For the past decade or so there has been serious talks in allowing Canadian Universities to apply for membership in the NCAA.  As of January 14th this year, a 97% vote approved this move.  The ruling that is being put in place will allow Canadian Universities to apply for Division II status of the NCAA within the next three years.

Since there is not a Division II program of college hockey in the NCAA, the ruling that goes forth is that one men’s program and one women’s program would be allow to apply for NCAA Division I status.  The two schools that look to be at the forefront of this application is the University of British Columbia and Simon-Fraser University.  Timing is everything right now for these schools, as they must apply by June 1st (yesterday) for admittance.

One of the major issues that presents itself is that a majority of the Canadian schools have former CHL and pro players suiting up for their teams, which violates NCAA rules.  The assumption would be that if a Canadian University joined the NCAA and had a team that was full of former pro players, that they would then have to make the Division I program an entirely new entity, taking the same route that Robert Morris took four years ago, in recruiting an entire roster.  The Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) has different rulings on players going professional; those Professional games played before Dec. 31 of the year in which an athlete turns 21 are not charged against the athlete’s CIS men’s hockey eligibility.  One particular case is former Los Angeles King’s forward Jared Aulin (you can read his story in Canada West).

There is also discussion (which should be figured out by now) on how moving to the NCAA will affect a Canadian school’s status with the CIS status.  CIS President Dick White was quoted in the Leader-Post saying, “One of the things that our board has discussed as a principle — and it has got a long way to go yet — is ‘If you choose to go NCAA, you go with all your teams. We’re not going to be a soft-landing spot for some of your teams.’ That is something that the board has decided to investigate.”

Some of the rumors swirling around is that this could help the eventual movement of Bemidji State University into the WCHA conference.  This could coincide with their new agreement with the WCHA that guarntee’s them 12 non-conference games a year which starts in the 2010-2011 season and their addition of a new arena that meets the needs of a larger fan base and recruitment efforts.

At the same time, this could turn to be great news for Robert Morris and the rest of the CHA confernece.  Not that having Bemidji in the conferece is a bad thing, but everyone knows that they want out, if a replacement could be pulled in from a potential Canadian school (or schools that could make the conference larger) this could lead to less expense costs for Robert Morris (in traveling to BSU for games).  Something else to look at is where the recruits are coming from, a majority of NCAA recruits do come from the Canadian Junior Leagues and an advantage for Robert Morris in playing in Canada would be direct exposure for young players in the area to meet the coaching staff and see Coach Schooley’s style of play, not to mention recruiting trips while you are playing games.

One other area to look at, also in recruiting, something that can be compared to what Coach Mike Rice of the Colonail basketball team is working on, is scheduling non-conference games near where his players grew up, in an attempt to make it easier for their families to see them play (Tony Lee is from the Boston area, this past season we played and beat Boston College in their arena).  This could be an immense recruiting tool that no college coach has been able to use yet, the best way to utilize this tool is if you are able to lure a Canadian team into your conference, this guarantee’s that you will be able to make it up there for an alloted number of games.

More news should come in the next few weeks, so be sure to check in to see what this entails for the CHA and college hockey in general.