An inside look at the gender gap in college hockey
Monique Lamoureux-Morando knows there will be a day when she and her son will walk around the Ralph Engelstad Arena concourse at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.
Her son will see the display honoring his mom and aunt, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, as the school’s two greatest women’s hockey players, not to mention two of the greatest athletes — regardless of sport — to play at UND.
They will then have what Lamoureux-Morando knows will be a difficult conversation.
“Someday, my son is going to ask why women don’t play here anymore and I have to explain that,” Lamoureux-Morando said. “I want to give [her children] opportunities. You hope when your daughter grows up, she has a chance to flourish and excel in what she’s passionate about. But you are also aware of the opportunities she does or does not have.”
At some point in the college hockey season, the questions will be asked: Why aren’t there more Division I women’s college hockey programs and for every school that fields a D-I men’s program, why is there not a women’s equivalent?
This season, there are 62 active D-I men’s programs compared to 37 D-I women’s programs. (The highest level of women’s hockey technically is called the National Collegiate division and includes the 37 Division I teams plus five Division II programs.) Syracuse has a Division I women’s team but not a men’s squad.
But of the 62 colleges and universities with a Division I men’s program, 25 do not have a comparable women’s team.
For example, there are contrasts between two of the nation’s most prominent states for the sport in Minnesota and Michigan. Minnesota has an equal number of men’s and women’s squads — six — that offer D-I hockey. Michigan, however, has seven D-I schools that have a men’s program but none of them have a women’s.
Another area of notable difference is what would be considered the western region. There are about 380 student-athletes actively playing D-I women’s hockey who are from west of Wisconsin given one of the regular lines of demarcation — the Mississippi River — cuts through Minnesota.
As expected, many of those D-I women’s hockey players who are from that western region are from Minnesota. Others come from California, Colorado and Texas, where the game continues to grow. There are also players from Canadian provinces such as Alberta and British Columbia.
Yet, the nation’s western-most women’s D-I program is at Bemidji State in Minnesota. Meanwhile, there are men’s programs at Alaska, Alaska-Fairbanks, Air Force, Arizona State, Colorado College, Denver, Nebraska Omaha and North Dakota.
That means Colorado — a state that has the NHL, AHL, three D-I men’s programs and has seen growth in boys and girls youth hockey — does not have a single D-I women’s program.
“My initial reaction is we have a lot of work to do to continue to grow the highest level of hockey on the western side of the country,” said Kristen Wright, who is a USA Hockey manager for player development. “We’ve seen it at the grassroots level in so many areas. Those players are developing and it’s a matter of how long does it take to grow our collegiate programming?”
So why is the current landscape like this and what, if anything, is being done to potentially add D-I women’s programs at colleges or universities where there is already a D-I men’s equivalent?
ESPN reached out to numerous colleges and universities with a men’s hockey program that do not have a women’s equivalent. Colorado College was the only one that made an administrator available to speak on the record about why its institution does not have a women’s program.
CC vice president/athletics director Lesley Irvine said the school is a Division III institution that has an enrollment of 2,100 students. The school competes at the Division I level in two sports: men’s hockey and women’s soccer. Irvine said men’s hockey has been “tremendous at CC and has a history.” The team has won two national titles, has 20 NCAA tournament appearances and has been around since the 1930s.
As for women’s soccer, Irvine said there was a post-Title XI realization in the 1980s that led to CC pushing to have one D-I women’s sport. The school chose soccer, with the program being a member of Conference USA before joining the Mountain West, whose headquarters are located in Colorado Springs and has several teams within driving distance.
One of the challenges CC would face in adding a women’s program is that there are no nearby schools and every game trip would require a flight.
“It is not as simple as institutions deciding they will add [a women’s hockey program] because they have a male equivalent program,” Irvine said. “You go back to the history here, it makes sense why we have those two sports. The other piece for us is we are on a small campus with 2,100 students and a 12 percent admission rate.”
