So you’ve got at least a handful of talent. You don’t like having any free time. You’d like to spend your adolescence, your precious teenage years, miles away from your friends and family for 8 months. You’d love to see the great Canadian countryside by way of day-long bus rides. You like to exert all of your physical and mental energy into your job. Every. Single. Day. So you’d like to make it to The Show. And you want to do it all….. for free. Does this sound like you? You should play for the Canadian Hockey League.


Junior hockey players bust their asses, their physical AND mental asses. A minimum of 6 hours a day, 6 (sometimes all 7) days a week. Training, conditioning, practicing, meetings, promotions, traveling, games, getting home at 3 in the morning from a 12 hour bus ride from Nowhere, Saskatchewan only to have practice in the morning. All of that on top of school and the rigors of life in general. How many high school students do you know hold a full-time job AND still manage to graduate high school on time? Face it, they are half your age and probably work twice as hard as you do. And they make just enough money to put gas in their cars (and even that is arguable considering gas prices these days…. Hello, economic inflation?). The WHL for example (and this may vary slightly by organization) pays their players a minimal stipend of $100-$120 every two weeks; $300 every two weeks for overage players (each team is allowed three 20 year olds). That’s less than minimum wage…. way less. Let’s think of this as a real job for a second: if a player “works” an average of 6 hours a day, 6 days a week and gets paid say $120 every other week (72 hours), that player is making a lousy $1.66 an hour. Granted, the players receive food and shelter for free (via “billet” host families, foreign exchange student style), but they still deserve better. It’s not an easy life.


Call me crazy, or alone in this endeavor, but I’m advocating a raise for Canadian junior hockey players.


I suppose going the junior hockey route is comparable to sending your kid off to college; and parents (or whoever) are still responsible for supporting them, after all a large part of CHL players are legally still minors. So you think “does this violate some sort of child labor law?” Not really. The CHL has a loophole of sorts that offers scholarships as compensation for playing in the league, so basically it is a “program” rather than an actual job. For every year a player plays hockey for a CHL team, they receive a year at a college of their choice (Canadian colleges for Canadian players and American colleges of American players, etc). But the way I see it, junior hockey is a full time job. To put it bluntly, the CHL is in the business of hockey. The WHL, the OHL, the QMJHL are all businesses. The teams have their own GMs, owners, employees and arenas. Junior hockey is designed to be a professional-type environment. The schedule is much like that of the NHL (practices every day, games three nights a week, October through April plus playoffs), and players have the opportunity to be traded within clubs (which is not an option in college hockey). When you consider the amount of money the owners make from these franchises by way of ticket sales, corporate sponsorship, merchandise, etc etc; the players don’t see any of this. And really, the players are the team; they are making money for the organization. While I do agree that the CHL is the best in preparing a player for life as a professional, I’m just saying maybe they should be paid like one.


In a way the CHL has a hard time selling the education aspect, which was designed to attract players to the league in the first place. While the CHL is the prime source of talent to the NHL, the NCAA pretty much dominates college hockey (another huge source of NHL talent), so that leaves them competing with junior leagues like the CHL for players. Technically the CHL isn’t allowed to lure players into the league by offering them a salary. I’m not proposing a six-figure salary here, but just enough. Enough that wouldn’t necessarily deter a player from choosing junior hockey over college hockey. In my opinion, I don’t think it would make a huge difference; people make their choices for whatever reason anyway. Maybe the CHL should consider giving their players a choice. Since some of the players go on to play pro and never make it to college, or because some people just choose not to go to college all together; what if the league gave their players a choice whether they want to be compensated more money in the mean time OR choose to be paid less and have that money go towards a scholarship that will be used after their stint in juniors. Kind of like making a tax claim. It wouldn’t be fair to withhold well-earned money from someone who didn’t plan on going to college, and whom a scholarship would be wasted on. It also wouldn’t be fair to deny someone a free-ride to college if that is the path they so choose.


To me it isn’t about the battle to get whoever to play wherever. My point is that in order for the league to continue to be successful, they should take the thoughts, concerns and well-being of their players into consideration. Yes, the players definitely deserve a financial raise, but the league should also consider allowing a Junior Players Association (CHLPA?) for the purpose of raising the morale. They may be teenagers, but they are the future of the sport we love, and they have rights, too.