UMD lands first major junior recruit since NCAA lifts ban

DULUTH — Grayden Siepmann, a 20-year-old defenseman from Windsor, Ontario, has verbally committed to play for Minnesota Duluth in 2025-26.

It’s a historic commitment for the Bulldogs.

Siepmann plays for the Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League, one of three major junior leagues that make up the Canadian Hockey League. NCAA teams were banned from recruiting CHL players until fall 2024, when the ban was lifted.

Major junior players, like Siepmann, will be allowed in the NCAA starting with the 2025-26 season.

Siepmann has spent the previous five seasons in the WHL playing for the Calgary Hitmen, who drafted him as a bantam in 2019 at No. 13 overall, and Blades, where he has accumulated over 100 points in over 230 major junior games. He has three goals and 15 assists through 21 games this year after registering 17 assists for the Blades in 2023-24.

The 5-foot-11, 181-pound Siepmann posted nine goals and 34 assists in 2022-23 with Calgary after playing for Canada’s Under-18 Men’s National Team at the IIHF Under 18 Men’s World Championship in the spring of 2022.

Siepmann was invited to an NHL rookie camp this fall — where major junior players can participate — by the Utah Hockey Club (formerly the Arizona Coyotes). He had been ineligible to play NCAA hockey since starting his major junior career with the Hitmen in 2020-21.

Major junior hockey players had been off limits to college teams in the United States since the 1980s because the NCAA considered them to be professionals. Major junior players in Canada receive a stipend and some players in the league have already signed NHL contracts. Those who have signed NHL deals remain ineligible to play in the NCAA.

Siepmann will not be the first major junior hockey player to ever play for the Bulldogs. Among those who played major junior before coming to UMD include former captains Walt Ledingham (Weyburn Red Wings, CMJHL) and Bill Oleksuk (New Westminster Bruins, WCHL). A former assistant captain, Cam Fryer, played for the Saskatoon Blades.

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