Locked In

Sure his job offer might fall through, but Noah Welch isn’t updating his resume for recruiters just yet.

Though an owner’s lockout has thrown the upcoming season and the National Hockey League’s long-term viability as a professional enterprise in North America into serious question, neither Welch nor any of his teammates who have been drafted by big league clubs are abandoning their dreams of a career in the ice hockey business.

“For me—and I probably speak on behalf of anyone else in my shoes—so much work has gone into getting here,” said Harvard assistant captain Ryan Lannon, whose rights are owned by the Pittsburgh Penguins. “[After] playing hockey for 20 years, to drop it right after graduation because there was no hockey here—that would be really tough.”

Though most, if not all, of the Crimson’s nine draft picks have imagined scoring a game-winning goal in a Stanley Cup Final since they first laced up their skates, their initial inklings were the stuff of pure fantasy, detached from any real sense of what it meant to be a professional athlete. Now just one or two steps away from the realization of those adolescent reveries—years removed from those first practice runs in local rinks and on suburban streets—there can be no illusions about what life as a hockey player holds in store, particularly now.

“You do have to be realistic and you listen, you hear about it on TV,” Lannon said. “The sport is struggling enough as it is as far as the ratings and the viewpoint the American public has of hockey. It doesn’t have the following it needs to survive a lockout.”

Yet the temptation remains. Even with the threat of a work stoppage looming this summer, several prominent collegians signed offers with the clubs that had plucked them from the entry draft, forgoing their final years of eligibility in order to benefit from the current terms of the collective bargaining agreement. Though the NHL Players Association and league representatives have barely even begun to discuss the provisions of a future settlement, the average player salary and maximum signing bonus are expected to hold steady, if not fall, so many amateurs cashed in on the best possible outcome in a deteriorating labor market, according to Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91.

Welch, however, wasn’t so quick to commit to a league that may not exist a year or two from now. Though an NHL contract from the Penguins, who drafted the Crimson captain out of high school, was certainly open to him, Welch wasn’t quite ready to jump ship.

MINOR DIFFICULTIES

For many college players, signing an NHL contract doesn’t guarantee a spot on the bench the very next night. As with Major League Baseball, most spend time in the minor leagues—in this case the American Hockey League (AHL)—before working their way up to the professional ranks. If they ever make their way to the professional ranks, that is.

The current labor disagreement makes achieving that end doubly difficult. Not only is the hope of being called up after a particularly solid performance removed, but the youngest players from the NHL will filter back down into the AHL, taking spots that would normally go to the recent grads and signees.

“The younger guys get put in a tough position,” Donato said. “The young guys that are playing in the NHL and haven’t established themselves, maybe, are certainly not in a position financially to all of a sudden stop working...The competition for jobs and playing time becomes even more difficult.”

Both Welch and Lannon said that they had spoken to members of the Class of 2004, who had gone on to sign contracts with AHL teams, only to encounter a far more difficult path then they expected upon arriving.

“Tyler [Kolarik] ’04, Kenny [Smith] ’04 and Dennis Packard ’04 are recent grads who are dealing with that,” Lannon said. “It’s affected those guys somewhat significantly and it’s really unfortunate that they graduated when they did. It’s just bad timing—it’s something hockey players haven’t had to deal with for a while.”

Prior to the lockout, Welch had expected that he—like Dom Moore ’03 and several of his other former teammates—would begin his professional career in the AHL before eventually earning a call up to the Penguins.

But in the face of the minor league circuit’s uncertain future and the possibilities open to him at Harvard, passing up his senior season proved an untenable option.

“I felt like I had more to prove at the college level, more to prove at Harvard, to myself, and to my teammates. I definitely can develop more,” Welch said. “These are things that I was looking at. Am I ready to go? It’s a life decision. Do I want to turn pro? I mean, that’s going to be my job. Or do I want to finish up and finish my last year in college, knowing that it’d be pretty tough for me to go back. And if I did go back, I’d have to finish classes in the summer. So I mean there’s graduating with my friends. All those things factored in.”

TIMES THEY AREN’T A-CHANGIN’

Despite the upheaval in the professional system, Welch’s decision to return to Cambridge shielded him from much of the turbulence, leaving his hockey world for the most part intact.

The Penguins offer rookie camps and strength training programs to all of their prospects, and Welch is in weekly contact with a former coach who scouts for the Penguins. But those players who already have suitable regimens and coaching are encouraged to continue their schedules uninterrupted, in the hopes that they will mature more quickly.

“They don’t ever step in and say, ‘You gotta do this, you gotta do that,’” Welch said. “They leave that to my coaches and they don’t interfere at all, which is great. And they come to the games and watch and see I’m developing and as long as I’m developing they have no problem with my being here.”

And as long as Welch is here, he has no problem tuning out the news about his uncertain future.

Though he and his teammates are vaguely aware of the lack of progress between representatives from the union and ownership, Welch hasn’t been paying too careful attention to the parties’ day-to-day negotiations, since, at least for the moment, they don’t actually apply to him.

“I made my decision so whatever happened this year was really not going to affect me,” Welch said. “I’m in college. College hockey’s not locking out this year. The only way it affects me is I can’t watch my favorite guys on TV any more.”

“Now, since there is a lockout, the only way it affects me is hopefully we’ll have more people in the stands this year because there’ll be no Bruins to watch and hopefully we’ll get some of their fans,” he added.

Of course, if there is still a lockout when the season does end—whenever that may be—both Lannon and Welch will have a trusted source to turn to for advice: Donato.

The Crimson coach faced a similar situation during his playing days when, mere weeks into his professional career, a work stoppage threatened to end it all just as quickly as it had begun.

“I’m sure he has some idea what’s going on because he was just in the players association and he had some contacts in the league after playing there for 13 years,” Lannon said. “But all of those things aren’t going to be an issue until our season wraps up in April.”

And until then, they’ll all just hold off on polishing those resumes.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.