HOCK.ly - Future of Hockey Content June 25, 2013 | Page 27

WELCOME

TO THE

CHL

CIRCUS

BY JESS RUBENSTEIN

The Canadian Hockey League proudly tells anyone who will listen that they are the biggest suppliers of players to the National Hockey League. Most hockey fans in the United States really don’t know a whole lot about the teams that they normally call the Canadian juniors. Forget the NHL lockout as nobody had a more entertaining year than the 60 teams playing in the 3 leagues that make up the CHL. For some of us in the hockey media there were times when we wondered if the “C” in CHL stood for circus considering some of what went on during the 2012-2013 hockey season.

Every year there is an annual “war of words” between supporters of US college hockey and those who support the CHL. The NCAA fans would claim that the CHL teams paid players under the table and CHL fans would say prove it. Well NCAA supporters kind of got their wish as two CHL teams were hit with sanctions by their respective leagues for improper benefits to players. The Windsor Spitfires of the OHL in August were hit with a $400,000 dollar fine, loss of first round picks in the 2013, 2014 and 2016 as well as second-round selections in 2015 and 2017 in the OHL draft.

The Spitfires denied all allegations and promised to appeal what was called at the time the harshest penalty in the history of the OHL. But what exactly did the Spitfires do even today remains unknown because neither the OHL nor the Spitfires have ever said what rules were broken or who was involved. In fact when it came time for the Spitfires to appeal, nobody knew how the appeal process was supposed to work because nobody had ever been found to have broken whatever rules the Spitfires had broken. Eventually the OHL and the Spitfires found a way to work things out with the Spitfires acknowledging that they had broken whatever rules that they were accused of breaking.

The OHL then reduced the penalty to $250,000, the loss of first round picks in 2013 and 2016, second round picks in 2015 and 2017. The Spitfires also said they would not appeal the punishment either.

In November, it was the WHL’s turn as the Portland Winterhawks got smacked hard by the WHL for improper player benefits. The WHL took away the picks in the first five rounds in the e 2013 WHL Bantam Draft as well as first round picks in the 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 WHL Bantam Drafts. The WHL hit them with a $200,000 fine but the biggest blow had to be suspending the Winterhawk’s General Manager and Head Coach Mike Johnston for the rest of the 2012-13 season, including the 2013 WHL Playoffs.

The Winterhawks responded with this response:

The Winterhawks were found to have committed the following violations:

• A player contract signed in 2009, involving flights for the player’s family and a summer training program

• Over the last five years, seven families were provided flights 2-4 times per season based on financial need and their distance from Portland

• Twice in the last five years the team paid for two players to each have a one-week summer training regimen

• The Winterhawks provided a cell phone for its team captain for a period of three seasons

The WHL’s audit found no violations involving monetary payments made to players, their families or agents, or any violations related to the league’s educational packages.

“After fully cooperating with the league’s investigation, we were extremely surprised at the excessive nature of the sanctions, and we don’t feel they are in line with the scope of the violations we were found to have committed,” said Johnston.

“We believe that apart from recruiting trips and parents’ weekend, there is no prohibition in the rules governing flights for players’ parents, which were the majority of the infractions,” continued Johnston. “We are currently exploring our options on how we will proceed. Despite our objections, the league has made its decision, and our players will continue to pursue the goal of winning a WHL championship.”

At first glance it is hard to see why these were considered major infractions if they were based upon financial need as not every family that has a child playing in any CHL league can afford to support the player and be able to visit them. Giving the team captain a cell phone sounds like a common sense move since he does conduct team business away from the ice at times.

The CHL say they want a level playing field for all 60 teams when they call these sanctions as serious violations. They claim that many teams can’t afford to be able to provide “extra benefits” but never respond when asked why they the CHL are not finding ways to offer these benefits then. Ah but don’t feel too sorry for the Winterhawks as they would gain the support of the Portland Oregon area improving attendance and then winning the WHL Championship.

