To a degree, recruiting in college athletics is like dominos. Once one school stretches the boundaries, others are sure to fall in line to avoid being left behind.

In college hockey, the boundary that's being redefined is the age that is too young to be recruited. It took a new form last week when Jordan Schmaltz -- a 14-year-old defenseman who's about to start his freshman year at Verona Area High School -- verbally committed to the University of Wisconsin, accepting the team's offer of a full scholarship.

It got people talking because it's rare in hockey for a player who hasn't even entered ninth grade to be already at the endpoint of the recruiting process instead of at the beginning.

Truth be told, though, college hockey coaches have been talking about it for a while as verbal commitments have come earlier and earlier. There just has been no consensus about how to address the issue, or whether steps even need to be taken to curtail early recruiting.

"If we all had our way and our best wish, we wouldn't have to make some of these decisions at the age we're doing it," said Seth Appert, president of the American Hockey Coaches Association and head coach at Rensselaer, the upstate New York school that is part of the Eastern College Athletic Conference.

But, in many cases, coaches are trying to one-up two sets of opponents. As in other college sports, there's pressure to beat rival schools for the best players. In hockey, there's also the Canadian major junior system that tries to lure top players away from the college route, and it doesn't have to abide by NCAA recruiting rules in doing so.

College hockey coaches are already able to contact recruits earlier than in many other sports, in part because of the battle with major junior for young talent. That's because once a kid has played even a single game in major juniors, he loses his college eligibility.

With recruiting dipping into the early teens now, other issues have developed.

Will schools keep their end of the bargain even if the player doesn't progress as projected?

What is the impact if a player who commits early can't get admitted into school?

Is it ethical to put pressure on kids as young as 14 to make a decision that could determine the course of the rest of their life?

"At 14 or 15 years old, he's not even a young man yet for the most part; he's a kid," Appert said. "Does he understand the long-term repercussions of that decision, and has he made the proper decision in terms of the school that he's looking at? Or was it just the first school that came and talked to him when he was 15 years old? Those are things that we're all concerned about."

As they relate to men's college hockey, NCAA rules limit coaches to one phone call to a recruit or his relatives per month starting June 15 after his sophomore year. Starting Aug. 1 after his junior year, that limit goes up to one call per week.

But coaches can receive calls from a recruit at any time, and that's how early recruiting gets started. NCAA recruiting rules spell out that a coach can observe players even before ninth grade.

With a rise in early commitments in its sport, the National Association of Basketball Coaches has asked its members to neither offer scholarships to, nor accept verbal commitments from, players who haven't yet completed their sophomore year of high school.