Good news—there are plenty of scholarships available for hockey players. Excellent.

Most of these are available at public Division-I programs. However, hockey is an equivalency sport, so there aren't enough full scholarships to fill a whole squad. While full scholarships may be given to the best of the best, odds are you'll be looking at a partial ride. It's like going halfway around a merry-go-round. Sure, it's not a full ride, but it's something. And the average scholarship values fall between $16,000 and $16,500 (source).

We don't even have to break out our calculators. That's definitely something.

The D-II schools that play D-I hockey (D-II D-I schools? What?) also have scholarships available, but their average value ranges from just under $7,000 for men to $7,690 for women. And if you're at the D-III level, you're on your own since no scholarships are doled out.

Conclusion? You may get some assistance from your college of choice, but you'll need some student loans to cover the rest. That, or you'll need very supportive parents to provide some assistance because we're past the point where you could earn enough money for tuition just by flipping burgers during the summer.

So yeah, you may want to ask them to start playing the lottery now…