Even though many are drafted by NHL teams, men's hockey players are choosing to earn a Harvard education before going pro.

About 16 months ago, Jimmy Vesey waited nervously in his seat at Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center.

He didn’t want to be there.

The crushing experience of the year before was still too fresh. Then, Vesey had watched from the comfort of his own home as all 30 National Hockey League teams passed on the opportunity to secure the rights to sign him in his first year of eligibility.

This time, he had to experience the anxiety in person at the 50th annual NHL Entry Draft.

As the third round opened, he tensely listened for the invitation to descend the stairs to the draft floor, where his combine roommate and future teammate Brian Hart was already donning a Tampa Bay Lightning jersey and making friends with an NHL legend. The wait was getting unbearable.

And then, just like that, it happened: a voice from a team’s draft desk registered over the PA, and a name flashed on the scoreboard. With the 66th overall pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, the Nashville Predators had selected Jimmy Vesey.

COLLEGE HOCKEY ON THE RISE

Each June, NHL general managers, coaches, and scouts convene to call first dibs on about 210 of the best 18-to-20-year-old players in the world. Unlike their basketball and football counterparts, hockey prospects can enter a professional draft without losing their amateur status.

In 2013-14, 200 drafted players will compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Nine will wear Crimson.

Harvard boasts the sixth-largest contingent of NHL draft picks in college hockey with sophomore forwards Vesey and Hart, freshman forwards Alexander Kerfoot and Sean Malone, junior forwards Colin Blackwell and Petr Placek, junior defensemen Pat McNally and Max Everson; and junior goaltender Steve Michalek. They will take the ice at a time in which a collegiate route to the pros has never been a more viable option.

When Herb Brooks coached 20 American college students to the Miracle on Ice, college hockey was still considered a fringe path to the NHL. All 42 prospects picked in the first two rounds of the 1980 Entry Draft opted to forego their NCAA eligibility to play in the Canadian major junior leagues.

Times have changed. The rapid growth of youth hockey across the United States has elevated the quality of the NCAA’s go-to talent pool of American-born players. College hockey alums populate the front offices of NHL franchises. The recent MVP-level success of college players like Martin St. Louis, Jonathan Toews, Tim Thomas, and Jonathan Quick hasn’t hurt either.

“If you look back when [Harvard coach Ted Donato ‘91] was playing, the number of NHLers who came from college was probably in the ballpark of 15 percent,” said Nate Ewell, Director of Communications for College Hockey, Inc., a non-profit marketing arm of NCAA division I hockey. “If you look at the NHL now, 30 percent of players come from college.”

A record 30.5 percent of players who suited up for NHL teams in the 2011-12 season had college hockey experience. Yet the pull to go pro early remains strong, leaving prospects with important decisions.

BUILD-UP TO THE DRAFT