NCAA sued over major-junior hockey player ban

Canadian junior hockey player Rylan Masterson filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the NCAA and 10 universities on Monday night, alleging the NCAA is violating antitrust laws by preventing any player who has appeared in a major-junior hockey game from also playing in the NCAA.

The suit — filed in the U.S. District Court — argues the NCAA and U.S. universities are anticompetitive in allowing the rule.

The NCAA has deemed any players competing in the Canadian Hockey League — comprised of the OHL, WHL and QMJHL — as ineligible for the NCAA because there are players on those teams who have signed professional contracts with NHL teams. NCAA Bylaw 12.2.3.2 states that “an individual shall not be eligible for intercollegiate athletics in a sport if the individual ever competed on a professional team.”

Masterson, 19, has played his past three seasons for the Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Fort Erie Meteors and was named captain in September 2023. In 2022, Masterson appeared in two preseason games with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires; that stint alone was enough to cost him future NCAA eligibility.

The proposed suit names the NCAA along with Canisius University, Niagara University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Boston College, Boston University, the University of Denver, Quinnipiac University, the University of Notre Dame Du Lac, Stonehill College and the University of St. Thomas.

Masterson argues in the suit that even pro athletes who have been financially compensated — such as swimmer Katie Ledecky — still retained NCAA eligibility. The suit also notes Boston College’s Tom Willander played professionally in Sweden and was still allowed to dress in the NCAA too.

In the suit, Masterson outlines that, “this scheme [referred to herein as the ‘boycott’] prevents competition between the CHL and NCAA for top-end players and thus artificially suppresses compensation for players and artificially creates less competitive leagues. Not only that, the boycott also puts 16-year-olds in the impossible position of deciding, at that young age, whether they will ever want to play Div. I hockey. It is per se illegal under the antitrust laws, including because it constitutes a group boycott.”

The NCAA last conducted a review of its policies in 2023 and determined a legal vulnerability in a potential “boycott” of Canadian junior players. In Masterson’s lawsuit, it outlines how the NCAA told its coaches the choice was theirs as to whether the boycott should end. If enough coaches voted to do so, changes could be made. But so far, the coaches have refused to take a vote.

At a meeting in May 2024, the lawsuit claims coaches met again about the boycott and a committee was created to watch for legal pushback to the rules going forward.

If Masterson’s suit were to be successful, it could change how the junior hockey pipeline works in years to come by allowing players to play hockey in both major-juniors and college.