It’s all about one important thing…EDUCATION!

Whether you are a kid going through elementary school, a teenager finding their way through high school, or a young adult seeking a collegiate (or post-grad) degree, education is of the utmost importance. 

That’s why The National Hockey League and Syracuse University have come together to create a new program that will “help support and further both the professional and personal development of NHL Players.” The primary objective of this partnership is to enable past and present NHL players, as well as their families, to attend a world-class university at a discounted rate, thereby positioning the individuals who participate well for life after their playing days come to an end. 

“A retired player came to see us (the other day),” Deputy Commissioner of The NHL Bill Daly told Blittner’s Blue Line. “His career ended earlier than he would’ve liked, it was kind of a sudden ending, and he openly acknowledged to The Commissioner (Gary Bettman) and me that he wishes he had given more thought and more effort to preparing for his next career. I mean, he’s only 35 years old. He’s got much of his working life left ahead of him. He is kind of in the ‘what do I do next stage.’ And these types of programs are designed to help players who don’t wanna be in that situation and can do something to prepare for that situation in a better way.”

“We’re very excited about the partnership and what it represents, not only for the NHL and its players and staff, but what it means for Syracuse University and the individual schools and colleges that are part of the partnership,” said Jeremy Jordan, Dean of The David B. Falk College of Sport at Syracuse University. “For us at Falk College, it really represents an opportunity to engage with The League and hopefully the individual teams, in experiential learning opportunities for our students, for kind of thought leadership activities with different leaders from The NHL or their individual teams. And, of course, helping these players and staff advance their educational goals, especially as they think about the next phase of their careers.”

Of course, this partnership didn’t just materialize out of thin air. Programs as important as this rarely do. As Daly explained, “Over time, we’ve evaluated a number of similar opportunities and, for whatever reasons, we never had the right fit. I think, having evaluated this opportunity and having come together with Syracuse, it represents a good synergy and something we felt was appropriate to pursue.”

“The varying opportunities, the range of opportunities in terms of the course offerings and obviously, the discounted tuition make it valuable to our players,” Daly continued. “And I think Syracuse University, as a brand, is well recognized, even among our player community, plus a very, very strong alumni network, which this program should provide some enhanced access to. I think it all added up to kind of a positive equation.”

Along with being a widely recognizable brand, Syracuse University is also no stranger to programs like this one, having had similar partnerships with Major League Baseball’s Players Association and Major League Soccer. 

“We’ve been having conversations with different leagues,” Dean Jordan explained. We have a partnership with Major League Baseball’s Players Association. We have a partnership with MLS and we have a partnership now with The NHL, and hopefully a few more will be able to be announced soon. It really happened because of a conversation I had with a representative from Major League Baseball’s Players Association. Not about this program, but it just came up during our meeting that they have educational partnerships. And I thought this would be a great opportunity for Syracuse to be part of that. 

“We then worked with a company called AthLife, which provides professional development programming for different leagues. The NHL is one of their clients. So we got connected to The League office through their representative with AthLife. So, it started from a conversation, but then there was a connection with another partner that The NHL had. When we spoke with the representatives of AthLife about our educational programs here and how they could fit with The NHL, they thought it would be a great fit. And it ended up working for both sides.”

While this partnership was only just announced on October 14th, there has already been some positive feedback from the most important party – The NHL players. 

According to Daly, “As a matter of fact, I was updated on that (last Wednesday). We actually had a player development quarterly call with each of our player development contacts in the 32 clubs. This was very well received by the player base, and I think there’s a number of players pursuing it already. We actually even had an ex-player read about the program in the release that we issued and contacted us affirmatively to come visit the office and talk through the opportunities in this program, but also other player development opportunities. So the early results have been very well received.”

Yes, you read that right, players are already pursuing this program. But don’t worry, it won’t interfere with their nightly on-ice playing responsibilities. 

“It’s a full-time job being an NHL player,” said Daly. “There’s a lot of travel involved, but the travel and the time they spend in hotels, particularly when they’re on the road, do present an opportunity for them to use that free time to do other things. A large segment of our player population kind of told us that this is something they could do and utilize side by side to their full-time job on the ice.”

This is also a very good time for NHL players to take advantage of this program, as Syracuse University has quite a lot to offer.

“We’re the only research-intensive university that has an independent college focused just on sport-related academic programs,” Dean Jordan explained. “And so, part of our strategy moving forward is creating these high-impact partnerships with leading sports organizations. The launch of the new college, combined with the existing structure and programs that are already in place in Syracuse, working with our College of Professional Studies, our Whitman School of Management and our new Newhouse School of Public Communication, all of those things together really made it the ideal time to pursue this partnership. 

“The other piece of this is that Syracuse, for a very long time, has had programs for veterans and military family members. This program with The NHL is really modeled off of how they set it up for veterans and their families: a group that has high flexibility needs. They start in and start out in terms of academic programs based on their military schedules. And so we were pretty confident that we could replicate that model with sports leagues.”

All of those options will potentially help players in a wide variety of pursuits once their playing days are over. They won’t be limited to just coaching or scouting. With the courses and degrees or certificates they obtain through this program, they can go into any number of areas.

“A lot of the course subjects would be purely business,” said Daly. “But I think a lot of them are also the types of subjects that could relate to jobs in hockey and managerial roles in hockey and obviously coaching roles in hockey. There’s a good broad mix here. Some, as you indicate, are kind of exclusively business, but a lot that would also relate to jobs in hockey generally, or in the National Hockey League.”

“One of the strengths of the partnership is that we have different educational opportunities,” added Dean Jordan. “You may have some players who need to finish their undergraduate degree. So, one of the great things about working with our College of Professional Studies is that students are able to transfer in a lot of the credits they’ve done at other institutions. That may be a priority for some of the players. 

“We also offer graduate programs for players or league staff who already have an undergraduate degree, but are thinking about some kind of graduate program to advance their careers. And then, the other thing that’s part of it is we have these non-credit-bearing certificates or badges. So, you could take a class in sport analytics or AI or something else and again, it’s not necessarily leading to a degree, but it’s enhancing someone’s professional development. So I think the variety of offerings, the flexibility and how they’re structured really make this program attractive to these leagues and their teams.”

Attractive indeed. And thus we now know how The NHL and Syracuse University managed to come together to create this new program, and we’ve been thoroughly educated on what it offers.