Some of what Irvine laid out is part of the conversation that numerous administrators are having throughout the changing face of collegiate athletics.
While college athletics is a lucrative industry, particularly at the highest levels of football and men’s basketball, it went through a significant shift during the pandemic because of a drop in revenue. There’s a perception that athletic departments sit on piles of cash when many spend what they take in to stay current with the demands of being a competitive D-I program. Schools were examining their approach to athletics before the pandemic intensified those concerns, especially in this era of conference realignment, which has proven critical to some programs surviving, thriving or going extinct.
College hockey has felt this already. Alabama-Huntsville discontinued its men’s program in May 2021, among other sports, because of the financial challenges of the pandemic along with not being a member of a conference.
Robert Morris cut its men’s and women’s programs in May 2021 just months after the school hosted the men’s Frozen Four. In December 2021, the school announced both programs would be reinstated for the 2023-24 season thanks to fundraising efforts.
Alaska Anchorage had its hockey program, along with other sports, cut in September 2020, but the team was reinstated in August 2021 following a grassroots $3 million fundraising campaign in which the NHL’s Seattle Kraken were involved.
The schools that didn’t cut programs were left asking themselves if they could afford them at what they would consider to be a championship level or one that would allow them to remain competitive while also driving revenue.
In January, California lawmaker and former San Diego State basketball player Chris Holden presented a bill that would force schools to shape how they share earnings under what would be known as the College Athlete Protection Act. The bill would force schools that play major collegiate sports to pay their athletes in addition to covering the cost of six-year guaranteed scholarships along with post-college medical expenses.
And while the bill is in California, where there are no D-I collegiate hockey programs, the state was the first to pass a law in 2019 that allowed college athletes to make money from their name, image and likeness, or NIL.
There are considerable costs associated with introducing a new program. Schools would have to fund the hires for coaches and support staff. Then, there are the scholarship costs that come with their own dynamics, including whether scholarships come from a school’s general funds or the athletic departments.
Perhaps the most notable cost? A facility, and figuring out how to pay for it.
“If you are a school and you want to add a sport, if you add lacrosse, you might have to restripe an existing field and that is your facilities challenge,” said College Hockey Inc. executive director Mike Snee. “If you don’t have access to an adequate hockey facility, you have a $75 million nut you have to raise,” referring to the approximate cost to build a 3,000-to-4,000-seat arena.
Accessibility and cost remain long-standing issues when it comes to why the game has not grown compared to other sports.
The natural inclination is that it would be easier for a school with a men’s program to add a women’s team. That’s true, but there would still be facilities challenges. There might be the need to add two more dressing rooms, more office space and expanded strength and conditioning areas to an arena. And that doesn’t take into account other items such as increased maintenance costs and managing ice time.
There is another question to consider when it comes to adding either men’s or women’s college hockey teams.
Is there demand for it?
Irvine said some fans have asked about adding a women’s program. She said it “comes up once in a while” because Colorado College opened the Ed Robson Arena, an on-campus facility, in 2021.
Growing the game is one of the functions of College Hockey Inc. Snee said it does not typically receive a heavy number of calls from colleges and universities about adding a hockey program, which means it’s usually College Hockey Inc. that is calling schools.
Snee said the need to expand hockey is why College Hockey Inc., in conjunction with the NHL and NHLPA, offers prospective schools a feasibility study to assess if they are in a position to add a men’s or women’s program or both.
In total, 11 studies have been completed. Some have included women’s hockey and one explored only a women’s team, Snee said.
There are ongoing feasibility studies with two schools. Both are for women’s hockey only, but Snee couldn’t disclose the schools’ identities for privacy reasons.
“A feasibility study does not mean they are doing it,” Snee said. “But there is legitimacy to it and there is very much legitimacy to both of these. It is important that we grow D-I, D-III and even club women’s hockey. It’s more opportunities for young women to continue playing into early adulthood. It’s also more aspirational opportunities. We need it within women’s hockey for young girls to see women and the opportunities they can aspire to having.”
