[fotze2]

Know someone who has loked at buying a junior team in the west (AJ, BCH, or WHL) and looking at the their books, they do not make much money if at all. There are the rich teams owned by extremely wealthy people that subsidize the operations. i.e. Kamloops, Seattle TBirds, Blackfalds, etc, but that is the exception. But there are a tonne of very 'scraping by' teams.

...that said, these "businesses" should not be able to have as much control over people they are not paying. It sure wouldn't be allowed if it was adults.

I agree sleeping in their own bed is way preferable but the competition is so spread out as is the talent base, there really is no other better way for this to happen.

You would need a superleague of sorts to somehow corral the talent into teams and there would still be kids who couldn't sleep in their beds. Dauphin Manitoba isn't going to be a super team.

The current system, as massively flawed as it is, is the best there is. There's a reason Brooks bandits is made up of primarily non-albertan kids. American kids or european kids or Ontario kids are moving to (Alberta's anus) because its the best situation they could find for their rockstar kid.

There is this trope in hockey that a great kid will be found no matter what. Yes the exceptional kid probably will, but what about the other 98% of elite players. Why in the world is Landon Dupont not playing with the Calgary Royals. Because they suck and his competition would suck and every expert hockey person (the ones who are paid) recommend he needs to play with and against way better competition.

Everyone in this area of the world says that getting drafted beyond the 2nd round in the dub draft is a negative for the player and it makes total sense. At that point its ideal to be the best player not drafted to a team. Now you have all the choices and not doomed to live in Prince Albert.