The whole area of eligibility is rather murky as I understand it.
Their is some committee(WCHA or NCAA?) which considers these cases.
Hockey has many more of these borderline cases than most other sports
because of the variety of hockey leagues i.e. US Junior leagues,
Canadian Junior leagues, and European leagues, as opposed to just
US high school leagues.
 
Here is what I understand about Ulvis(love his name) Katlaps.  He
did play for Dynamo Riga but the pay was equivalent to $8 per day.
I guess this is really a per diem and it was decided that this amount
did not make him a "professional".
 
Ulvis is 24 yrs old.  I donot believe there is a strict age limit.
Rather the eligibility committee looks at the number of years played
in a high level league such as Canadian Junior A or the Soviet league.
Players generally lose 1 year of college eligibility for each year
in such a league.
 
Ulvis has only one year of eligibility--this year, though, he may appeal
for another year of eligibility.  Due to the unfortunate hostilities
in his homeland of Latvia, he was not able to travel to Moscow and
take the SAT test before he entered the UW.  Due to the lack of an SAT
score the NCAA declared him a Prop 48 case last year and there went one
year of eligiblity.
 
Any corrections regarding eligibility is most welcome.  I think I have the
specifics about Katlaps correct though.
 
---mark