Morris Kurtz, the former longtime athletic director at St. Cloud State, oversees the feasibility studies. Snee said Kurtz was responsible for helping St. Cloud transition from a D-III men’s program to D-I in 1987 while adding a women’s team in 1998 that became D-I in 2000.
Kurtz also worked with Penn State when it added men’s and women’s hockey teams along with a new facility in 2013.
Snee said the study concentrates on the financial impact of adding hockey. Can schools account for adding scholarships internally? How much would it cost athletics department in terms of coaching and support staff? There is also a conference assessment to determine if a team has realistic options to join a league, which helps make the endeavor more feasible.
Wright said there are ACHA programs — also known as club hockey teams — in the western region that continue to grow, which was a catalyst for how Arizona State transitioned to D-I. There are several women’s club teams in the west, such as Air Force, ASU, the University of Colorado, Colorado State, Denver, Montana State, the University of Utah and the University of Wyoming.
“Arizona State exists on the men’s side because there was someone who was really passionate and had a really robust club program,” Wright said. “At the end of the day, there is a dollar component to creating college hockey programs. But how do we convince everyone it’s not the chicken or the egg? The visibility is going to be there. People do watch it. If it exists, they are going to go.”
To Wright’s point, the number of girls who might play college hockey are there and the numbers of them continue to grow in the western region.
In 2021-22, USA Hockey reported there were 87,971 women registered hockey players across all ages.
More than 31,000 of those registered players west of the Mississippi are between the ages of 11 and 18. That figure does not include Minnesota. There are eight states with more than 1,000 registered girls in that age range, with the largest number in California (7,282), Colorado (5,800) and Texas (3,985).
Only two of those states — Alaska and California — fielded a girls high school program during the 2021-22 academic year, per the National Federation of State High School Associations. Alaska had 24 programs while California had one.
It’s a stark contrast to Minnesota. The NFHS reports Minnesota had 240 high school girls programs and 3,232 girls who participated in high school hockey during the 2021-22 season.
Of Division I women’s hockey players, 57% who are from west of Wisconsin are from Minnesota. And while that’s not a big surprise, it does show there is growth in other western provinces and states.
“I think if you are in the hockey world, you know that it is growing in these hot pockets like Vegas, which saw its youth programs explode when they got an [NHL] team,” Lamoureux-Davidson said. “It’s the same in Arizona and California. It is growing so fast. Since I played, which feels like so long ago, it’s crazy how fast the sport has grown, specifically on the girls’ side. The skill and speed the girls are growing up playing is in a different ballpark.”
Long Island University women’s hockey coach Kelly Nash grew up in California and played at the University of Wisconsin. She played six professional seasons before she got into coaching and was hired by LIU in June 2022. Nash has 12 players on the LIU roster who are from the West, including Alaska, British Columbia, Colorado, Manitoba and Idaho.
Nash said the options to play hockey were limited when she was growing up. She did not start playing until she was 12. Nash initially played with boys, then found out about an all-girls team that required a trip of nearly 90 miles from San Diego to Huntington Beach. It was around that time when she found out about women’s college hockey.
Getting recruited meant those western club teams would have to travel to tournaments in Minnesota or somewhere further east to be seen.
“Now there is something every single weekend we could be at,” Nash said. “Whether it is a big tournament, a U-16 jamboree. There are players from the Midwest, West Coast, Europe and Canada. When it comes to the U.S. and recruiting on the West Coast, that is still probably the place people go the least. I don’t think there are as many events held out there.”
United States national team goaltender and two-time Olympic medalist Nicole Hensley grew up in Colorado, where hockey has carved a place. But there were certain realities Hensley faced playing the sport when she was young.
Hensley and her family did not know there was a girls’ association in Colorado until after she started playing. She wanted to keep playing, but realized it was likely she would have to play somewhere in Minnesota or on the East Coast.
