Dec. 26, 2022 — A silent occasion

5 days in the past, the 5 1/2-week switch portal for NCAA area hockey closed.

The switch portal has turn into a transformative a part of school sport in the previous few years, particularly as gamers in lots of sports activities have constructed beneficial model profiled within the identify, licensing, and picture (NLI) period.

What I discover attention-grabbing is that income sports activities like soccer have had the identities of transfer-seekers bandied about within the media. Heck, even girls’s lacrosse has seen monumental upheavals in rosters due to the usage of the portal, particularly after the 2020 Covid yr.

The sector hockey portal has, so far as we are able to inform, been silent.

In accordance with information from early 2022, this isn’t uncommon. Over the past couple of years, solely 23 undergraduate athletes per season sought to enter the switch portal. This isn’t solely the bottom whole when it comes to athletes, however the lowest share of athletes inside a sport — about 1 1/2 p.c.

Why are the numbers so low? The best way I see it, the chance vs. reward ratio isn’t within the common area hockey participant’s favor. Although we’ve heard of some NLI offers for area hockey gamers north of $10,000, I don’t see gamers breaking ranks from their present groups and transferring en masse to an NLI-friendly athletic division.

At the very least, not but. Because the NCAA retains the identities of switch portal candidates secret, we’re seemingly going to have to attend till August when up to date Division I rosters are revealed.