high school and play in a professional or semi-pro circuit before going on to college. These athletes were considered to have a significant advantage over those who come right from secondary school to college. And so tennis first instituted the rule by which you lose a year of eligibility for every year you played after high school. In fact, the tennis experience resulted in the term commencing from one's 'expected date of graduation', because some tennis coaches were telling kids not to graduate, so the clock wouldn't start ticking. And so the current legislative proposals identify the key date as that date of expected graduation from when you enter high school. This means, for example, Ontario student-athletes have one year from the end of Grade 12 to continue playing before losing eligibility (NOT the end of the old 'Grade 13.')

What happens next and when will this go into effect?
The NCAA Management Council has to vote to accept these recommendations and they actually have to vote twice. After their first vote, there must be a 60-day period for comment from the membership. Since the Council only votes on two occasions annually, October and April, the earliest scenario for this issue is an initial acceptance in April of 2000 and a final vote in October of 2000.

Thus, at the earliest, these proposals would effect the recruited class entering school in the fall of 2001.