Hensley grew up going to both Colorado Avalanche and Denver University games. It allowed her to receive more exposure to the sport. There was a time when Hensley had dreams of playing in the NHL, but that was before she understood the path available for women in hockey.
She played at Lindenwood University right after the St. Charles, Missouri, school transitioned from playing club hockey in the ACHA to becoming a D-I program. Hensley was at Lindenwood for four years prior to playing professionally and representing Team USA.
“Now that I’ve been able to go back to Colorado and kind of have my own hand in growing the game in that aspect, I look at the programs that are out there, like Air Force, Colorado College and Denver,” Hensley said. “They’re all premier Division I programs. I just think it would be a real opportunity for those girls programs to flourish in those environments where hockey is already a big deal at those schools.”
The two race teams suing NASCAR over antitrust allegations filed for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction Monday to be recognized as chartered organizations for the remainder of 2025.
23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports are locked in a lengthy legal battle over the charter system, which is the equivalent of the franchise model in other sports. 23XI, owned by retired NBA great Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Front Row, owned by entrepreneur Bob Jenkins, last September rejected NASCAR’s final proposal on extensions and instead filed an antitrust suit.
The case is winding its way through the court system but now with urgency: The teams are set to lose their charters Wednesday and in the latest filing, they allege NASCAR has indicated it will immediately begin the process of selling the six tags that guarantee entry into every race as well as monetary rewards and other benefits.
Should the teams have their six combined charters revoked, the drivers would have to qualify on speed to make each week’s race and would receive a smaller percentage of the purse. They might also have to refund money paid out through the first 20 races of the year.
NASCAR accused 23XI and Front Row of filing “a third motion for another unnecessary and inappropriate preliminary injunction” and noted it has made multiple requests to the teams “to present a proposal to resolve this litigation.
“We have yet to receive a proposal from 23XI or Front Row, as they have instead preferred to continue their damaging and distracting lawsuit,” NASCAR said in a statement. “We will defend NASCAR’s integrity from this baseless lawsuit forced upon the sport that threatens to divide the stakeholders committed to serving race fans everywhere.
“We remain focused on collaborating with the 13 race teams that signed the 2025 charter agreements and share our mutual goal of delivering the best racing in the world each week, including this weekend in Dover.”
Later Monday, Rick Ware Racing and Legacy Motor Club had a scheduled court date in North Carolina over their fight for a charter. Legacy, owned by seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, contends it had an agreement with RWR to lease one of its two charters in 2026.
RWR contends the agreement was for 2027, and it already has a contract with RFK Racing to lease that team a charter next season.
The NHL’s board of governors and the NHLPA’s membership have ratified a new collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA runs through the end of the 2025-26 season, with the new one carrying through the end of the 2029-30 season.
While the continuation of labor peace is the most important development for a league that has endured multiple work stoppages this millennium, there are a number of wrinkles that are noteworthy to fans.
ESPN reporters Ryan S. Clark, Kristen Shilton and Greg Wyshynski break it all down for you here:
Draft recap: All 224 picks
Grades for all 32 teams
Winners and losers
When does this new CBA take effect?
The new NHL CBA is set to begin on Sept. 16, 2026 and runs through Sept. 15, 2030. Including the coming season, that gives the NHL five years of labor peace, and would make the fastest both sides have reached an extension in Gary Bettman’s tenure as NHL commissioner.
It’s also the first major negotiation for NHLPA head Marty Walsh, who stepped into the executive director role in 2023 — Shilton
What are the big differences in the new CBA compared to the current one?
There are a few major headlines from the new CBA.
First are the schedule changes: the league will move to an 84-game regular season, with a shortened preseason (a maximum of four games), so each team is still able to play every opponent while divisional rivals have four games against one another every other season.
There will also be alterations to contract lengths, going to a maximum seven-year deal instead of the current eight-year mark; right now, a player can re-sign for eight years with his own team or seven with another in free agency, while the new CBA stipulates it’ll be seven or six years, respectively.
