Rankings of US Hockey Leagues?

According to the latest collective bargaining agreement between the owners and NHL Players Association. there are a total of 3 levels of professional hockey. The top league is the National Hockey League, the next level down is the American Hockey League, the lowest level of professional hockey is the ECHL. Here is a "Copy and Paste" from Wikipedia regarding the hockey ladder: Minor hockey[edit]

Main article: Minor ice hockey

Minor hockey in the United States is played below the junior age level (16 years old). Players are classified by age, with each age group playing in its own league. The rules, especially as it relates to body contact, vary from class to class. Unlike most American sports, athletes participate as part of clubs as opposed to schools.

Junior and Major Junior hockey[edit]

Main article: Junior ice hockey

Junior hockey is played by athletes between 16 and 20 years old. The leagues are normally organized on a franchise system, and can play many more games than are normally played at the high school or college level. Major Junior hockey is organized into three leagues run by the Canadian Hockey League with most teams in Canada, but with teams in the states of Maine, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington. Major Junior players lose NCAA eligibility because they have agents, sign contracts and are given stipends.[1] Two "Junior A" leagues based in the United States, USHL and NAHL, are run in a similar fashion to the Major Junior teams except that the players keep NCAA eligibility. The majority of current NHL players played Major Junior hockey. For a while, some NHL teams had agreements with amateur teams to help them develop players that would later play professionally, however this practice was stopped when the NHL expanded in 1967.

High school hockey[edit]

High schools in some states compete in sanctioned ice hockey leagues sponsored by State High School Association while other state compete in leagues not sponsored by their State High School Association. Typically, sponsored leagues exist in regions where ice hockey is traditionally popular, such as the Great Lakes Region (e.g., Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio) and the New England Region (e.g., Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island) while non-sponsored leagues typically exist in less traditional ice hockey regions, such as the Southeast Region and Rocky Mountain Region. However, some exceptions do exist, such as Colorado having a sponsored league and Illinois having a non-sponsored league.[2]

College hockey[edit]

Main article: College ice hockey

Ice hockey's role within the United States college athletics system is closest to college baseball in that most NHL hockey players play Major Junior hockey, and so aren't eligible for NCAA play. The NCAA currently has two divisions for ice hockey, Division I and Division III. There are multiple Division I leagues (Western Collegiate Hockey Association, Central Collegiate Hockey Association, Atlantic Hockey Association, Hockey East and ECAC Hockey) which sponsor only ice hockey. The Big Ten Conference will become the only traditional multi-sport conference to sponsor ice hockey beginning with the 2013-2014 season. With the promotion of Penn State ice hockey to NCAA Division I hockey, the Big 10 Conference elected to sponsor an ice hockey league with Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, and Wisconsin being the five other charter members. Six of the 8 Ivy Leagueschools sponsor Division I ice hockey for both sexes, but the conference does not directly operate a hockey league. The Ivy League's hockey programs compete along with those of six other schools in ECAC Hockey, with the Ivy League crowning its own champion based on performance in games involving Ivy League teams.

The separate American Collegiate Hockey Association was formed in 1991 in order to support uniform standards for college and university non-varsity club teams.

Minor league professional hockey[edit]

Main article: Minor league hockey#Ice hockey

There have been professional ice hockey leagues of varying levels since the invention of the sport, and over time the leagues have settled into an informal hierarchy. Today, the 30 teams of the American Hockey League have affiliation agreements with NHL teams, so it is considered to be the highest-level minor league. Most of the teams of the ECHL have affiliation agreements with NHL and AHL teams, and some of the Central Hockey League teams are affiliated. Players are often sent from an NHL team to an AHL team, but teams are never promoted or relegated.

Drafted ... 0% ... kids that play DIII are usually at least 20/21 ... so by the time they are done they are in their mid 20's and just signed as a free agent

DIII hockey must be pretty bad hockey

There has never been a play drafted out of Div III Hockey.