Sep. 18—BEMIDJI — Each Central Collegiate Hockey Association head coach took the virtual podium on Tuesday morning for the league’s Media Day, and each one was asked about how they built their 2025-26 roster.
Similar to previous years, CCHA head coaches shared the excitement for the upcoming season, along with some sentiments about veterans, newcomers and everything in between.
This year’s CCHA Media Day, however, featured coaches fielding more roster-construction questions than typical. When the Canadian Hockey League players were granted 2025-26 NCAA eligibility last November, some teams jumped into the expanded recruiting pool headfirst, while others took a more traditional approach.
“It’s important for every coaching staff to know what their identity is and where they have to go,” CCHA commissioner Don Lucia said. “To use Tom Serratore’s analogy, everybody has to build their own mousetrap. What works at one school may not work at another. There’s different ways you can build your team. Is the CHL the best? Is it based on your location? Is the portal the best? For a new coach coming in, maybe being able to bring in some of his old players is beneficial.”
Three CCHA teams are at the forefront of the CHL pool. Bowling Green and Michigan Tech each have 11 players who competed in one of the three major junior leagues — the Western Hockey League, the Ontario Hockey League and the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League — while Bemidji State has seven players.
Second-year Falcons head coach Dennis Williams was hired out of the WHL, where he spent seven seasons with the Everett Silvertips. Seven of his 11 recruits with CHL experience come from the WHL, including two who played for Williams in Everett.
“I think there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about things,” Williams said. “I think the right way is going through the front door, through the communication line with, not just the CHL, but all junior teams. Everybody is looking at this as the new league with a lot of uncertainty. … I think there’s going to be a bit of time before everything shuffles out.”
While all of Blowing Green’s CHL recruits aged out of playing major juniors, Michigan Tech’s aren’t. Incoming freshmen Reid Andresen, Carson Birnie, Rylan Gould and Teydon Trembecky all exited the WHL a year early to play college hockey.
“Obviously, they could go back and play juniors,” MTU head coach Bill Muckalt said. “Our job was to convince them that this is an opportunity where they could grow and develop and have a path to success here. They have an opportunity to immediately come in here and play. We value them, and we think they’re ready to come in and contribute.”
Michigan Tech is the only CCHA team that includes players who didn’t age out of their CHL eligibility.
“We all have different networks, relationships and connections,” Muckalt said. “It was a unique experience for all of us to open up the CHL. It was an area where we thought there were players who could contribute. There’s great players all over, whether it’s Stockholm or Saskatoon, Minnesota, Minneapolis or Michigan — all over the world. It’s going to be a transition … for everyone. They’re getting a taste of college hockey — the style, the pace.”
Bemidji State’s seven former CHLers come from a myriad of backgrounds. Serratore, who is now the CCHA’s longest tenured head coach as he enters his 25th season, picked up one player from each league in the CHL.
BSU also added three transfers from U Sports, who are kids that formerly played in the CHL. Bemidji State’s seventh CHL addition, Hudson Thornton, was also planning on playing U Sports until he was cleared through the NCAA Eligibility Center. He is one of two Beavers who
have pro hockey experience,
joining Conor McClennon.
Four CCHA schools added CHL kids who transferred from U Sports, the Canadian college athletics system. BSU led the pack with three, followed by two for Michigan Tech and one apiece for Bowling Green and Lake Superior State.
U Sports has been a destination for former CHL players who did not sign professional contracts after their major junior eligibility expired.
LSSU is the fourth and final CCHA team with multiple CHL players on its roster, including Calem Mangone and Andrew Oke, fresh off winning the Memorial Cup with the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit.
Lakers head coach Damon Whitten noted the differences for CHL players moving to college hockey, which include roughly half the amount of games, easier travel and often nicer facilities and resources for player development.
“The way we practice is very different than how they practiced, because of their game count,” Whitten said. “Andrew Oke, the goaltender who won a Memorial Cup for Saginaw, and Calem Mangone, a forward on that team, they’ve really enjoyed it. Calem Mangone, man, has jumped right in and he just loves to win. He’s kind of a throwback guy. It shows how they led that Saginaw team to the Memorial Cup. It’s invaluable experience in our locker room.”
Lake Superior State was also the first CCHA team to add a general manager this summer. Eric Soltys was part of a transformational offseason for the Lakers that saw a reshaped men’s hockey staff and an anonymous $1 million donation to the program.