Deferred salaries will also be on the way out. And there will be a new position established for a team’s full-time emergency backup goaltender — or EBUG — where that player can practice and travel with the team.
The CBA also contains updated language on long-term injured reserve and how it can be used, particularly when it comes to adding players from LTIR to the roster for the postseason — Shilton
What’s the motivation for an 84-game season?
The new CBA expands the regular season to 84 games and reduces the exhibition season to four games per team. Players with 100 games played in their NHL careers can play in a maximum of two exhibition games. Players who competed in at least 50 games in the previous season will have a maximum of 13 days of training camp.
The NHL had an 84-game season from 1992 to 1994, when the league and NHLPA agreed to add two neutral-site games to every team’s schedule. But since 1995-96, every full NHL regular season has been 82 games.
For at least the past four years, the league has had internal discussions about adding two games to the schedule while decreasing the preseason. The current CBA restricted teams from playing more than 82 games, so expansion of the regular season required collective bargaining.
There was a functional motivation behind the increase in games: Currently, each team plays either three or four games against divisional opponents, for a total of 26 games; they play three games against non-divisional teams within their own conference, for a total of 24 games; and they play two games, home and away, against opponents from the other conference for a total of 32 games. Adding two games would allow teams to even out their divisional schedule, while swapping in two regular-season games — with regular-season crowd sizes and prices — for two exhibition games.
The reduction of the preseason would also give the NHL the chance to start the regular season earlier, perhaps in the last week of September. Obviously, given the grind of the current regular season and the playoffs, there’s concern about wear and tear on the players with two additional games. But the reduction of training camp and the exhibition season was appealing to players, and they signed off on the 84-game season in the new CBA. — Wyshynski
1:49
Why Mitch Marner is a great fit for Vegas
Greg Wyshynski reports on Mitch Marner getting traded from the Maple Leafs to the Golden Knights.
How do the new long-term injured reserve rules work?
The practice of teams using long-term injured reserve (LTIR) to create late-season salary cap space — only to have the injured player return for the first game of the playoffs after sitting out game No. 82 of the regular season — tracks back to 2015. That’s when the Chicago Blackhawks used an injured Patrick Kane‘s salary cap space to add players at the trade deadline. Kane returned for the start of the first round, and eventually won the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP in their Stanley Cup win.
Since then, the NHL has seen teams such as the Tampa Bay Lightning (Nikita Kucherov 2020-21), Vegas Golden Knights (Mark Stone, 2023), Florida Panthers (Matthew Tkachuk, 2024) also use LTIR to their advantage en route to Stanley Cup wins.
The NHL has investigated each occurrence of teams using LTIR and then having players return for the playoffs, finding nothing actionable — although the league is currently investigating the Edmonton Oilers use of LTIR for Evander Kane, who sat out the regular season and returned in the first round of the most recent postseason.
Last year, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said that if “the majority” of general managers wanted a change to this practice, the NHL would consider it. Some players weren’t happy about the salary cap loophole.
Ron Hainsey, NHLPA assistant executive director, said during the Stanley Cup Final that players have expressed concern at different times “either public or privately” about misuse of long-term injured reserve. He said that the NHL made closing that loophole “a priority for them” in labor talks.
Under the new CBA, the total salary and bonuses for “a player or players” that have replaced a player on LTIR may not exceed the amount of total salary and bonuses of the player they are replacing. For example: In 2024, the Golden Knights put winger Stone and his $9.5 million salary on LTIR, given that he was out because of a lacerated spleen. The Golden Knights added $10.8 million in salary to their cap before the trade deadline in defenseman Noah Hanifin and forwards Tomas Hertl and Anthony Mantha.
But the bigger tweak to the LTIR rule states that “the average amounts of such replacement player(s) may not exceed the prior season’s average league salary.” According to PuckPedia, the average player salary last season was $3,817,293, for example.
The CBA does allow an exception to these LTIR rules, with NHL and NHLPA approval, based on how much time the injured player is likely to miss. Teams can exceed these “average amounts,” but the injured player would be ineligible to return that season or in the postseason.
