With conversation of restricting international players, including Canadians, from NCAA women's hockey, and all NCAA sports, coaches, players and programs are watching U SPORTS more closely than ever. 

This week, several U SPORTS programs are playing preseason exhibition games against NCAA teams, while U SPORTS teams themselves continue to gear up for the 2026-27 season north of the border as well.

This season, 16 players are transferring from NCAA Division 1 hockey to U SPORTS women's hockey teams. While the list doesn't feature many notable names, perhaps aside from former U-18 Canadian national team standout Reese Logan who struggled in her first two NCAA seasons, this year's transfer group is just the tip of an iceberg that could be multiplied significantly next summer.

This season there are 1140 players named on the NCAA's 45 women's hockey team rosters. It's a group that includes 400 Canadians. Were the NCAA to impose a 20% limit on international players, at least 200 of those Canadians would need to find U SPORTS programs, along with many European and Asian players. 

USA Hockey will also closely be watching the number of players accumulating in U SPORTS compared to the NCAA. Last season there were 40 former NCAA players spread across U SPORTS' 36 programs. Few move in the other direction, with Clarkson goaltender Arianne Leblanc as the most notable U SPORTS to NCAA transfer.

The 40 players who were in U SPORTS last season coming from the NCAA, helped bolster the level of play in Canada. Several were present at the 2026 U SPORTS national championships like Waterloo's Katina Duscio who spent three seasons at St. Lawrence before joining her hometown university where she scored 19 points in 25 games from the Warriors' blueline last year. She was joined on Waterloo by Sarah Hirst and Ashlyn Kroes who each spent three seasons at Merrimack before joining U SPORTS this season. All three are back with Waterloo again this season.

The University of Ottawa has a prominent contingent  NCAA alumnae in Alexa Pongo (UConn and Merrimack), Alex Ferguson (Merrimack), Rebecca Morissette (Clarkson), TJ Flores (Robert Morris), Sydney Lynch (Merrimack), and Lauren Mooney (Bemidji).

Jill Hennessy was U SPORTS' top scoring NCAA transfer last season recording 26 points in 26 games with Nipissing. She might be outdone by Samantha Morrison this season after she put up 19 points in only 15 games with St. FX after spending the previous two seasons with Maine. 

Should the United States government impose rules against NCAA programs and international players, the skill level and calibre of player making the move to Canadian universities, or staying in Canada following their high school graduation, would skyrocket. Right now, none of the players moving from NCAA to U SPORTS would be able to hold onto a roster spot within the 20%. 200 additional Canadian women's hockey players looking to stay in Canada each year would immediately make many U SPORTS teams superior in talent to the majority of NCAA programs. It's a shift neither U SPORTS or the NCAA could foresee, and one that is not guaranteed yet. Still, as the world has seen economically, even threats of sanctions and rules from the United States, has inevitably tipped the scales of trade and industry toward Canada from the United States, and this move could do the same in men's and women's hockey.