(above) The University of Minnesota's dirty laundry is on display this week on the "No Alibis No Regrets" BlogUniversity of Minnesota recruit Ryan Walters reportedly backed out of his scholarship offer after the Gophers asked him to play another year in the USHL. The Wisconsin based blog "No Alibis No Regrets" has all the gory details.
In all likelihood this is a very complicated situation and there's undoubtedly more to this story than meets the eye. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. 2010 WCHA scholarships are hard to find at this time of the year, but Walters has a very impressive resume. He was MVP of the USHL All-Star Game and put up numbers similar to DU's Jesse Martin when he played in the USHL.
Once again this points out the trouble with offering hockey scholarships to 15 and 16 year-old high school students. Situations change, both for the player and the university. And to complicate matters further, WCHA schools only have 18 scholies to divvy up among 22-27 players depending on the team.
In all likelihood this is a very complicated situation and there's undoubtedly more to this story than meets the eye. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. 2010 WCHA scholarships are hard to find at this time of the year, but Walters has a very impressive resume. He was MVP of the USHL All-Star Game and put up numbers similar to DU's Jesse Martin when he played in the USHL.
Once again this points out the trouble with offering hockey scholarships to 15 and 16 year-old high school students. Situations change, both for the player and the university. And to complicate matters further, WCHA schools only have 18 scholies to divvy up among 22-27 players depending on the team.
9 comments:
Interesting situation, sounds a lot like what happened to Weircoch at Wisconsin. What are the odds that Lucia will be back at Minnesota considering his teams performance?
No doubt Lucia is under the gun and needs to win ASAP.
The Wiercioch analogy is a good one.
Is the scholarship limit an NCAA rule, or WCHA rule?
18 is an NCAA rule, but some leagues or teams have lower scholarship maximums.
The Ivies & service academies don't offer scholies. The AHA has a max of 12. R.I.T. can't give scholies because they are a Division III school that became D-I after a rule change. So only around 2/3rds of the 59 hockey schools have 18 full ride athletic scholarships.
so who's trying to recruit him now? DU?
If DU has a scholarship they'd have to be in the mix. I have no idea if DU has any scholies available or if they could put together a package, but there's a lot to like.
Sounds like Walters plays like Jesse Martin and is a proven scorer. There's also the probability that he'd be around for four years.
What's been DU's biggest weakness the past few seasons? Getting scoring from the 3rd & 4th lines. He sounds like a player that can step into this role.
Was Walters ever interested in Denver?
Not sure if Walters ever considered DU or if DU was ever interested in him.
According to comments in Western College Hockey he visited North Dakota and they offered him a scholarship in August 2007. The blog article also mentioned Duluth.
http://westerncollegehockey.blogspot.com/2007/10/ryan-walters-to-minnesota.html
Perhaps with a few more years of maturity and having been living in Iowa for the past two seasons, Colorado might be an appealing destination.
If he originally spoke with 35 schools as Chuck indicated, DU had to be definitely one of them.
1) He wants to play in the WCHA so that now narrows it to 11 schools.
2) What kind of student is he? DU is pretty particular on the type of students that they have been bringing in.
3) If he fits the DU student/athlete profile and a scholie is available, he could be a nice late addition.
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