But the NHL and NHLPA doubled-down on discouraging teams from abusing LTIR to go over the salary cap in the Stanley Cup playoffs by establishing “playoff cap counting” for the first time. — Wyshynski
What is ‘playoff cap counting’ and how will it affect the postseason?
In 2021, the Carolina Hurricanes lost to Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference playoffs. That’s when defenseman Dougie Hamilton famously lamented that his team fell to a Lightning squad “that’s $18 million over the cap or whatever they are,” as Tampa Bay used Kucherov’s LTIR space in the regular season before he returned for the playoffs.
Even more famously, Kucherov wore a T-shirt that read “$18M OVER THE CAP” during their Stanley Cup championship celebration.
The NHL and NHLPA have attempted to put an end to this creative accounting — in combination with the new LTIR rules in the regular season — through a new CBA provision called “playoff cap counting.”
By 3 p.m. local time or five hours before a playoff game — whatever is earlier — teams will submit a roster of 18 players and two goaltenders to NHL Central Registry. There will be a “playoff playing roster averaged club salary” calculated for that roster that must be under the “upper limit” of the salary cap for that team. The “averaged club salary” is the sum of the face value averaged amounts of the player salary and bonuses for that season for each player on the roster, and all amounts charged to the team’s salary cap.
Teams can make changes to their rosters after that day’s deadline, provided they’ve cleared it with NHL Central Registry.
1:54
How Aaron Ekblad, Panthers benefit from staying together
Greg Wyshynski reports on Aaron Ekblad signing a new deal that keeps him with the Panthers for eight more years.
The “upper limit” for an individual team is the leaguewide salary cap ceiling minus any cap penalties for contract buyouts; 35-plus players or players with one-way contracts demoted to the minor leagues; retained salary in trades; cap recapture penalties; or contract grievance settlements.
The cap compliance is only for the players participating in a given postseason game. As one NHL player agent told ESPN: “You can have $130 million in salaries on your total roster once the playoffs start, but the 18 players and two goalies that are on the ice must be cap-compliant.”
These rules will be in effect for the first two seasons of the new CBA (2026-28). After that, either the NHL or the NHLPA can reopen this section of the CBA for “good faith discussions about the concerns that led to the election to reopen and whether these rules could be modified in a manner that would effectively address such concerns.”
If there’s no resolution of those concerns, the “playoff cap counting” will remain in place for the 2028-29 season. — Wyshynski
Did the NHL CBA make neck guards mandatory?
Professional leagues around the world have adjusted their player equipment protection standards since Adam Johnson’s death in October 2023. Johnson, 29, was playing for the Nottingham Panthers of England’s Elite Ice Hockey League when he suffered a neck laceration from an opponent’s skate blade.
The AHL mandated cut-resistant neck protection for players and officials for the 2024-25 season. The IIHF did the same for international tournaments, while USA Hockey required all players under the age of 18 to wear them.
Now, the NHL and NHLPA have adjusted their standards for neck protection in the new CBA.
Beginning with the 2026-27 season, players who have zero games of NHL experience will be required to wear “cut-resistant protection on the neck area with a minimum cut level protection score of A5.” The ANSI/ISEA 105-2016 Standard rates neck guards on a scale from A1 to A9, and players are encouraged to seek out neck protection that’s better than the minimal requirement.
Players with NHL experience prior to the 2026-27 season will not be required to wear neck protection. — Wyshynski
What’s the new player dress code?
The NHL and NHLPA agreed that teams will no longer be permitted “to propose any rules concerning player dress code.”
Under the previous CBA, the NHL was the only North American major men’s pro sports league with a dress code specified through collective bargaining. Exhibit 14, Rule 5 read: “Players are required to wear jackets, ties and dress pants to all Club games and while traveling to and from such games unless otherwise specified by the Head Coach or General Manager.”
That rule was deleted in the new CBA.
