The CHL ruling came down last November. It's been nine months since players in the QMJHL, OHL and WHL became eligible for NCAA Division 1 hockey.
Since then, countless current CHL players have committed to Division 1 programs. Some players who were with 16U club teams, prep schools and USHL teams found new homes with CHL squads. At the QMJHL Draft in June, 37 New Englanders were picked. Many could opt for that over their original plans this coming season.
"It's a whole different world now," Boston College center James Hagens said. "With this rule change, you don't know what's going to happen."
One of the last things we don't know: How the ruling will impact Aug. 1 recruiting, which has become increasingly prevalent in recent seasons.
On Aug. 1 and in the days and weeks following, there has been a mad dash by Division 1 programs to commit the best rising juniors in high school. That should continue this Friday.
Or will it?
"If I had to go through it again," Cornell forward and former Salisbury standout Ryan Walsh started, "I'd probably wait."
Schools like Boston College and Boston University have been rumored to be in on top CHL talent. Maine has committed 11 current CHL players, UMass Lowell has eight and Providence College has six. Many other schools have more than one CHL commit on top of the players they already have committed.
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"The player pool is larger, so then it becomes more challenging for everybody," Harvard assistant coach James Marcou said. "For U.S. kids, the chances become harder."
Multiple agents and parents I've spoken with over the last few months have worries about this and what it means for the new class of players eligible to commit.
"What's happened now is teams have stockpiles of players," Providence College associate head coach Ron Rolston said. "They're in a position now where the CHL opened up and they went out and got a bunch of CHL kids and then they've also got their own commits. It basically backlogged a bunch of kids."
Those agents and parents floated the idea of waiting longer to commit, forcing programs to continuously recruit players rather than commit them and focus on new ones. Others have worried that spots they thought would be there for them down the line may not be as certain anymore.
"The fluidity of it is going to continue and those situations will happen where kids might be committed and then they start looking at that team's depth chart and say, 'Where am I going to fit?' and then switch places," Rolston said.
That includes a large group of rising juniors from New England who are about to become eligible to commit to Division 1 programs. In past years, the top and middle tiers of players would be locks to commit to schools in August.
Will that still be the case?
"I think teams are going to slow down in terms of offers," Rolston said. "Before, you might offer five or six kids and get four of them. I think that should slow down."
One of those schools typically active in August is Boston University. The Terriers regularly draw some of the biggest names from the rising junior class.
"There are a lot of players that want to commit," BU assistant coach Joe Pereira said. "But do the schools wait because they think there's going to be some players that fall off the trees in Canada? Or do they want to take the player they can find that they want to get?"
And on the player side, will we see more players hold out on offers and wait to commit?
"I think it'll be relatively the same," Rolston said. "If the big schools offer, [the kids] are taking them. Maybe there are some other teams they're going to wait on. I think what happens now is if a lesser school offers them, they'll wait for a bigger fish."
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The common sentiment is that the blue blood programs will get the top players, while other schools may take their time in figuring out the fallout from the CHL ruling. Marcou believes this won't change the recruiting mindsets of a lot of programs.
"Schools might wait around to see how the major junior thing plays out a little bit more with early commitments," Marcou said. "We might see fewer early commitments because teams might be waiting for what's out in major junior that year. But not by much."
One sector that this uncertainty helps is the Ivy League schools. Take Harvard as an example. The Crimson don't use the transfer portal, and due to the high level of test requirements and academics, pulling players in from the CHL becomes much harder.
"It definitely will help us in the crazy landscape," Marcou said.
Harvard is one of the busiest programs on and after Aug. 1. The Crimson got commitments from eight '08s between Aug. 1 and Sept. 2 last year. After getting a commitment from Avon Old Farms defenseman Oskar Drabczynski (Easton, Conn.) in January, Harvard likely won't add many more '08s.
"It's definitely part of our recruiting pitch that you have some more stability," Marcou said. "We don't do transfers, and we're more about developing the guys we bring in."
For everyone else, it's a bit more uncertain. There were backlogs of players in junior hockey when the NCAA transfer portal was at its peak. Now, players may continue to stay in juniors longer but because teams can bring in CHL talent that's more NCAA-ready.
"Kids are going to season longer where they're at," Rolston said. "It may go back to kids changing their mind on their schools, too."
Even after this August comes and goes, the CHL ruling's impact on recruiting the next wave won't be fully known. Nine months can feel like a long time in the moment, but far from it in retrospect.
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"A lot of the next couple of years is going to be every staff trying to figure this out," Rolston said. "To have the best team you can but also figure out how the older CHL kids are going to play in the league and how that transfers from league to league.
"There's a lot of stuff that's still unknown for a lot of people."
