Recruiting

Recruiting is a personality match, not just a paycheck. Every prospect weighs the same four things — your NIL offer, your program's prestige, how close to home you are, and the role you're promising them — but how much each one matters depends on who they are as a person.

Five Personalities, Five Different Recruiting Pitches

Every prospect gets a personality the moment they're generated, and it changes what wins them over:

• Bag Chaser — won't sign for a discount no matter how good the rest of your pitch is. There's a hard NIL floor here; fall short of it and nothing else you offer matters.
• Ice Time Seeker — cares more about the specific role you're promising than the money. A generous role can make up for a lighter NIL package — but breaking that promise in their first season on campus stings far harder than it would for anyone else. See Team Chemistry & Player Happiness.
• Homebody — weighs proximity to home heavily. A great offer from a program far from where they grew up faces an uphill climb.
• Prestige Seeking — wants a program whose reputation matches or exceeds their own talent level. A mid-major generally can't turn their head, however much money is on the table.
• Loyal — responds to a program that's shown sustained interest over time rather than chasing the single best offer on signing day. Building rapport early — including via in-season scouting — pays off with this type specifically.

Scouting isn't optional busywork. An unscouted recruit's card shows fuzzy attribute ranges, and their personality stays hidden until you've invested enough scouting to reveal it. You can't win a recruiting battle for a prospect whose demands you're guessing at — see Scouting Prospects.

Where Recruits Come From

Prospects arrive through a few different pipelines, and the pipeline shapes what they're after:

• USHL and NAHL — the traditional American junior pipeline, mostly incoming freshmen.
• CHL (major Canadian junior) — a large and growing share of the pool since Canadian major-junior players became NCAA-eligible. CHL prospects consistently demand a premium NIL package and a top-line role, regardless of personality or star rating.
• Transfer Portal — already-proven college players, skewing a little older, who prioritize landing the right role immediately over finding a fresh location. See The Transfer Portal.

Recruiting Runs Across Five Rounds

Blue-chip prospects rarely commit in round one — they're weighing offers from multiple schools, and a fair number of the names at the top of the board don't decide until late. Lower-rated prospects resolve faster and are more up for grabs by a program willing to reach a bit above its usual tier.

Whatever's still unsigned once the five rounds close gets swept into a no-bidding-war depth pass, roughly by prestige order — so leaving your board mostly empty into the late rounds means you're filling out your roster from leftovers, not building it on purpose.

Don't Lowball, and Don't Yank Offers Around

Recruits remember. Cutting an offer after you've already led the board costs you ground — worse if the cut drops your offer below what they were originally asking for, which can leave the recruit cold toward you for a while, not just that one round. If you're not committing to a recruit, it's better to withdraw cleanly than string them along with a shrinking offer. Trying to win a contested recruit with a lowball offer at the very end generally doesn't work, either — a recruit fielding real competition won't sign for a package that's clearly below their ask.

See Also

• Scouting Prospects — clearing the fog on OVR, attributes, and personality
• The Transfer Portal — recruiting players already in college hockey
• Finances — where your NIL offers come from
• Eligibility & Roster Rules — what you're signing a recruit into