The only requirement now for players is that they “dress in a manner that is consistent with contemporary fashion norms.”
Sorry, boys: No toga parties on game days. — Wyshynski
Does the new CBA cover the Olympics beyond 2026?
Yes. The NHL and NHLPA have committed to participate in the 2030 Winter Olympics, scheduled to be held in the French Alps. As usual, the commitment is ” subject to negotiation of terms acceptable to each of the NHL, NHLPA, IIHF and/or IOC.”
And as we saw with the 2022 Beijing Games, having a commitment in the CBA doesn’t guarantee NHL players on Olympic ice. — Wyshynski
Did the NHL end three-team salary retention trades?
It has become an NHL trade deadline tradition. One team retains salary on a player so he can fit under another team’s salary cap. But to make the trade happen, those teams invite a third team to the table to retain even more of that salary to make it work.
Like when the Lightning acquired old friend Yanni Gourde from the Seattle Kraken last season. Gourde made $5,166,667 against the cap. Seattle traded him to Detroit for defenseman Kyle Aucoin, and the Kraken retained $2,583,334 in salary. The Red Wings then retained $1,291,667 of Gourde’s salary in sending him to Tampa Bay for a fourth-round pick, allowing the Lightning to fit him under their cap.
Though the NHL will still allow retained salary transactions, there’s now a mandatory waiting period until that player’s salary can be retained in a second transaction. A second retained salary transaction may not occur within 75 regular-season days of the first retained salary transaction.
Days outside of the regular-season schedule do not count toward the required 75 regular-season days, and therefore the restriction might span multiple seasons, according to the CBA. — Wyshynski
Can players now endorse alcoholic beverages?
Yes. The previous CBA banned players from any endorsement or sponsorship of alcoholic beverages. That has been taken out of the new CBA. If only Bob Beers were still playing …
While players remain prohibited from any endorsement or sponsorship of tobacco products, a carryover from the previous CBA, they’re also banned from endorsement or sponsorship of “cannabis (including CBD) products.” — Wyshynski
What are the new parameters for Emergency Goaltender Replacement?
The NHL is making things official with the emergency backup goaltender (EBUG) position.
In the past, that third goalie spot went to someone hanging out in the arena during a game, ready to jump in for either team if both of their own goaltenders were injured or fell ill during the course of play. Basically, it was a guy in street clothes holding onto the dream of holding down an NHL crease.
Now, the league has given permanent status to the EBUG role. That player will travel with and practice for only one club. But there are rules involved in their employment.
This CBA designates that to serve as a team’s emergency goaltender replacement, the individual cannot have played an NHL game under an NHL contract, appeared in more than 80 professional hockey games, have been in professional hockey within the previous three seasons, have a contractual obligation that would prevent them from fulfilling their role as the EBUG or be on the reserve or restricted free agent list of an NHL club.
Teams must submit one designated EBUG 48 hours before the NHL regular season starts. During the season, teams can declare that player 24 hours before a game. — Shilton
What’s the deal with eliminating deferred salaries?
The new CBA will prohibit teams from brokering deferred salary arrangements, meaning players will be paid in full during the contract term lengths. This is meant to save players from financial uncertainty and makes for simplified contract structures with the club.
There are examples of players who had enormous signing bonuses paid up front or had structured their deals to include significant payouts when they ended. Both tactics could serve to lower an individual’s cap hit over the life of a deal. Now that won’t be an option for teams or players to use in negotiations. — Shilton
What’s different about contract lengths?
Starting under the new CBA, the maximum length of a player contract will go from eight years to seven years if he’s re-signing with the same club, and down to just six years (from the current seven) if he signs with a new team.
So, for example, a player coming off his three-year, entry-level contract could re-sign only with that same team for up to seven years, and he’ll become an unrestricted free agent sooner than the current agreement would allow.
