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My son plays Tier 2 NAHL. You most certainly can choose. I could wallpaper a room with how many Tier 3 "offers" he has and half a room with Tier 2. I guess USA Hockey just felt the league showed too much promise to affiliate itself with it. [/quote]
I think you misunderstood what I meant: I meant that a player who has a Tier 1 or 2 opportunity will choose that route over a Tier 3 or lesser league. The prior poster was insinuating that players are choosing NCDC or Tier 3 over the better leagues out West. The choice is being made for them. Make sense?
I have to laugh.
First the guy points out - "Yes, it is mostly future D3 players but D3 College hockey is very good"
And then followed by "Again, I am tired of seeing Club Commitments. Puhlease!!"
Either you don't know or you don't get it. Many Club teams could take apart many D-3 teams and that is a simple fact.
Next, look at many of a Club teams roster and you will see many kids that come to club hockey out of some respected junior programs and respected junior leagues including the USHL.
Just because many very good hockey players prefer to shift their focus to academics rather than sport, get burned out at playing at a high level or simply don't want to commit to the grind of varsity college hockey it does not make them lesser of a player.
With all of that said, I too think it's silly to post club hockey commits but let's not get caught up in this idea that the average D-3 player is anything special or the hockey is on average "very good."[/quote]
College Hockey is unlike any other sport in that there are only 60 teams (1,300 players) at the D1 level with many from abroad. If you are not quite good enough you really can only land in D3 or Club. Some of the better club teams are very good!! With that being said, The gulf between the bottom half of D1 and Top half of D3 are not nearly as great as you might think.
UMaine loses to U18 National team which then loses the next day to UNE ( handily) . Granted it was at the end of the trip and not sure if the circumstances, but still.