College Hockey Notebook: NCAA Eyes Five-Year Eligibility, Ivy League Expands Schedule
Also: Gadowsky set to lead the U.S. Collegiate Selects, NCAA rolls out rule changes, and more
Today’s newsletter (No. 579) is a full notebook, bringing you up to speed on all the news and notes from the past week.
Inside this edition:
The latest on the NCAA’s potential move to grant players five years of eligibility.
The Ivy League bumps up its game maximum — and how that’s already reshaping schedules.
Penn State’s Guy Gadowsky set to lead the U.S. Collegiate Selects coaching staff.
The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel rolls out changes to face masking, major penalty reviews, and high-sticking.
More on Keith Allain’s retirement at Yale.
Plus, a rundown of the latest staffing hires and promotions across the sport.
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Programming Note: It’s taken a little extra time to pull together my 2025-26 preseason 1-through-63 rankings. With so many late CHL commitments, I wanted to make sure every incoming freshman class was accurate before putting pen to paper. The good news? The wait is almost over. I’ll begin rolling out the previews and rankings either late next week or, more likely, on Tuesday night after Labor Day.
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College Hockey Notebook: NCAA Eyes Five-Year Eligibility, Ivy League Expands Schedule
It’s been rumored that the NCAA could soon do away with the redshirt year, granting student-athletes in all sports five years of eligibility instead of the traditional four.
Earlier this year, Christopher Bellamy, Demarcus Griffin, TJ Smith, and Targhee Lambson filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, challenging the four-year eligibility limit. Their case is one of several targeting the same rule. After a motion for reassignment, the case landed in front of Chief Judge Campbell — the same judge who granted Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia’s injunction. Pavia argued that the NCAA’s redshirt and JUCO policies violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, and Judge Campbell agreed the rules likely ran afoul of antitrust law. Now, he’ll oversee the Bellamy case as well.
Meanwhile, the NCAA Division II Management Council recently recommended that the Division II Executive Board sponsor a proposal for five years of eligibility at the 2026 NCAA Convention. For now, this only applies to Division II. But if it passes there, Division I won’t be far behind — especially with the legal pressure mounting.
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The Ivy League quietly made some history last week, voting to increase its regular-season schedule from 29 to 30 games beginning this season. The rest of the country already sits at 34, and the Ivies hadn’t bumped up their limit since the 1990s.
The move has already set off a scheduling shuffle. Some Hockey East teams, originally set to face each other in non-league games, are now looking to swap into Ivy matchups instead.
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Penn State’s Guy Gadowsky has been tapped to coach the first-ever U.S. Collegiate Selects team at the Spengler Cup this December. He’ll be joined by UNH’s Mike Souza and Niagara’s Jason Lammers as assistants.
“It’s an honor to be on the inaugural staff of the U.S. Collegiate Selects and to be competing in such a prestigious tournament,” Gadowsky said. “The Spengler Cup will provide an incredible experience for the players selected and will be great for the continued exposure of college hockey outside the United States.”
Hockey East commissioner Steve Metcalf will serve as GM.
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The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel made headlines of its own last week, approving both a new misconduct review process and changes to the face mask penalty rule.
Face Mask Rule Changes
Minor Penalty: Intentionally placing a hand on and pushing an opponent’s face mask.
Minor Penalty: Moving an open hand back and forth across a mask (previously a major).
Major + Misconduct/DQ: Grabbing and twisting or pulling a mask, at the referee’s discretion.
Major Penalty Reviews
Any time a major is called in games with replay, video review is mandatory. Officials then have three choices:
Confirm the major.
Reduce it to a minor.
Wipe it out completely.
Teams cannot challenge the result of the review.
High-Sticking Clarification
The rulebook now separates goals from other plays:
For goals, the puck cannot be played above the crossbar (4 feet).
For all other plays, it cannot be played above a player’s normal shoulder height.
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In perhaps the strangest story of the week, Baylor University is suing Boston University for trademark infringement over an “interlocking BU” logo. The catch? BU doesn’t actually use an interlocking BU mark in its athletics branding. Go figure.
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Amid the news of Keith Allain’s retirement, Yale announced a $3 million facelift for Ingalls Rink. The iconic “Whale” will get a new center-hung video board, two end scoreboards, an upgraded sound system, and a modernized broadcast control room.
As for Allain, many in the coaching community believe the late-summer timing of his announcement was deliberate. The theory? By waiting, he gave his assistants a shot at running the team this season, perhaps paving the way for one of them to land the job permanently.
“I have no idea if that’s why it happened so late, but that would be just like Keith,” one coach said. “Loyal to his core.”
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Elsewhere around college hockey staffing:
Vermont hired Will von Brauchitsch as Director of Hockey Operations. He was with the NAHL’s Maryland Black Bears last season.
Robert Morris hired Vinnie Pietrangelo as an assistant, replacing Ryan Durocher (now at Merrimack). Pietrangelo has prior stops at Lake Superior, Alaska Anchorage, and Ferris State.
In Division III coaching circles, there’s been plenty of movement. Utica elevated Nick Therrien to associate head coach, while Hobart added former Penn State forward Alec Marsh as an assistant. Augsburg brought in Tyler Veen as its new assistant coach, and Canton handed out a pair of promotions — Christiano Versich moves up to associate head coach, and Trevor Christopher goes from volunteer to full-time assistant.