This could benefit teams that have signed players to long-term contracts that didn’t age well (for whatever reason) as they won’t be tied as long to that decision. And for players, it can help preserve some of their prime years if they want to move on following a potential 10 (rather than 11) maximum seasons with one club. — Shilton
What does the new league minimum salary look like? How does it compare to the other men’s professional leagues?
Under the new CBA, the minimum salary for an NHL player will rise from $775,000 to $1 million by the end of the four-year agreement. Although gradual, it is a significant rise for a league in which the salary cap presents more challenges compared to its counterparts.
For example, the NHL will see its salary cap rise to $95.5 million in 2025-26, compared to that of the NFL in which Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott’s highest three-year average is $61.6 million.
So how does the new NHL minimum salary upon the CBA’s completion compare to its counterparts in the Big 4?
The NBA league minimum for the 2025-26 season is $1.4 million for a rookie, while players with more than 10 years can earn beyond $3.997 million in a league that has a maximum of 15 roster spots
The NFL, which has a 53-player roster, has a league minimum of $840,000 for rookies in 2025, while a veteran with more than seven years will earn $1.255 million.
MLB’s CBA, which expires after the 2026 season, has the minimum salary for the 2025 season set at $760,000, and that figure increases to $780,000 next season. — Clark
Is this Gary Bettman’s final CBA as commissioner?
Possibly. The Athletic reported in January that the board of governors had begun planning for Bettman’s eventual retirement “in a couple of years,” while starting the process to find his successor.
Bettman became the NHL’s first commissioner in 1993, and has the distinction of being the longest-serving commissioner among the four major men’s professional leagues in North America. He is also the oldest. Bettman turned 73 in June, while contemporaries Roger Goodell, Rob Manfred and Adam Silver are all in their early- to mid-60s.
That’s not to suggest he couldn’t remain in place. There is a precedent of commissioners across those leagues who remained in those respective roles into their 70s. Ford Frick, who served as the third commissioner of MLB, was 71 when he stepped down in 1965. There are more recent examples than Frick, as former NBA commissioner David Stern stepping down in 2014 when he was 71, and former MLB commissioner Bud Selig stepped down in 2015 at age 80. — Clark
Jake Retzlaff announced on Friday that he’s withdrawing from BYU, formally initiating his transfer process from the school.
Retzlaff, BYU’s starting quarterback last year, said in an Instagram post that he made the “difficult decision” to withdraw and that he plans to “step away” from the BYU program. The post makes public what had been expected, as Retzlaff began informing his teammates and coaches in late June of his intent to transfer.
According to ESPN sources, Retzlaff’s path to transfer to a new school is not expected to come from the NCAA transfer portal. With Retzlaff just short of graduating, which would make the transfer process more traditional, he plans to simply leave BYU and then enroll at a new school.
That path is not a common one, but there’s precedent. That includes former Wisconsin defensive back Xavier Lucas leaving school this winter and enrolling at the University of Miami.
Retzlaff expressed his gratitude for his time at BYU, saying “it has meant more to me than just football.” He added that he’s “excited to turn the page and embrace the next chapter.”
BYU officials generally avoided the topic of Retzlaff at Big 12 media days this week, deferring to him to make a statement on his next move.
In a statement on Friday, BYU athletics said: “We are grateful for the time Jake Retzlaff has spent at BYU. As he moves forward, BYU Athletics understands and respects Jake’s decision to withdraw from BYU, and we wish him all the best as he enters the next phase of his career.”
Retzlaff’s departure comes in the wake of BYU’s planned seven-game suspension of him for violating the school’s honor code.
That suspension arose after he was accused in a lawsuit of raping a woman in 2023. The lawsuit ended up being dismissed on June 30, with the parties jointly agreeing to dismiss with prejudice, but Retzlaff’s response included an admission of premarital sex, which is a violation of the BYU honor code.
Retzlaff went 11-2 as BYU’s starting quarterback in 2024, throwing for 2,947 yards and 20 touchdowns. His departure leaves BYU with a three-way quarterback race this summer to replace him, with no clear favorite.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike