Quote:
Originally Posted by Jore
This reckoning is long overdue, especially at the junior levels where 15 year olds leave home to live in strangers' houses, where they're not paid minimum wage despite generating profits for the league, owners, and agents, and where they're subjected to abuse from all kinds of people in power but can't speak up for themselves because they're all trying to make careers. It is not a good system, and at the moment there does not seem to be a group looking after the player's interests that has any kind of leverage.
It's encouraging to see people speaking up individually, but a lot more needs to change.
Georges Laraque tried to form a CHL players union in 2012 with very modest demands but it got torpedoed:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/spor...rticle4851890/
The Ontario PC government in 2018 ruled that junior players don't deserve minimum wage:
https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...ws-for-workers |
I agree, everything about 15-16 year olds being pressured to leave their parents and school to play hockey seems ripe for abuse. I don't know of any other sports in North America where that is the case. There must be a better way.