Dylan Hunt’s worst fears came true. He got cut and had no place to go.
The Marlboro, Mass., native opted to leave Milton Academy in the spring of his junior year for the USHL’s Cedar Rapids RoughRiders. The time felt right after a 40-point season on defense. He was already committed to Yale.
Once Hunt decided not to enroll at Milton, there would be no second thoughts. Milton Academy wasn’t taking him back.
The RoughRiders cut him during main camp, but still wanted to keep his rights. That didn’t stop Hunt from looking around. He looked in the NAHL and the BCHL. This was the summer of 2024, so before the CHL ruling.
“At that moment, I wasn’t. like, freaking out,” Hunt said. “But I knew I had some work to do.”
Hunt was cut after the main camp’s all-star game. The rest of the players participate in training camp. Cut players typically don’t get invited back to training camp.
But Hunt caught a break when he got a call from Cedar Rapids saying a spot had opened up. They wanted him back.
The decision worked out. Hunt posted a goal and seven points in 36 games, only having to spend one year in junior hockey. He will play at Yale this coming season.
“I knew the risks of going to juniors,” Hunt said. “I knew you could get cut at any time. I knew the positives, too. It could work out, and you could have a great situation. I didn’t really look back.”
Cam Caron (Dracut, Mass.) faced a similar situation entering last season. He had two junior hockey options: the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks or the BCHL’s Sherwood Park Crusaders.
Nothing was guaranteed in Muskegon — and the coaching staff made that clear. Sherwood Park, however, was different. Caron had gone there after his season ended with New Hampton in 2023-24 and had a great experience. He would play a lot of minutes. On top of that, his billet family had a great set-up.
“I was living in a basement that was probably the size of my house,” Caron said. “It was massive.”
Caron wanted to challenge himself, though, and picked Muskegon, fully knowing the risks. He hardly played except for one game at the USHL Fall Classic, where he saw a handful of minutes. Parker Burgess, then Muskegon’s head coach, called Caron into his office.
Burgess told Caron he wasn’t sure how much he was going to play, so the Northeastern commit should go to the BCHL to get more playing time and more experience being “the guy.”
Caron, however, wouldn’t go back to Sherwood Park. After he told the Crusaders he was picking Muskegon, Sherwood Park traded his rights to the Surrey Eagles.
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“It was all kind of a disaster,” Caron said. “It all happened super quick.”
During all of this, there was the option of going back to New Hampton. When Caron made his decision to leave the prep school, head coach Connor Gorman made it clear that while Caron would do great in junior hockey, if things didn’t work out, he would always have a spot at New Hampton.
“That was always in the back of my head,” Caron said. “I don’t really want to go back. I want to make the jump. I want to battle through adversity and kind of keep going with the junior hockey route that I told myself I was going to go through at the beginning of the fall.”
Caron landed in Surrey, where he notched 12 goals and 32 points in 41 games.
Handling things mentally
Grayson Badger was a star for Brookline (Mass.) High from 2018-20. He made the obvious move to Dexter Southfield for the 2020-21 season despite it being wiped out due to COVID-19. As a junior in 2021-22, he scored nine goals and notched 32 points in 24 games. All of that helped him secure a commitment to Northeastern.
Things weren’t the same when he arrived in the USHL for the Waterloo Black Hawks.
He wasn’t playing as much. In 33 games, he scored one goal and had five points. He was traded midway through the season to the Sioux City Musketeers.
While his family wasn’t living with him in either spot, he leaned on them quite a bit.
“It was a lot of my family keeping me up,” Badger said. “It’s hard mentally. You go from scoring every game or you’re doing something every game and then you go to not really playing and you’re having to play a different role. That was definitely for me to accept. But sometimes at the next level, that’s what you have to do and embrace it.
“As an 18-year-old kid going from prep school where I was one of the more dominant players. It was definitely a shock. It was definitely a humbling experience.”
Badger was far from the only player to consistently use his family for motivation.
“I talked to my dad a lot,” Landan Resendes, who left Cushing for Cedar Rapids before his senior year, said. “My dad is awesome. Just kind of talking to him, and any aspect of life you have to work through things, and there’s always going to be hardships and stuff.”
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When Gavin Cornforth arrived in Dubuque to play for the Fighting Saints as a 15-year-old after just one season at Thayer in 2021-22, he couldn’t have been greener. He played 49 games and scored four goals with six assists.
Dubuque put Riley Stuart, an ‘02 now with Colorado College, with Cornforth as his roommate on the road.
“He was great for me,” Cornforth said. “He really helped me out and guided me through the process and told me it was going to be okay. Sometimes I’d go home after a game and obviously not be totally happy about my ice time. I just knew at the end of the day, for the next few years, it was going to be different.”
There is always the pressure of losing your spot — in the lineup or on the actual roster — in junior hockey. Caron took a specific approach to making sure he didn’t lose his.
“My biggest thing was don’t complain,” he said. “Don’t let other people see that you’re struggling because then they’re going to take advantage of it. Say I was playing second line, and a guy on the third or fourth line sees that I’m struggling and kind of doubting myself or in my feelings. I thought they were going to see that and think that that was their opportunity.
“There’s so much going on in your head. You don’t want to look at the stats. When you’re doing good, all you want to do is look at the stats like ‘Oh my God, I’m at the top.’ And then it’s like ‘Oh, dude, I haven’t scored.’ The biggest thing was keep looking forward. It’s got to get better at some point. Just kind of put my head down and keep working out. At some point, it’ll work.”
Advice for the next generation
It’s a new time in jumping from prep, high school and full-season academies to junior hockey. Since the CHL ruling, players can participate in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Western Hockey League and still be eligible for NCAA Division 1 hockey.
That opens up choices. It could also mean more players will leave early.
That doesn’t mean advice from previous generations of players leaving early for junior hockey isn’t relevant.
“If you think you’re ready, then go for it,” Ethan Gardula, who left Cushing for Sioux City before his senior year, said.
That readiness is a huge part of making the decision.
“It’s really about if you’re ready to do it,” Cornforth said. “When I was 15 years old, I knew I was going to struggle right away. Even the coaches told me that it was going to be a really tough year. But I ended up just battling through it. It wasn’t the easiest thing ever, but it ended up being right for my career path.”
Forcing a move to juniors, however, can be a bad idea.
“Don’t be looking for the next thing,” Hunt said. “Let it come to you. I didn’t go searching for Cedar Rapids or to leave my junior year. I wouldn’t be trying to get out of there as quickly as you can to get to juniors. If it comes to you and you’re good enough to go, then you have to make that decision.”
Juniors is also a much longer season than prep or high school hockey. While that means it’s more taxing on the body, there’s also more opportunity to break out of slumps.
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“It’s not the end of the world if you have a bad game or a bad day,” Sam Scopa, who left Belmont Hill for Cedar Rapids before his junior year, said. “It may seem like that in the moment that it’s the end of the world because junior hockey is all you have. But it’s not the end of the day.
“Yeah, hold yourself to high standards and want to always be getting good numbers or stats, getting good outcomes and results. But they’re not always going to come. That’s how it is.”
And, of course, make sure to talk.
“Talk to your family, talk to whoever’s around you,” Resendes said. “Controlling your emotions and battling through.”
