The QMJHL escapes few Quebecers in favor of the NCAA

Play hockey in the NCAA. It’s the big dream of many teenagers – and their parents. If I had received $50 every time I heard a relative express this wish, I could have offered a Harvard education to all my heirs and their future offspring, without remortgaging the house three times.

American universities, admittedly, are attractive. Not just for hockey players. For future engineers, doctors and financiers too. Thirteen of the top twenty-five universities in the world are located in the United States, concludes the firm Quacquarelli Symonds in its most recent annual ranking of higher education institutions.

Each year, this enthusiasm for American universities is at the heart of the negotiations during the QMJHL draft session. This will certainly be the case again on Saturday, in Sherbrooke. Who will go to the United States? Who will stay here? Who is bluffing, to increase their chances of being recruited by the team of their choice? It’s so ingrained in the league’s mores that young hockey players intrigued by a college career in the United States even have a nickname.

The “recalcitrants”.

Linguistic parenthesis: the word is badly chosen. A recalcitrant is a person who stubbornly resists. However, these 15-year-olds can’t resist the QMJHL. They simply express an interest in playing hockey and studying in the United States. End of parenthesis.

Examples of “recalcitrants”?

There are dozens of them.

James Malatesta, MVP of the last Memorial Cup with the Quebec Remparts, was considered one of them the year he was drafted, in 2019. The same goes for his teammate Zachary Bolduc, who briefly stayed in the United States the following fall. The two ultimately chose the QMJHL.

The first pick of the 2020 draft, Tristan Luneau, had signed up with the University of Wisconsin. He changed his mind and continued his career with the Gatineau Olympiques. Before them, Jonathan Drouin and Anthony Duclair flirted with the idea of ​​going to study in Boston. They too stayed on this side of the border.

The reality is that the exodus of Quebec hockey players exists. But it’s a very niche option, and much more popular among English speakers than French speakers.

Numbers ?

Last winter, 45 Quebecers played for one of the 62 teams in the men’s first division. By Quebecer, I mean a player who grew up here, whether he was born in the province or not. Do you think 45 is a big number? Know that there were more Quebecers in the National Hockey League, for 30 fewer teams. Another factor to consider: these 45 players are divided into 8 different age cohorts.

In fact, very few top Quebec prospects prefer the NCAA to the QMJHL. Even among last season’s contingent, only 11 players were still old enough to play in the QMJHL. The others were all over 20 years old.

The portrait of the exodus is incomplete. Dozens of other young Quebecers spend their winters in Western Canada, in northern Ontario or in the northeastern United States, in the hope of getting noticed by an American university. Sometimes, not often, it works quickly. Alexi Van Houtte-Cachero (2003), Dylan Hryckowian (2004) and Michael LaStarza (2004) are expected in the NCAA next fall. Usually it’s longer.

Yaniv Perets, who just won the national championship with Quinnipiac, spent four seasons in junior leagues in Ontario, British Columbia and the Boston area before entering university. His career is much more representative of those of Quebec players than that of former Canadian forward Louis Leblanc, admitted to Harvard at 18.

So the NCAA is a possible dream. But the road to get there is longer, more winding and more contingent than one might think. This partly explains why the QMJHL remains the most popular option for Quebec players, by a very large margin.