Wisconsin's Kerdiles Faces Eligibility Issue

Nic Kerdiles was expected to be one of the top incoming freshmen in the WCHA this year. He was drafted 36th overall in last year's NHL Draft by the Anaheim Ducks, and received five votes from the media, and one from the coaches for WCHA Rookie of the Year in preseason voting.

But Kerdiles was unable to participate in Wisconsin's season-opening exhibition win against his former team, the NTDP U18 team. Wisconsin sent out a release before the game saying that Kerdiles would not be playing due to an unspecified eligibility issue with the NCAA. According to the release, the team is working towards a solution with the NCAA, but so far, the team does not know when the issue will be resolved.

The article linked above mentions Kerdiles' reputation as a strong student, suggesting the issue isn't academic-based, though with NCAA rules being as complicated as they are, there's always the possibility for some minor step to be missed in the process. Kerdiles was also drafted by the Kelowna Rockets in the 2009 WHL Draft, so perhaps his relationship there crossed some boundary, though if it did, the difficulty in finding any information on it makes it seem minor enough that any punishments shouldn't be permanent.

Hopefully this can be cleared up quickly enough that Kerdiles doesn't miss any game time for the Badgers. They begin their season next weekend with a series against Northern Michigan, before jumping into WCHA play with a tough road series at Minnesota-Duluth two weeks later.