Former CHL players are asking a judge to ban major junior league drafts

Two former Western Hockey League players involved in a lawsuit seeking to end junior ice hockey’s prep school recruiting system have detailed their experiences playing in the WHL in affidavits and argue that prospective players should have the right to decide which teams they play for play.

Isaiah DiLaura and Tanner Gould are plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in February in U.S. District Court in New York seeking to improve rights and compensation for Canadian Hockey League players.

A request to U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett to approve a preliminary injunction to eliminate annual player drafts for the WHL, Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, or at least force the leagues to sign collective bargaining agreements with their players, was filed on September 21.

The leagues have until December 4 to submit their responses. An in-person hearing to discuss the application is scheduled for Jan. 27.

In their motion, the plaintiffs asked Garnett to sign an injunction that prohibits major teams and junior leagues from allocating any territory as “protected” to any team, prevents leagues and teams from conducting any drafts, and prevents teams from enforcing any contractual terms binding a player for more than one season. The plaintiffs also asked Garnett to prevent the teams from boycotting or retaliating against any player who participates in the lawsuit or is believed to support the lawsuit.

The CHL continues to seek dismissal of the case, arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction because there are no major junior teams in New York. Plaintiffs denied that CHL teams routinely participate in development camps in New York and that OHL teams select and sign in-state players.

“I think the plaintiffs have established a number of business connections with New York and there is a strong likelihood that the judge will allow the case to proceed,” Jodi Balsam, a former NFL lawyer who now teaches sports law at Brooklyn Law School in New York, said in an interview TSN after reviewing the CHL case files.

The judge presiding over the case has not yet commented on CHL’s motion to dismiss the judgment. CHL president Dan MacKenzie did not respond to a request for comment. None of the allegations against CHL or its teams have been investigated in court.

The plaintiffs argued that the junior ice hockey rules violated U.S. antitrust laws. The lawsuit alleged that the current system operates like a cartel and cheats players by depriving them of “freedom of choice, freedom of movement and freedom to play for the club of their choice.”

The CHL and NHL argue that U.S. antitrust laws do not apply to the case because the damages allegedly caused by the leagues’ conduct are incurred in Canada.

The lawsuit alleges that standard player contracts offered by CHL teams “are presented to drafted players on a take-it-or-leave-it basis – if a player “does not agree to it,” he is permanently barred from playing major junior hockey in any club in any of the three independent major junior leagues.”

“As a result, clubs routinely place players on ‘protected lists’ if they suffer injuries or are unwilling to accept the way they are treated, which endangers and often destroys their hockey careers,” the lawsuit reads. “Professional sports are replete with examples of players whose talents languished until they could move to a more suitable environment where their careers suddenly blossomed. But top junior players don’t have comparable freedom to get out of a bad situation.

The lawsuit seeks to reform the all-important junior hockey and create a system more like NCAA hockey, where players can choose the school they want to play for, where players cannot be traded and where players, if they so choose, can transfer to another school without consent the school they leave.

DiLaura, a goaltender, played 54 games in three Western Hockey League seasons with Prince George, Portland and Swift Current. He finished his hockey career with the Maryland Black Bears of the North American Hockey League during the Covid-19-shortened 2020-21 season.

In his Sept. 13 statement, DiLaura wrote that WHL scouts first noticed and contacted him when he was 13 and playing hockey in Lakeville, Minnesota. As a 15-year-old, he was selected in the eighth round of the 2015 WHL Bantam Draft by the Prince George Cougars.

Two years later, DiLaura signed a contract with the Cougars, which played its games in a city 25 hours away from his family home. Despite the distance, DiLaura wrote that he had no choice about playing for other CHL teams closer to home. Minnesota players could only be drafted to the WHL, and the Cougars acquired his rights after drafting him.

DiLaura enrolled at Prince George High School, and although the school had a coordinator assigned “to supervise us,” she “did not allow much of our attendance and assignments to decline,” he wrote. “On game days, the team generally preferred us to go home and rest rather than participate in activities.”

DiLaura wrote that during his second season in Prince George, he requested a trade after the general manager who signed him was fired and the coach he played for in his first season then left.

“I still felt that playing in the NHL was a possibility, so I asked to be traded to a team that would give me more playing time,” he wrote. “Instead of being sold, I was punished for asking questions and given a two-month ban. I had no choice but to endure it because I had no other choice. “I couldn’t leave Prince George without jeopardizing my hockey career, and I personally couldn’t talk to any other team to request a trade or see if they were otherwise interested in me.”

A Calgary native, Gould wrote in his Sept. 19 statement that he signed with the Americans after the team selected him in the third round of the 2020 WHL draft.

“There was a strict rule in Tricity that we weren’t allowed to do homework on game days,” Gould wrote. “It was the coach’s recommendation and even the families in our billets were instructed not to encourage studying on home game days.”

Gould wrote that five games into the 2021-22 season, he seriously injured his back during one game. The next day he couldn’t get out of bed.

“The coach told me to come to the ice rink for training, but I had trouble walking,” he wrote. “Before training, I was assessed by our team coach and she said I looked muscular. My coach heard this and said I could skate. I was told to get out on the ice for 15 minutes to “see what it felt like,” but I was clearly in agony.

However, at the time of the injury, the U.S. team doctor was on vacation, so Gould had to wait until his back was examined, he wrote. Although he was eventually given an X-ray that showed no cracks or fractures, the doctor and radiologist recommended an MRI.

“My team didn’t give me an MRI until three months later,” Gould wrote. “In the meantime, I was told to continue my rehab training and take Advil and Tylenol. For the first month and a half of my injury, I couldn’t sit for more than 30 minutes.”

When Gould finally underwent an MRI three months later, the doctor confirmed he had a bulging disc and said there were signs of a herniated disc.

“I compare my mistreatment to how one of our starters was treated due to an injury at the same time as me,” Gould wrote. “This top player suffered an injury and the next morning our coach took him to an urgent doctor’s appointment. When I saw this, I went to the rink that same day and asked about my delayed MRI appointment, but was still told to wait with no explanation.

Tanner’s mother, Coral Gould, wrote in a statement that her son was betrayed by WHL.

“If you think of hockey as a job, no employer would treat employees the way these children are treated,” she wrote. “As young, elite athletes, their health and well-being should be our number one concern, but I haven’t seen anything to support that.

“Like Tanner, these kids show up and after recruiting feel like superstars (signing autographs, giving interviews, social media posts, etc.) and then they are treated like a commodity or a piece of meat and are so afraid to talk to anyone for fear that it might affect their chances of getting a chance. If Tanner made it to the WHL and received fair support, including proper treatment after his injury, but still didn’t make it, I wouldn’t mind it. But nothing about the way he was treated seemed fair.”

Spokespeople for the Cougars and Americans did not respond to emails seeking comment.

The NCAA is also pursuing an antitrust lawsuit over junior ice hockey after Canadian junior hockey player Rylan Masterson filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the NCAA and 10 universities in August, alleging they are violating antitrust laws by barring anyone from playing a game for a major sports team , -a junior team playing NCAA hockey.

Masterson, 19, plays for the Fort Erie Meteors of the Greater Ontario Hockey League. He played two exhibition games for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires in 2022, which cost him the right to play in the NCAA. Masterson argued in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York that the NCAA and U.S. universities are acting anticompetitively and violating antitrust laws because of the rule.