[Signing] Flames sign college free agent C Sam Morton

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

I see 700 g and 1300 pts by the time all is said and done.

700-1300 looks like the amount of people at a Wranglers game. yikes!

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

Raising the draft age by a two or three years would be the only way the Flames can ice a team capable of competing for a Stanley Cup.

Of course this would mean basically shutting down the draft of those 2-3 years.

Besides being illegal, can you imaging having no draft for 2-3 years, and keeping guys like Bedard out of the league.

Chicago would have won the lottery and drafted Sam Morton.

[MegaErtz]

You just raise the draft age by one month each year for the next thirty years. The NBA and NFL don’t allow players to be drafted out of high school, so I’m curious to know why it would be illegal for the NHL to do it.

Yes, we’ll miss out on the odd eighteen year old phenom once every few years, and will have to wait for him to enter the league at 21 or 22 years of age. So what? It’ll make draft picks worth way more.

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

700-1300 looks like the amount of people at a Wranglers game. yikes!

This was expected the first day of a large snow storm. Safer to not be on the roads.

[Canada 02]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

You just raise the draft age by one month each year for the next thirty years. The NBA and NFL don’t allow players to be drafted out of high school, so I’m curious to know why it would be illegal for the NHL to do it.

Yes, we’ll miss out on the odd eighteen year old phenom once every few years, and will have to wait for him to enter the league at 21 or 22 years of age. So what? It’ll make draft picks worth way more.

look up Ken Linesman and the NHL draft age

[bdubbs]

Kid looks promising so far. Hopefully he keeps it up!

[Buff]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

You just raise the draft age by one month each year for the next thirty years. The NBA and NFL don’t allow players to be drafted out of high school, so I’m curious to know why it would be illegal for the NHL to do it.

Yes, we’ll miss out on the odd eighteen year old phenom once every few years, and will have to wait for him to enter the league at 21 or 22 years of age. So what? It’ll make draft picks worth way more.

It isn't illegal by law. The CBA is what sets the draft limits. The NBA used to draft players out of high school until the CBA set that there had to be one NBA season completed after the player graduated (or intended grad class if they didn't complete high school).

The NFL's CBA states there has to be three seasons completed after graduating from high school.

Why those leagues have it set that way I'm not entirely sure. There has been suggestions every now and then for the NHL to raise the draft age but it never gets any traction. So many kids leave home at the age of 16 to play junior hockey that many of them are capable of joining the pros at 18. On the flip side, many are not. What is the best course of action to determine who needs to wait without limiting those who are ready? Not something I'm interested in deciding.

[Ba'alzamon]

Originally Posted by Buff

The NBA used to draft players out of high school until the CBA set that there had to be one NBA season completed after the player graduated (or intended grad class if they didn't complete high school).

Am I reading this wrong? They have to play in the NBA... before they can be drafted into the NBA? How does that work?

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by Ba'alzamon

Am I reading this wrong? They have to play in the NBA... before they can be drafted into the NBA? How does that work?

Yes you’re reading it wrong. You have to be one season out of high school before you’re eligible to be drafted is what it says so one NBA season must pass post graduation (or expected graduation) before you can be drafted. Worded confusingly

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Buff

It isn't illegal by law.

It's been adjudicated that it is.

The CBA is what sets the draft limits. The NBA used to draft players out of high school until the CBA set that there had to be one NBA season completed after the player graduated (or intended grad class if they didn't complete high school).

The NFL's CBA states there has to be three seasons completed after graduating from high school.

Why those leagues have it set that way I'm not entirely sure.

Because they're not allowed to come out openly and set a minimum age that is above the age of legal majority. They have to use workarounds.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

You just raise the draft age by one month each year for the next thirty years. The NBA and NFL don’t allow players to be drafted out of high school, so I’m curious to know why it would be illegal for the NHL to do it.

Yes, we’ll miss out on the odd eighteen year old phenom once every few years, and will have to wait for him to enter the league at 21 or 22 years of age. So what? It’ll make draft picks worth way more.

Because hockey players can play in the NHL prior to turning 22.

Football players aren't physically mature enough to do so.

Can you imagine if Bedard couldn't play for 3 years?

Plus, even if the players association agreed to it (they never would), UFA would likely get reduced by 3 years to compensate.

[MegaErtz]

Originally Posted by Canada 02

look up Ken Linesman and the NHL draft age

From 2017: https://thehockeynews.com/news/will-...raft-age-to-19

[sureLoss]

Capfriendly has a scouting report up if anyone is interested:

https://www.capfriendly.com/scouting...-morton-425784

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

It's been adjudicated that it is.

Do you have a link on this? I am curious to read it.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Titan2

Do you have a link on this? I am curious to read it.

Unfortunately, I read it in print many years ago – possibly a print edition of the Hockey News. I believe it was back in the 1990s.

The league tried to hammer out a compromise where 18-year-olds would specifically have to opt into the draft, and then could only be taken in the first three rounds. Somebody or other threatened to sue them for age discrimination, citing precedent that a private business can't refuse to hire legal adults on the grounds of their age. The league folded, as I recall, without fighting the matter any further, and the draft age stayed at 18.

I do know that the grounds for the threatened suit were specifically about discrimination, and not based on either general labour law or anti-trust law. Those people who say that labour and anti-trust law don't forbid a higher draft age are simply looking in the wrong place.

I firmly believe that the NFL and NBA rules (X years out of high school before being eligible) are designed to limit the draft without mentioning a specific age and thus risking a suit for discrimination. If the NHL does try to raise the draft age, it will have to go about it in a similar way.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by Titan2

Do you have a link on this? I am curious to read it.

From the link MegaErtz shared....

If the NHL does want to implement a 19-year-old draft, it’s going to get far more resistance from the NHL Players’ Association than it is from the legal system. The reason for that is the non-statutory labor exemption that allows labor law to trump anti-trust law. So as long is there is a collective bargaining relationship, which there is in the NHL, then labor law wins the day.

There have been challenges to draft rules and plenty of precedent to suggest those challenges fail. In 2004, running back Maurice Clarett of Ohio State University challenged the NFL’s rule that a player had to be three years removed from high school to be drafted. He won in federal court, but the decision was later overturned in appeals court before the Supreme Court refused to review the case.

“The court is basically saying, ‘We want to encourage collective bargaining and in order to do it we have to protect the fruits of collective bargaining or the entire process of collective bargaining, so we won’t let anti-trust law interfere with it,’ ” said Gabe Feldman, an associate professor and director of sports law at Tulane University.

I'm no expert but from that it doesn't seem to be illegal as the courts defer to whatever is in the CBA and whatever is negotiated between the union and league is what the courts support and encourage.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Groot

I'm no expert but from that it doesn't seem to be illegal as the courts defer to whatever is in the CBA and whatever is negotiated between the union and league is what the courts support and encourage.

It's considerably trickier in the NHL, where there are two countries and two legal systems to contend with.

[MegaErtz]

The NBA operates in both countries, and their draft age is 19.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

The NBA operates in both countries, and their draft age is 19.

They have only one team in Canada, and I believe none of their corporate operations are based here.