A recap of the “CHL circus” would be remiss if one did not mention the attempt to form a CHL player’s union. The 2012-2013 season had not even started when at the end of August something calling itself the CHLPA (Canadian Hockey League Players Association and no nothing to do with the NHLPA) announced plans to form a player’s union for those playing in the three CHL leagues. The reasons for saying “something” rather than a group or an individual will become clearer soon enough. The goals were noble on the surface, looking to improve the education package that the players received for playing in the CHL. Changing how said education plans were enforced to allow players a longer time to be able to use said benefits. Those were areas where many of us involved in the junior hockey world agreed needed improvements so support for the cause gained steam pretty quickly.

The CHLPA announced former NHL player George Laraque as their executive director and they claimed they had signed cards from players all over Canada. A number of Canadian law firms came on board to help the CHLPA gain recognition because they too wanted to help the players. As time went on though trying to find out who was behind the CHLPA became an issue. Repeated requests for interviews with the CHLPA leadership were ignored and even the players who the CHLPA claimed was supporting them said they had little to no information on the group.

This went on for almost 2 months until players started complaining about late night phone calls or people claiming to represent the union wanting the players to sign up without knowing what they were signing up for. The less known about those running the CHLPA, the more that both the hockey media and the CHL wanted to find out this now critical information. All over Canada, media members started investigating trying to determine who was running the CHLPA. The CHL itself acknowledged that they had hired private investigators to try to determine the identities of those involved.

By Halloween, the CHLPA’s support fell apart when allegations that the main person involved with the union was a man who had been convicted of defrauding hockey players in the past. When that information came out, the law firms who were trying to gain recognition for the CHLPA withdrew from helping the union. To be honest, even today almost a year later there remains no 100% clear identity as to who was the force behind the CHLPA.

The only thing many do agree upon is that a chance to force reforms to the education plans for the CHL players was lost. That sadly is a shame as at the very least one would have hoped to see the CHL realize that there is a movement that does want to see some changes made to the education program.

Of course no circus would be complete if it did not have its 3rd ring and for the CHL that would be the recently announced decision that after the first round of the upcoming CHL Import Draft that no team would be allowed to select a European goaltender. Any goaltender that still has eligibility will be allowed to play in the CHL until he exhausts said eligibility.

The move which the CHL made after consulting with Hockey Canada is an attempt to improve the quality of Canadian born goaltenders. Somehow the CHL and Hockey Canada has this idea that this is a good way to respond to what has been a drop in quality from Canadian goalies. The banning does not extend to American born goalies just those from European countries.

Somehow preventing what was on the average of fewer than a dozen foreign born goalies from playing in the CHL would in turn help Canada develop better quality goalies. The logic behind the move escapes those of us who are left scratching our heads wondering who came up with such a dumb idea. Yes countries like the USA, Sweden and Finland have made major strides in the improvement and development of goalies but they did it the right way by investing in programs to improve their goalies.

Instead of banning Europeans, Hockey Canada and the CHL should look at what other nations have done and spend the money needed to develop better goalies. Instead of a ban, the 2 groups should be helping parents defray the cost of being a goalie these days (most estimate it at $4,000 a year). The CHL and Hockey Canada are extremely quiet about the status of American born goalies not mentioning that they too are foreign born goalies.

Oh and this level playing field that the CHL claims they want for all 60 of their teams? They forgot about a disclaimer which says the level being used is how much cash they can make out of a situation. The 2014 Memorial Cup will be hosted by an OHL team so let’s see who can guess which team got the bid.

Was it Barrie (4195), Windsor (6500) or London (9100)? Those numbers were of course how many seats each team had in their arena so who was shocked to learn that it was London who got the Memorial Cup? London getting to host the event even though they hosted it in 2005 as the “deciding factor” was that they would be returning as many as 22 players next season.

Sorry but having more seating was a more believable answer as the level playing field is how much cash they can make off the event. Wait until they discover that London has an American goalie on their roster.

The show will go on.

"But, for some of us who have witnessed the passing of a player in person, these deaths are not just statistics, but are truly tragedies. It is a wake-up call that forces us to be more aware of the sanctity of life."

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