Junior hockey boss raps NHLdraft plan

Abstract

If the NHL's hands were tied legally, as they maintain, [Ed Chynoweth] said, why didn't they make the deterrent for drafting under-age as difficult as possible? For instance, why isn't the compensation more like $100,000? I just hope they realize what they've done. And what about that lawsuit nonsense. They've been sued so often that why didn't they just tell the next guy launching a suit to stand in line?

Junior hockey boss raps NHLdraft plan

Wednesday, June 27, 1979

Donald Ramsay

Toronto ON -- By DONALD RAMSAY A National Hockey League draft of teen-aged players, ratified yesterday at board-of-governors meetings in New York, is a damaging blow that could prove fatal to junior hockey in Canada, a high-ranking junior hockey executive says.

Ed Chynoweth, chairman of the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League, said the NHL's decision to draft under-aged players - those younger than 20 years old - will take top gate attractions and leave junior hockey operators in deeper financial trouble than they already are.

They're totally blind. I don't think the NHL even realizes that they are the direct benefactor of the junior development system, Chynoweth said after NHL president John Ziegler announced the decision.

They're cutting off their lifeline, and I don't even think they realize it. In 1974, when the pros drafted under-age, we felt the effects for a couple of years. Our top gate attractions went and our crowds fell off. We are not exactly the most solvent business in the world, you know.

In endorsing the under-age draft, the owners were buckling under intense legal pressure. Arthur C. Kaminsky, an agent and lawyer, had threatened to take the NHL to court if the league failed to include under-aged players in the Aug. 9 draft. Kaminsky was ready to test the legal validity of the draft with client Tom McCarthy, an exceptional forward who played last season with Oshawa Generals.

Kaminsky already has gone to court on the under-age issue. In 1977, a U.S. District Court in Hartford ruled in favor of Ken Linseman, a Kaminsky client then playing under-age with Birmingham Bulls of the World Hockey Association. The court ruled that prohibiting teen-agers from playing professionally violated U.S. anti-trust laws.

The under-age draft will become effective in two-steps, within the framework of the regular amateur draft of 20-year-olds. Clubs will be allowed to include 19-year-olds this season, and both 18- and 19-year-olds in 1980.

The draft, to be renamed the National Hockey League entry draft, will be restricted to six-rounds. If an under-age player signed an NHL club fails to make the club, he must first be offered back to his junior club before being offered to an NHL club's minor-league affiliate.

We have addressed ourselves to everyone who can be contracted legally, those players 18 years of age and over, Ziegler said. We tried our best not to hurt junior hockey, but we do anticipate a mixed reaction.

The owners will be meeting with the players Aug. 7 and 8 in Toronto. By that time, we hope that our entry-draft committee will have everything formulated. We're going to the players because this is a matter of collective bargaining.

We have changed the name of the draft because we did not believe the amateur label was descriptive. I hope the junior people understand what we had to do because of the circumstances in which we were placed.

The NHL clubs will pay the juniors $40,000 for each under-age player they select and sign, a formula agreed upon when the NHL staged its amateur draft in 1974.

If the NHL's hands were tied legally, as they maintain, Chynoweth said, why didn't they make the deterrent for drafting under-age as difficult as possible? For instance, why isn't the compensation more like $100,000? I just hope they realize what they've done. And what about that lawsuit nonsense. They've been sued so often that why didn't they just tell the next guy launching a suit to stand in line? The top 19-year-old players in this draft will be McCarthy, Lorrie Boschman of Brandon Wheat Kings and defenceman Keith Brown of Portland Winter Hawks.