CHL Junior Hockey Players to Form Union

[kinot-1]

Here's some bits and pieces from the article in the Toronto Star. Mods, if there is a more fitting place for the thread, please move it there.

Full article here

http://fans.canadiens.nhl.com/community/index.php?app=forums&module=post&section=post&do=new_post&f=27

Junior hockey players forming union

CLIFFORD SKARSTEDT/THE CANADIAN PRESS CHL president and OHL commissioner David Branch said he knows little of the CHLPA which has yet to contact the league.

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A process that’s been more than a year in the making could change the face of junior hockey in Canada forever.

After working in anonymity for almost 14 months, the creation of a Canadian Hockey League Players Association, a de facto union to protect the interests of more than 1,300 junior hockey players across Canada, is close to complete.

“We’re in the process of making applications to each of the necessary labour boards,” CHLPA spokesman Derek Clarke said in an interview Monday.

The Canadian Hockey League consists of 60 teams in the Ontario Hockey League, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and Western Hockey League. Players aged 16 to 20 years old leave their homes to play for teams across the country and in the United States.

Junior hockey players currently get a $50 a week stipend — along with room and board.

“They’ve made a lot of money for a lot of people,” said Clarke.

Teams are based everywhere from small markets such as Owen Sound and Swift Current, Sask., up to larger cities such as Vancouver and Quebec City. The junior leagues are the primary producer of NHL players.

The fledgling association is taking dead aim at the educational programs put in place by the OHL, QMJHL and WHL as well as the financial windfall that goes to the CHL for all of its national and international events. The prime focus of the association would be on modifying the current educational packages available to junior players.

Educational packages vary from player to player, team to team and league to league. The new association would like to standardize those packages for all players, regardless of where they go on to play professionally, if they do.

The organization wants the package to be available for a longer period — it currently has to be used within less than two years of a player’s junior career. One hope is that it can be available at the end of whatever career a graduating junior has, said Clarke."

Also,,,BGL is named to head up the new CHLPA.

Full story here.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/1244531--georges-laraque-named-as-head-of-fledgling-junior-hockey-union