As I watched the 2023 Mass. Hockey Festival in May, I was struck with a question that continued popping into my head.
How many of these players actually go on to play college hockey?
The event, held at New England Sports Center and Lovell Arena, was full of college coaches at Division 1 and Division 3 levels. If you were blindfolded around one of the games and told to walk in a particular direction, you would've bumped into a college coach within 10 seconds.
Over the last two weeks, I took a deep dive into all of the players who participated in the Final 40/All-Star Games at the festival since 2013, as well as the national camp selections. That included the 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 birth years.
The 2005s and 2006s are way too early in the college process to add to the data and the 2007s and 2008s haven't even started.
That doesn't mean these stats don't matter for them and future birth years. The last seven birth years give us a good idea of the number of college hockey recruits that will come from the next seven.
There are a couple of things I want to go over before we sift through the numbers — and there are a lot of them.
There was no Mass. Hockey Festival in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so the '04s and '03s lost a year. I'll touch on why that matters later in this story.
As for a format, some years had the Final 40, while others had an All-Star Game. The last two festivals (2023 and 2022) had Final 40s, while 2021 featured an All-Star Game. Prior to 2020's lack of an event, the festivals from 2017-19 had Final 40s. The All-Star Game format was used from 2013-16.
Now for the biggest rule.
In no way am I saying these players played Division 1 or Division 3 hockey directly because of the Mass. Hockey Festival. It's just a look at what these players went on to do. At this year's festival, there were '06s already committed to Division 1 schools. Many more will commit in the next 365 days and beyond. That was the case for the previous birth years as well.
Let's dive into the numbers.
Overall stats for Final 40 and All-Star Game
In the 1998-2004 birth years, 419 different players took the ice for the Mass. Hockey Festival's Final 40 or All-Star Game.
- 168 players played Division 1 college hockey or are slated to. (40.1 percent)
- 109 played Division 3 college hockey or are slated to. (26.01 percent)
- 142 didn't play college hockey at either level or haven't committed yet. (33.89 percent)
Seven birth years is a large sample size. It's also current. The college recruiting game is constantly changing, but 40.1 percent of recent Mass. Hockey Festival Final 40 and All-Star Game participants going Division 1 is big.
There is one note.
The '04s are the main reason why that final bullet point says "or haven't committed yet." While a lot of those players are committed, many more will commit in the near future, raising the number of players going to Division 1 or 3 and lowering the number who didn't move on to either level.
How did the number of Final 40 or All-Star Games a player attends impact their chances at college hockey?
Of those 419 players, only 122 made the Final 40 or All-Star Game every time it was held for that birth year. For the '04s and '03s, that was only twice, while it was three times for everyone else.
Here are the results of those 122 players moving on to the NCAA level.
- 78 players played Division 1 college hockey or are slated to. (64 percent)
- 22 played Division 3 college hockey or are slated to. (18 percent)
- 22 didn't play college hockey at either level or haven't committed yet. (18 percent)
Anyone would've guessed that a player who goes to their Final 40 or All-Star Game every time there's a festival in their birth year would have a higher chance of playing Division 1 college hockey.
A jump of 24 percentage points, however, is a lot.
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Ninety players made the Final 40 or the All-Star Game two out of their three years. The '03 and '04 birth years weren't included in these numbers.
Here are the results of those 90 players.
- 38 players played Division 1 college hockey. (42.2 percent)
- 35 played Division 3 college hockey. (38.8 percent)
- 17 didn't play college hockey at either level. (18.88 percent)
Finally, 207 of those 419 players only went to one festival's Final 40 or All-Star Game, and that includes the '03 and '04 birth years.
Here are their results.
- 52 players played Division 1 college hockey or are slated to. (25.12 percent)
- 52 played Division 3 college hockey or are slated to. (25.12 percent)
- 103 didn't play college hockey at either level or haven't committed yet. (49.75 percent)
As stated previously, the total number of players who haven't committed yet will decrease due to the 2003 and 2004 birth years.
National Camp selections
Making the Final 40/All-Star Game is tough. Advancing to national camp is even more of a challenge.
In total, 150 different players across the 1999-2004 birth years made it to national camps. The 1998 birth year wasn't included because of an inability to track down their 2013 national camp selections.
- 103 players played Division 1 college hockey or are slated to. (68.66%)
- 21 played Division 3 college hockey or are slated to. (14%)
- 25 didn't play college hockey at either level or haven't committed yet. (16.66%)
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Almost 70 percent of players selected for national camps play Division 1 college hockey, which makes sense. They're the best of the best, as judged by the raters — many of whom are college coaches — at the Mass. Hockey Festival.
How did the number of national camps a player attends impact their chances at college hockey?
Of the 419 players, only 150 made it past the Final 40 and All-Star Games to national camps. Since the '04s and '03s only had the chance to go to national camp twice, they were factored in for the players who made camp every year and for players who made it once.
Only 27 players made it every year. Here's how their college stats broke down.
- 20 players played Division 1 college hockey or are slated to. (74.07 percent)
- 2 played Division 3 college hockey or are slated to. (7.4%)
- 5 didn't play college hockey at either level or haven't committed yet. (18.51 percent)
Aside from the '03 and '04 birth years, it was stunning how many players made national camps all three years. Only two players made it in each of the '02 and '01s. The same went for the '99s. A whopping six went to all three for the '00s.
We'll keep the focus just on those four birth years (1999-02) for the number of players who made it to two of three national camps, which was 36.
- 31 players played Division 1 college hockey. (86.11 percent)
- 4 played Division 3 college hockey. (11.11 percent)
- 1 didn't play college hockey. (2.7 percent)
Where things get even more interesting is the number of players who made only one national camp, which was 87.
- 52 players played Division 1 college hockey or are slated to. (59.77 percent)
- 15 played Division 3 college hockey or are slated to. (17.24 percent)
- 19 didn't play college hockey at either level or haven't committed yet. (21.83 percent)
The number of players who played Division 1 or are slated to was inflated by the elite players who only went to one festival. That also goes for the number of players who went to just one Final 40 or All-Star Game and later played Division 1 hockey.
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For the '02s, Matt Beniers (Hingham, Mass.) only went to the 2017 festival. Had he not made the USNTDP team the next year and gone to every other festival, he most certainly would've made the Final 40, as well as moved on to national camp. The same can be said for fellow '02 Drew Commesso (Norwell, Mass.).
There will be more high-level players who only do one year at the festival in the future. But there will be plenty more who do all three and have a bright future at either the Division 1 or 3 college hockey level.
The numbers certainly prove that.
