So tonight’s issue at hand looks at the lingering impact
that the European hockey players are having on the Canadian Hockey League. The Canadian Hockey League as a whole, sans a
few Canadian communities, has never been worse in terms of revenue and media
attention it has been receiving. More
frequently than ever, club owners are continuously exploring the possibility of
relocation with a few biting the bullet in recent years. A once profitable industry has turned into a
dwindling enterprise with questions being raised regarding ways the league can
recover from this internal recession while getting it back to a point where it
was in the mid-nineties. As aforementioned
in the opening sentence, we’re going to explore how, in my opinion, Europeans
are negatively affecting the league and what actions league commissioner David
Branch can take to restore this once proud tradition.
The Canadian Hockey League, at it’s core, is a developmental
organization that is supposed to prepare young adults for the next phase of
their life, whether that be in the game of hockey or outside of the rink. I
cannot underline the importance of the league and the respective clubs to
ensure these kids are receiving a solid and fair education because ultimately,
only a select few players each year actually move on and forge a path into
professional hockey for themselves. One of the vocal points when it comes to
recruiting kids into the CHL is there signature education package. For every
year of service in the league, the player is entitled to one free year of
education. Sure, there are a couple of
loopholes and discrepancies in the agreement that don’t sit well with me, quite
possibly the most glaring being playing in one exhibition game(and take note
that playing in an exhibition game doesn’t get your name in ink on the roster),
makes that player ineligible to explore any future NCAA opportunities that
might come his/her way. To get this back to the topic at hand, and the reason I
wanted to discuss the educational agreement is because it is seldom used by the
Europeans. On average, Europeans stay in the CHL for one year and then for
reasons unbeknownst to us, realize North American hockey isn’t for them and
head back overseas. With tuition costs
seemingly sky-rocketing on a yearly basis, North American hockey parents know
how crucial a paid education can be and it can’t sit well with them that packages that top
brass knows very well will never be used couldn’t be forwarded to kids who wholeheartedly
intend to use it and attend a Canadian university.
Getting away from the financial side of the equation, as
referenced at the top of the second paragraph, the premise of the Canadian
Hockey League is to develop young adults. The Europeans who are selected in the
yearly import draft are not coming over to be developed. They are usually
eighteen/nineteen year olds who are only coming over because they view this as
the next logical step in pursuing their professional hockey dream. Too many
times over the years have I seen a European come in and take away ice time from
a sixteen/seventeen year old Canadian who is more passionate and deserving of
the opportunity and ice time then that European will ever be. The Canadian
Hockey League has a storied tradition, and quite frankly from the hundreds of
games I have watched over the years, I’ve never seen a European show true passion
on and away from the rink, which very well could be why it’s hard for the
average fan to get behind a player who doesn’t provide any, to steal a Brian Burke
trademark ”truculence”. The game has lost it’s edge, and one constant complaint
I read on forums is the lack of physicality in the CHL brand and this has
turned away many at one time loyal patrons of this Canadian tradition. The
National Hockey League has improved it’s image (at least on the ice), with a
more up tempo, hard-hitting style, something the Canadian hockey League would
be wise to replicate. Mr.Branch, allow our young North Americans to do what
they do best, play fun up beat hockey and let boys be boys.
An interesting trend that I’ve been noticing the last few
years is the growing number of Europeans who get sent home during Christmas
with no return flight. Which begs the question, is the second European spot
really necessary? With the Import draft being such a crapshoot, scoring a
successful first round selection is hard enough, hitting a home run on the
second round pick provides you with the
same amount of odds as winning the Lotto 649 in back to back weeks. With the
limited information and resources league general managers have to go off of,
one can’t fault anybody from missing the boat on the later round selection. I’ve
always been curious to why more general managers don’t swing for the fences in
the draft, especially in the second round and draft the sure fire NHLer. I
realize there’s a 98% chance player X won’t report, but are you any worse off than
having player Y come in that has the same skill and skating level of a novice
hockey player? The adage should be that
if the Euro can’t contribute in the top six or top four defenseman, he shouldn’t
be on the team. There’s absolutely no reason at all why a young Canadian who is
chopping at the bit to play should be sitting in the press box in favor of an
import. North Americans, by a general rule, are much more marketable anyway.
All other things being equal, if I was a general manager I’d favor putting in,
to use an example, a young kid from Alberta who the fans can really gravitate
too and get to know as a person off the ice as opposed to a Russian who
probably doesn’t even know where to locate Canada on the map.
Marketability is key, and the time has come for the Canadian
Hockey League to scrap the import designation rule or at the very least reduce
it. Just a suggestion here, but maybe provide the clubs with the option of
having three 20’s and two Euro’s, four and one, or if they felt obliged five
twenty year olds and no Europeans. To attract more fans to the games, the
league has to make sure the players want to be here and are willing to
sacrifice to put a great product on the ice and are willing to be visible in
their local communities. This mantra just doesn’t work if the player can’t
communicate with the public or engage in a physical brand of hockey, Something
sadly, Europeans can’t provide fans in a league that has never been more
desperate to boost it’s attendance.
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