OT - CHL Memorial Cup
I apoligize for my ignorance. I watched the Windsor Spitfires beat up on the Calagary Hitmen last night. Is the CHL (OHL) a "professional" league? That is, do these "kids" get paid to play even though most are (or will be) NHL draft picks? Is the CHL equivalant to the AHL? That said, the Spits have some really good players.
On a side note; I find it kind of interesting that a team named after a British WWII fighter has a moniker that resembles a P-40 Warhawk (American WWII fighter).
It's Tier-1 Juniors, meaning the players are still considered amateur, but lose their amateur status and can not then play college hockey since they receive boarding and stipends.
They can't play college hockey in the USA. In Canada they are welcome to play university hockey after their CHL days. I know this first hand because I did.
Or the Goodyear Blimp...
For the purposes of NCAA eligibility, they are considered professional, and playing in an OHL game will burn your NCAA eligibility. That makes the NCAA and OHL "competitors" for players so to speak, and the sparring between the two actually runs relatively deep.
They do not get extra money for compensation, but they are given an allowance for living expenses. I am sure this is where the murdering of eligibility happens. The OHL also tries to make potential players believe they can get a good education by giving players that so desire it an allowance for going to college, but compared to going to a university to play college hockey, this is a straight up joke.
They are not equivelant to the AHL. The OHL is considered a junior "professional" league that develops prospective players for playing in the NHL some day. The AHL is a true professional team that just straight up pays you, rather then giving you living compensation (Not that the two are all that different in reality, but the AHL pays better, I'm sure).
All that being said, the OHL can go to the artic circle and freeze to death for all I care. As a Michigan fan, and a general college hockey fan, I don't like that this league plucks potential players away (Like Jack Campbell), sometimes with the bait that they can get a good education playing in the OHL, too, which is simply bogus.
Here's an article on education that sums it up pretty well:
the spits but they lost a couple of good players to michigan over the years... the ones that i know off of the top of my head are montoya and tj... there are a couple of more but i can't think of who they are... there were rumors in the ohl that montoya was going to leave after his sophmore year at michigan and go play for the spits, but he didn't because someone close the hockey program had a "talk" with him and convinced him to stay at michigan...
Correct me if I am wrong, but don't the OHL teams draft kids, knowing that they have committed to play in the NCAA? To say that they "lost" Montoya and Hensick because these kids made a commitment to Michigan and the Spitfires drafted them anyway, hopeing to lure them away from NCAA and into the OHL is ludicrous. Windsor knows that these guys have said they are going to Michigan or some other college and then they will draft them and try to lure them away. Isn't this what happened to Czarnik? He wasn't getting the playing time at UM and Plymouth told him that Red didn't know what he had and that if he were playing for them, he would have plenty of PT and improve his chances of making the NHL.
Are you saying that if Czarnik had stayed at UM, that Plymouth would have "lost" Robbie to Michigan?
The kids in Canadian major junior hockey get paid like a $50 stipend... or $300,000 under the table, depending who you ask. While it's pretty much kids 16-20 years old (like the USHL Tier-I junior hockey league in the U.S.), the NCAA considers it a professional league due to that $50 stipend they get paid.
The AHL is a higher level of play. You're basically taking the best kids from college and major junior who aren't NHL ready and sticking them in one league, with players ranging from probably 20 years old to... how old is Chelios now? He played in the league this past season, I believe.
And yes, the Spits have a pretty loaded team. Taylor Hall will most likely be the #1 pick in the NHL draft, and Cam Fowler should be a top five pick. It's also sadly where former U-M goaltender commit Jack Campbell will be playing next season.
Thanks for the replies.
'do these "kids" get paid to play even though most are (or will be) NHL draft picks?'
Most are not NHL draft picks, maybe 2 or three per team. I played 3 years in CHL going to 2 Memorial cups and the pay is insignificant. $50/week. Where there is a little wiggle room is some of the high draft picks negotiate through their agents better education packages then the mandatory ones give to most players.
Standard when I played was like $5000 toward education for every year played in CHL. The catch is it had to be initiated within 1 year from your last junior game and had to be at a Canadian school only. So guys that went on to the ECHL, Europe or elsewhere would lose their education packages. Top picks would negotiate a higher dollar value/year and also get it held for a long time so that it had a chance at being used.
you play for if you don't mind me asking??? also you are correct about the education packages... there were a couple of spits that i knew that went straight to school as soon as their playing days with windsor were over... there were also a few guys from the spits that were never going to see a day in the nhl but decided to try the ahl and echl...
Belleville Bulls in the 1999 season and Halifax Mooseheads the 2000 season. Our 4th line in Belleville had 2 players go on to play games in the NHL (Kris Newbury and Nate Robinson) and the 3rd player led the OHL in scoring later in his career. Our 3rd line had future Rocket Richard winner Jon Cheechoo. We had some awesome offense.
That's a pretty good group of players you played with on those teams. What, a little over a dozen players off of those two teams ended up reaching the NHL? Awesome offense on the Belleville team, like you said. Too bad you didn't have any goaltending. It's interesting that you played with two of the biggest enigmas currently playing in the NHL right now: Cheechoo and Leclaire. Those are two players I'd love to see put it back together.
you could be traded from the ohl to the Q... or did something else happen to get you out to halifax???