NCAA will allow hockey players to have agents
Today in “the NCAA is hypocritical”: The NCAA just passed a proposal to allow men’s hockey players to be represented by an agent without jeopardizing their college eligibility.
So why hockey and not basketball or football? A friend who is a huge hockey fan informs me that because hockey players are eligible to be drafted at age 17, many are drafted and already have their rights owned by teams before they go to college (similar to baseball). Because of that, many have “advisors” (a watered down version of an agent that can’t negotiate for you), so the NCAA legalized representation in hopes of remaining competitive with junior hockey in Canada, which is still the predominant route to the NHL.
Regardless, today’s rule sets an interesting precedent that does one of two things: Suggests legal representation is on its way to all sports; or if not, makes the NCAA even more hypocritical for allowing it in some sports and not all. Given the organization’s track record, I’m going with the latter.
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