It’s my Parting Shot to chime in on the departure of Gavin McKenna from the Medicine Hat Tigers to the N-C-A-A and Penn State, announced officially on Tuesday, as he goes into his N-H-L draft season…..

If you follow me on “X”, or Twitter as I prefer to still refer to the social media platform, the following will be very familiar as I responded to my friends Darren Dupont and Jeff Hayes who wondered, what about the hockey landscape in Canada?, and, if the C-H-L will put in some sort of a minimum commitment rule?

I was curious to see where T-S-N’s Director of Scouting, Craig Button, doesn’t seem to think there’ll be a mass exodus of just graduated from high school players going the N-C-A-A route before they turn 20. I hope he’s right, but I’m not as certain of that! A look at some research work done by W-H-L super fan Alan Caldwell out of Calgary shows 36 players, as of today, have committed to attend a U-S College this coming season – 20 of them going into their 20-year-old season and the other 16 being 19-and-under!

That’s a pretty significant number!!

Now, including a minimum age clause in C-H-L players’ contracts before they can depart to the N-C-A-A, in my mind, would be a slippery legal slope and would likely involve more of the way it used to be…players opting to play Junior A, then head to the N-C-A-A instead of going the C-H-L route!

By the way, I have no problem with Gavin McKenna going to Penn State. He has nothing left to prove at the W-H-L/C-H-L level! The only bad thing is that his late birthday allows him to graduate high school early and be eligible to go to uni the same year as his draft season. That is unfortunate for Medicine Hat because they’ll lose out on the big development money paid by the N-H-L to them for having McKenna as their property when he was drafted!

However, to the others heading south who are not yet 20, I don’t care if they’re 1st round N-H-L draft picks…Big Whoop, not impressed! I’d like to see N-H-L teams that draft them step in and have a say where their next development year is played as Big Brother needs to/has to have a say here, in my humble opinion!

Also, I’ll say it again – I hope all the young men taking the leap to the N-C-A-A are good students. Professors don’t get on your case about maintaining your grades as they do in grade school! And, you’ve got to maintain your marks with a proper class load in order to keep your scholarship and play!!

Best of luck, Gavin McKenna. To the rest of the bolters, good luck to you as well. But, I’ll be watching to see how many come back with tail between their legs when the lure of money can’t make up for lack of ice time and lack of studies, which may very well happen!!

That’s my Parting Shot. I’m Les Lazaruk…and it turned out nice again!