Limited men’s Olympic buildup a loss for NCAA

On May 5, a good three months ago, USA Hockey announced the 23 players who will compete for a final women’s roster spot at the 2018 Olympics.

Five of those aspirants have at least one year of remaining NCAA eligibility: Minnesota-Duluth goaltender Maddie Rooney, Wisconsin forward Annie Pankowski, Minnesota forward Kelly Pannek and Boston College blueliners Kali Flanagan and Megan Keller.

Those current collegians will take a year off from their studies to participate in a grueling tune-up schedule, beginning in September. For the women’s national team, this procedure is as old as the program’s Olympic participation itself, dating back to the 1998 Games. And in every case, a few players have gone back to campus with either a gold, silver or bronze medal in tow.

In prior years, the tune-up schedule has included matchups against Canada and other international teams. In 2013-14, the U.S. women battled Canada twice, including once at North Dakota’s Ralph Engelstad Arena, and even added some games against boys prep high school teams.

The full 2017-18 schedule has yet to be announced, but at least one scrimmage with Canada is confirmed for Oct. 22 in Quebec City. There, the Americans will face three other players who are putting their college careers on hold: Wisconsin’s Emily Clark, Cornell’s Micah Hart and Minnesota’s Sarah Potomak.

The Americans are also expecting to play in the Four Nations Cup and other competitions that could include playing against prep or college teams. With the latter, the students and graduates on their roster will have a chance to cross-promote with the NCAA, its member conferences and marquee schools.

However, with all of that being said, the women’s national team actually has no choice in the matter. According to the women’s program’s Athlete Selection Procedures, Section 9, candidates are required to take part in mandatory training conducted from September to the start of the games in Pyeonchang.

The men, who will field amateurs for the first time since 1994, will not follow the same training regimen. In the equivalent selection protocol section for the men, which was released three weeks before the NHL announced it would cease its Olympic crossover, it notes the following about non-NHL athletes:

“Mandatory training will be conducted between the start of European league breaks and NCAA program release date (TBD) and the beginning of the men’s ice hockey competition in Pyeonchang, South Korea (Feb. 14 2018).”

These breaks will most likely occur no sooner than mid-December, as most NCAA programs give their teams a month-long break from early December to early January.

The decision to limit the men’s tune-up to a few weeks could be a missed opportunity for college and USA Hockey alike. Though the NHL waited until April 3 to confirm that it will not compete at the Olympics again, the distinct possibility of that decision had been hanging discernibly for months.

As such, USA Hockey had the necessary time to consider the benefits of emulating the women in coming up with a similar tune-up schedule for the men that would last for almost the equivalent of a full season.

Just like it had done in every Olympic year prior to 1998.

A lengthy training process would allow players at various points in their careers from college to the AHL to European leagues to coalesce with one another, and only enhance their chances of capturing a medal.

Granted, in order to duplicate the women’s model, the players in the minor pros would have to sacrifice a higher salary. In addition, NCAA hockey could suffer if some of its top players left for the Olympics, then bolted for the NHL afterward.

That risk is all but nonexistent so far on the women’s side with the still-fledgling NWHL, which will be missing several prominent players like Meghan Duggan and Hilary Knight for nearly all of 2017-18 as they vie for another Olympic dance. Those who were NCAA juniors this past year are now NWHL draft-eligible, but foregoing their deferred senior season to sign in 2018 is not a foregone conclusion.

Regardless, the chance to compete for your country and wear a gold medal could outweigh the disadvantages for the players. And even the NCAA and its member conferences and programs would still have a chance to provide entertaining hockey for their avid fans.

USA Hockey executive director Pat Kelleher recognizes that college players are even more vital to the success of Team USA. “We have some 21- and 22-year olds who are high-end players who we are going to see in the NHL sooner rather than later,” Kelleher said to USA Today. “No other country has that type of player available to them.”

With that strong praise, why not capitalize on that confidence and give the men’s team the opportunity to scrimmage top-notch college, minor-league or even NHL teams before they embark on the Olympics?

Colleges could invite Team USA to play against them, and thus have the chance to incorporate that event into their schedule. The result would be an unquestionable boon to attendance at college games, if only for one night on a given campus.

Yes, losing star players like Denver’s Troy Terry, Harvard’s Ryan Donato or Boston University’s Jordan Greenway would hamper competition among NCAA teams for most, if not all of the season. But these players would not necessarily be sacrificing a whole year altogether.

They all could return and provide a boost to their NCAA teams for the stretch run, as the AHLers would be apt to do. Or, just as women’s players have always done, they could simply push their sophomore, junior or senior years back to the next campaign.

Heck, Neal Broten went back for one more year at Minnesota after participating in the 1980 gold-medal run. He went on to win the 1981 Hobey Baker Award. Likewise, the 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 Patty Kazmaier Award winners had all represented their respective countries in the previous year’s Olympics.

With the prospect of at least some players coming back to campus for a full year after claiming a medal, the deferred PR gratification for college hockey would be self-explanatory. And a tune-up schedule akin to the women’s would doubtlessly enhance the men’s chances of their first gold medal since 1980.

Look no further than the American and Canadian women’s decisive success over their European counterparts. European women’s programs also use active NCAA players at the Olympics, but do not acquire their services until February. So far, only Sweden has managed to disrupt the perennial string of U.S.-Canada gold-medal contests, doing so in 2006.

As Jim Johannson, the governing body’s assistant executive director of hockey operations recently told USA Today, “With what I’m looking at now, we are going to be a very competitive team, regardless of who we are playing.”

In order to be the most competitive, the Americans may need to reconsider its tune-up schedule for 2022, especially if they are unable to medal this season. There is no turning back on the approach to 2018, but plenty to think about looking ahead.