Share
Appeared originally on January 12, 2015 in the Waterloo Region Record
By Jerry Dias
There's nothing that brings our country together like a game of hockey.
Whether it's the Olympics, a team in the Stanley Cup finals or the World Juniors, millions of Canadians are vicariously living out the excitement through our cherished players.
Cheers from the thrilling win last week by the Canadian Junior team could be heard in communities large and small across the nation. We feel such pride in our teams and so we should.
Hockey in Canada is a big money maker. Hockey Canada, with its quasi-governmental sounding name, is actually a private corporation, cashing in on the volunteer labour of young players. The World Juniors tournament, held on Canadian soil, must have grossed millions upon millions of dollars — ticket sales, merchandise, food and beverages and more. The money-making potential is limitless, with nothing going back into the pockets of the players or their families who supported them in their efforts.
Across the province, the same is true for the teams of the Ontario Hockey League. Each one is a privately owned corporation. Only the Kitchener Rangers, which is publicly owned, reports its income. Back in November, in Quebec, the junior team the Quebec Remparts was recently sold for somewhere between $20 million and $25 million. Multimedia conglomerate Quebecor scooped up the team, presumably with the plan to make a hefty profit.
And when the London Knights sell out every home game and players are giving their all for fans, it is the team owners who benefit most. The players receive nothing of the wealth they create.
Among sports leagues, this kind of cash hoarding is an anomaly. In every successful sports league, there is a redistribution of wealth, so that it can exist and flourish. It's understood that certain teams will make more money than others. Without the redistribution, teams can't pay the salaries of players, keep the lights on or build teams that have any chance of winning.
The Ontario Hockey League and similar leagues across the country create a great benefit for the communities where teams exist. They create role models for even young players and often show the best of the game. But these leagues should also be subject to scrutiny.
The Quebec Remparts example demonstrates that teams are creating considerable wealth, and players — for all of their training, commitment, energy and even injury — are seeing none of it. Many of the young men on Team Canada's Juniors will be or already have been drafted into the NHL. For them, it could be a case of a deferred payment. But these players are the small minority of the larger pool of teenagers regularly giving their all and not making into the big league.
It's time government cast their eye and regulations to the junior hockey leagues and see that players are compensated for their efforts and that money is set aside for their schooling, once their amateur hockey careers come to an end. In any other sector, they would be considered employees. League players show up each day at a designated time, to practice, to games, follow the coach's orders. They are expected to treat team membership as the first priority, above their studies and other commitments. They skate, practice and shoot their hearts out.
Across the border, a U.S. federal judge recently struck down a ban on the National Collegiate Athletic Association paying players. While the judge didn't suggest the large salaries of the pro basketball players, she did propose "a limited share of the revenues generated from the use of their names, images, and likenesses." The collegiate athletic association is big money for colleges, particularly the lucrative television rights fees, which can account for $20 million alone for some school's massive athletic departments. This judge recognized that the amateur players who are creating the wealth deserve some share of it. Canada is a much smaller market, but the principle is the same.
The OHL and other provincial leagues must live up to their reputation of being positive training grounds for young players — not the sporting sweatshops they've become.
If owners don't want to be a good sport and do so voluntarily, for the benefit of the league and the players, perhaps it's time the government stand up for players and their families.
Jerry Dias is the national president of Unifor, representing 305,000 workers right across the country in every economic sector.
