The Dan K Show’s D3 Player Tracker
Accurate data is a player’s strongest weapon in today’s recruiting hellscape landscape
Hockey is a brutal sport on the ice, but the past decade has seen the recruiting game inflict far more pain on hockey players and families than ever before. The rise of high cost “Elite” UAAA and Mite programs, the ever- expanding footprint of pay-to-play hockey, and the propagation of the family advisor have all conspired to add stress and cost to the game of hockey. On top of that, hockey players face the same agonizing decision every year: what teams and leagues will give me the best chance of being scouted by and playing for NCAA D3 hockey programs?
Every league rolls out their statistics each year, touting their long and storied history of moving players to the next level. Up until now, there has not been an efficient or simple way to fact-check these numbers. So we did the work for you, and rolled out our NCAA D3 Player Tracker. The tracker currently shows all 2,489 players that were listed on NCAA D3 rosters, with all data taken directly from every college’s official athletic website manually by our staff. Players are attributed to the Junior, High School or Prep Hockey Team that they “graduated from.” In murky situations for a final playing season, we selected the team a player participated in 10 or more games for last as their “graduating organization.” For teams that have changed leagues or branding in recent years, a player was attributed to the league they physically played in; not the league the team now participates in.
The tracker was created to evaluate which junior leagues produce the most active NCAA players, rather than most commitments. Active players, means players who actually played a game for the team they are on. The change in wording is intentional, according to the tracker’s researcher, Dan K.
“I am urging families and players to purge the word ‘commitment’ from their vocabulary. Commitments as a term hold no meaning at the Division 3 level. In a future article I will explain the history of the word ‘commitment’, but for now it is as simple as this: anyone can commit to any Division 3 school for any sport. There is no mechanism in place to ensure that player ever plays for the school they committed to, nor is there any true limitation on how many players can ‘commit’ at the D3 level. The only true test of success at the NCAA D3 level for an team or league, is whether or not your athlete suits up and takes the ice at the school they choose to attend.”
Dan has a point. The term was invented, and gained sway over players and parents, during a time when coaches had more power over where players could play, and transfer to. It was a term that was used to make players feel claimed, so that they wouldn’t turn elsewhere for more opportunities or to escape toxic environments. The commitment was a way to better know what a coach of any collegiate sport could expect in terms of roster turnout and makeup for the upcoming season. As the transfer portal has opened-wide throughout college athletics, allowing for players to transfer at will each off-season, the word “commitment” has gone from murky to a baseless way to signify that an incoming Freshman has paid for an application and tuition at the NCAA D3 level.
As you play through this junior season and start to wonder if you are in the right place, you can reference the tracker to see which teams and leagues truly have players actively participating on Division 3 rosters, because no one ever brags about all the games they sat in the stands for.