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 |
Just wanted to expand on this topic by posting a link to an episode of the podcast Commons. A couple seasons ago they spent an episode exploring this very issue in the CHL.
https://www.canadalandshow.com/podca...hall-of-shame/
The link includes an audio file as well as a handful of articles referenced in the show. Worth listening to.