“We also brought in an assistant general manager here just a few weeks ago,” Whitten said. “You have a lot more resources to manage your day-to-day. As a head coach, it frees me up to do my main responsibilities. Maybe it’s our players, maybe it’s fundraising focused. Whatever it may be, it’s going to be a big piece of how we recruit at a higher level, identify talent, go after talent.
“Our staffing as a program has entirely changed. Liam Cound, our performance coach, came back from UMass-Lowell, and he’s full-time in hockey now. It’s not just the general manager position, it’s really across the board how we’re staffed different, and it’s part of a holistic approach for our student-athletes to get what they need to be successful.”
While Northern Michigan and St. Thomas each added one former CHL player, two teams stuck with a traditional recruiting approach.
Minnesota State, the defending MacNaughton Cup and Mason Cup champions, did not add a CHL player to its roster despite welcoming 17 new players overall. Augustana, who finished second in the race for the MacNaughton Cup, also didn’t.
“We’ve built relationships over the past couple of years,” MSU head coach Luke Strand said. “We didn’t feel that bailing on kids who were involved in that process was what we wanted to be about. I think the CHL (in college hockey), in its infancy, there will be both sides to it. There’s a new pool of players, talented players, and they have to make that adjustment to what college hockey is.
“We felt the balance of our freshman class coming in, after our graduation of big numbers, that we could get some transfers to give them a shot in the arm earlier. I’m sure at some point we will utilize the CHL. We’re just not at that point right now.”
Augustana head coach Garrett Raboin shared an adjacent perspective.
“In a vision and a blueprint that was put in place when we started our program, I think this group deserved a chance to get another kick at the can together, and that’s what you’re seeing,” Raboin said. “… What’s so great about college athletics is you need guys who have been through it together, and not just one or two, but three or four years. You need homegrown upperclassmen.
“We have a small alumni group, and as we move forward, we hope we have a greater alumni group that has been here three or four years, earned their degree from start to finish at Augustana, call this place home and bring their young families back to celebrate Augustana. That’s what we’re trying to do here. On a competitive level, we want to have success and play for championships. In my shoes and our administrators’, they have an expectation we do something bigger here.”
The third and final team that didn’t sign any CHL recruits was Ferris State. In fact, the Bulldogs don’t have a true freshman on their 30-player roster.
New head coach Brett Riley welcomed in 13 transfers, five of whom came from his previous coaching gig at Long Island. FSU also picked up transfers out of Colgate, Western Michigan, Maine, Ohio State, Miami Ohio, Michigan, AIC and North Dakota.
“Obviously, it’s a pretty unique makeup in terms of no freshmen,” Riley said. “It’s not by design, in terms of coming in around April and trying to piece together the best group possible. We’ve obviously got an older team in terms of a lot of hockey games played and a lot of experience. That will be our makeup as we continue to build the culture and rebuild the culture in some areas.
“We looked for experience, we looked for leadership. It will look entirely different 365 days from now. But for right now, we wanted to be old, we wanted to be experienced, especially with the guys we lost. Hopefully, that will pay dividends as we get going here.”
Over time, CHL recruits are expected to fully integrate themselves into college hockey. While there are over 300 who are rostered for the 2025-26 season, only about 10% of them left the CHL before their age-out year.
College hockey has welcomed in high-profile NHL prospects like Gavin McKenna at Penn State, Porter Martone at Michigan State and Keaton Verhoeff and Cole Reschney at North Dakota. Whether more first-round picks take the student-athlete route or not will be determined in the coming years.
“I can’t speak for them, and my thoughts are only my thoughts, but there’s a couple of different factors that go into it,” Williams said. “Playing against older and stronger guys will help those players to get to the National Hockey League and make that adjustment. … Our average age last year was between 22 or 23, which is a lot different than the CHL.”
Williams added that there’s a developmental piece for CHL players to consider as well.
“There’s more emphasis on weekend games and workouts during the week,” he continued. “It’s a totally different mindset. You also have NIL money, which is another portion of it. … If I’m a player in the CHL and I can make X amount of money (in college hockey) compared to what I’m making the CHL, you have to look at that, especially if it’s something substantial. I do think it’s a true component, including bigger, stronger, faster players to play against.”
