As Al Hamilton's son Steve, the fine Everett Silvertips' coach, said after losing the Memorial Cup final to Kitchener: 'We rode the train until the very last stop.' Now we wait to see if his defenceman Landon DuPont, who will go in the top five of the 2027 NHL draft, will get off that train and move to the NCAA.
Steve, who did a terrific job with the junior Silvertips but ran up against a deeper Kitchener team with 12 NHL draft picks, knows about college hockey, although we're talking more than a few years ago. He played at Northern Michigan for four years in the '90s after leaving the Sherwood Park Crusaders. He was a defenceman, too. Not nearly as talented as his best junior player DuPont, but he can likely relate to the college atmosphere on a weekend — full buildings, loud.
He can't relate to how much money some schools are paying to get these top-end juniors, like the thousands of dollars Penn State paid last summer for Medicine Hat Tigers winger Gavin McKenna, the possible No. 1 overall to the Maple Leafs, but he has a history with the NCAA, what it means. New days for juniors, though, and DuPont, who just turned 17 on May 28, is the shiniest toy in the store right now.
Will DuPont Stay or Go?
Will he leave Everett, a junior team that isn't losing a pile of players to the NCAA and might not take that much of a drop this upcoming season after winning the WHL championship? Or will DuPont decide that he should stay where he is rather than go to, say, powerhouse Michigan or Denver, the NCAA champions, or Minnesota where his former pro player dad Micki knows the new coach Brett Larson.
It might seem like it's 75-25 college, but it might just be 50-50. DuPont, who has wonderful talent as a puck-moving defenceman, also a very sharp hockey mind, might make $100 million in his NHL career. Does he really need more dough now to go to college, especially at his tender age, playing against 22-year-olds as a hunted defenceman?
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Expert Opinions
'He's not better than Cale Makar at the same age and Cale waited until he was drafted at 18 before going to NCAA' at UMass-Amherst for two years, said TSN's draft expert Craig Button, the former Calgary Flames' GM.
NCAA hockey is highly competitive and every weekend it's like players are going to the circus they're so wired for the games, for the atmosphere in the rinks, banging bodies. It's fun. So is college life and right now it's trendy, a very interesting time, kids leaving major junior for NCAA, some offering thousands of dollars for their recruits.
DuPont just turned 17 a week ago. He's finishing Grade 12, so he will end his high school early. He has that covered academically. But, after getting exceptional status to play in the WHL, a full season at 15, does he really have to go to the NCAA now? Are his draft prospects going to drop drastically if he plays a third year in Everett? While there's been comparisons to Makar because both are right-shot defencemen and outstanding skaters, that's a stretch. Maybe he's a right-shot Miro Heiskanen, which ain't bad.
