Early yesterday evening, Calgary Flames prospect Henry Mews announced his commitment to the University of Michigan to play NCAA hockey next season. The unique decision shows how players are forging new paths in the wake of the NCAA's decision to make CHL players eligible for Division I hockey. 

Mews started the 2024-25 season with the Ottawa 67's, who drafted him seventh overall in the 2022 OHL Priority Selection.

The 19-year-old defender was nearly a point-per-game player with Ottawa over the course of three years. His start to the year was especially impressive as he led the team in points scoring 50 in just 38 games. 

While many people expected Ottawa to be sellers at the deadline, very few expected them to move a player like Mews, who accounted for a massive portion of their offense. He was one of a handful of players thriving on an Ottawa team that struggled all season long. 

While the return from Sudbury was good, the trade was still a head scratcher, especially considering that Mews would likely return to the OHL next season. 

The trade makes sense when you add the context that Mews' move to the NCAA was known to many around the organization. Don Brennan reported shortly after the trade that a source close to the team said Mews was "NCAA bound" at the end of the season. 

Peterborough Petes Take Kaden McGregor With First-Overall Pick The Peterborough Petes kicked off the 2025 OHL Priority Selection by selecting Kaden McGregor with the first overall pick in the draft. It was a big moment for McGregor, who will go down in Pete's history as the only first-overall selection made by Peterborough to date.

Michigan is a fantastic school that will benefit from bringing in a player like Henry Mews. He's a high-skilled offensive defenseman with incredible vision and puck-moving skills. His skating skills are excellent, and he often uses his feet to start rushes. 

He's not all flash and dash, though. His defensive skills are solid and in many ways underrated.

If Mews and Michigan can be viewed as the winners of this move, the OHL and CHL are definite losers. The key to why lies in Mews' age. 

The overwhelming majority of NCAA commitments found in the OHL this season have come from overage players whose time in the league would be up by the end of the year anyway. As such, they are no great loss to the league, who can say they developed and helped their players continue their careers. 

Calgary Flames Recall 2024 First-Round Pick Zayne Parekh From OHL With five games to go in the regular season, the <a href="http://thn.com/calgary">Calgary Flames</a> announced that 2024 ninth-overall pick Zayne Parekh will join the team in Anaheim tonight. The move by Calgary comes just days after Parekh and the Saginaw Spirit were eliminated in the first round of the OHL Playoffs.&nbsp;

Mews, on the other hand, is a 2006-born player who would have been forced to return to the OHL next season based on the way things worked before the NCAA rule changes. 

Under the CHL-NHL Transfer Agreement, which is in place until 2029, NHL prospects may not leave the OHL, WHL or QMJHL to play minor league unless they are 20 years old or have played four years of major juniors. They can, however, go straight to the NHL provided they are over the age of 18. 

Essentially, this agreement forced CHL players to return to their CHL clubs unless they were being called up to play full-time in the big leagues. It keeps players like Sam Dickinson, Zayne Parekh, Beckett Sennecke and many more in the OHL for a few more years, where they bring in a ton of excitement and viewership. 

The old system also helped players to develop for the transition towards professional hockey, with the added benefit of boosting the development of younger undrafted players who get to play against elite talent.

The NCAA changes break this long-standing system open and grant players the ability to do what Mews has just done, provided they garner interest from NCAA schools. 

The question is whether this will become the norm. If it does, any player who has graduated from high school could abandon the CHL to go to an NCAA school. This could drastically reduce the CHL's talent pool and make the league much younger. 

A system like this would make the three major junior leagues a feeder system for the NCAA, where the premier NHL-drafted talent would be concentrated. 

This is an outcome that undoubtedly worried Hockey Canada officials and executives around the CHL. They would lose viewership and revenue due to the loss of players and likely lose their reputation as the top leagues for NHL development. 

There are many questions left to be dealt with where the NCAA and NHL prospects are concerned. We are only beginning to see the ramifications of the NCAA changes from earlier this season. 

It remains to be seen whether the path Mews is choosing to walk will become the norm. Certainly, it seems a conversation between the CHL, NCAA and NHL is warranted in the near future. 

What is certain at this point is that Henry Mews will blaze a new trail and take his talents to an elite school next season.