Former CHL players ask judge to stop major junior leagues from holding drafts

Two former Western Hockey League players involved in a lawsuit that is attempting to end the entry draft system in major junior hockey have detailed their experiences playing in the WHL in affidavits and argue prospective players should have the right to decide which teams they play for.

Isaiah DiLaura and Tanner Gould are involved as plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York in February seeking to improve rights and compensation for players in the Canadian Hockey League. 

A motion asking U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett to approve a preliminary injunction to eliminate the annual player drafts in the WHL, Ontario Hockey League, and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, or to at least force the leagues to sign collective bargaining agreements with their players, was filed Sept. 21.

The leagues have until Dec. 4 to file a response. An in-person hearing to discuss the motion is scheduled for Jan. 27.

The plaintiffs have asked in their motion that Garnett sign an order that restricts major junior teams and leagues from allocating any territory as “protected” to any team, stops leagues and teams from conducting any drafts, and prevents teams from enforcing any contractual terms that obliges a player beyond one season. The plaintiffs also have asked Garnett to prevent teams from boycotting or retaliating against any player who participates in or is believed to support the lawsuit.

The CHL is still trying to have the case dismissed, arguing the court has no jurisdiction because there are no major junior teams based in New York. The plaintiffs have countered that CHL teams routinely attend development camps in New York and that OHL teams draft and sign players from the state.

“I think the plaintiffs have established a number of business ties to New York and there’s a strong likelihood the judge will allow the case to move forward,” Jodi Balsam, a former NFL lawyer who now teaches sports law at Brooklyn Law School in New York, said in an interview with TSN after reviewing the filings in the CHL case.

The judge in the case has not ruled yet on the CHL’s motion to dismiss. CHL president Dan MacKenzie did not respond to a request for comment. None of the allegations against the CHL or its teams have been tested in court.

The plaintiffs have argued the rules of major junior hockey violate U.S. antitrust laws. The lawsuit alleges the current system operates as a cartel and cheats players out of “freedom of choice, freedom of movement, and freedom to play for the club of their choice.”

The CHL and NHL have argued U.S. antitrust laws don’t apply to the case because the damages allegedly caused by the leagues’ conduct are being suffered in Canada.

The lawsuit alleges that the standard player agreements offered by CHL teams “are presented to drafted players on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis – unless the player ‘takes it,’ he is forever foreclosed from playing major junior hockey, for any club in any of the three independent major junior leagues.”

“As a result, clubs routinely place players on ‘protected lists’ if they become injured or are not willing to accept how they are treated, resulting in their hockey careers being compromised and often destroyed,” the lawsuit says. “Professional sports are littered with examples of players whose talents languished until they were able to move to a more suitable environment where their careers suddenly flourished. But major junior players do not have comparable freedom to extricate themselves from a bad situation.”

The lawsuit seeks the reform of major junior hockey and is in pursuit of a system more like NCAA hockey, where players can choose which school to play for, where players cannot be traded, and where players, if they so choose, can transfer to a different school without the permission of the school they are leaving.

DiLaura, a goaltender, played in 54 games in three Western Hockey League seasons with Prince George, Portland and Swift Current. He finished his hockey career with the North American Hockey League’s Maryland Black Bears during the COVID-19-shortened 2020-21 season.

In his Sept. 13 affidavit, DiLaura wrote that he was first noticed and contacted by WHL scouts when he was 13 and playing minor hockey in Lakeville, Minn. As a 15-year-old, he was selected in the eighth round of the 2015 WHL bantam draft by the Prince George Cougars.

Two years later, DiLaura signed with the Cougars, who played their home games in a city that was a 25-hour drive away from his family home. Despite the distance, DiLaura wrote he did not have a choice to play for other CHL teams closer to home. Players from Minnesota were only eligible to be drafted into the WHL, and the Cougars owned his rights after they drafted him.

DiLaura enrolled in a Prince George high school and while there was a coordinator at the school who was assigned “to stay on top of us,” she “let a lot of our attendance and assignments slide,” he wrote. "On game days, the team generally preferred that we go home and rest rather than attend classes.”

DiLaura wrote that during his second season in Prince George, he asked for a trade after the general manager who signed him had been fired and the coach he played for in his first season and moved on.

“I still felt that playing in the NHL was a real possibility, so I requested a trade to a team that would allow me more playing time,” he wrote. “Instead of being traded, I was penalized for asking and benched for two months. I had no choice but bear this because I had no options. I couldn’t leave Prince George without jeopardizing my hockey career, and I personally couldn’t talk to any other teams to ask for a trade or see if there was any other interest in me.”

Gould, who is from Calgary, wrote in his Sept. 19 affidavit that he signed with the Americans after the team selected him in the third round of the 2020 WHL draft.

“Tri City had a strict rule that we were not allowed to do schoolwork on game days,” Gould wrote. “This was a directive from the coach and even our billet families were instructed not to encourage school on home game days.”

Gould wrote that five games into the 2021-22 season, he seriously injured his back in a game. The following day, he couldn’t get out of bed.

“My coach made me come to the rink for practice, but I was having trouble even walking,” he wrote. “I was assessed by our team trainer before practice, and she said it looked to be muscular. My coach heard that and said I could skate. I was told to go out on the ice for 15 minutes to ‘see how it feels,’ but was visibly in agony.”

But the Americans’ team doctor was on vacation at the time of his injury, so Gould had to wait for his back to be assessed, he wrote. While he eventually had an X-ray that showed no breaks or fractures, the doctor and a radiologist recommended an MRI.

“My team did not get me an MRI until three months later,” Gould wrote. “In the meantime, I was told to keep doing rehab workouts and to take Advil and Tylenol. I couldn’t sit down for longer than 30 minutes at a time the first month and a half I was injured.”

When Gould finally had an MRI three months later, a doctor confirmed he had a bulging disk and said that there were signs the disc may have been herniated.

“I compare my poor treatment to how one of our starter players was treated for an injury at the same time as me,” Gould wrote. “This top player got hurt and the very next morning, our trainer drove him to an urgent appointment with the doctor. When I saw that happen, that day I went to the rink and asked about my held-up MRI appointment but was still told to wait without explanation.”

Tanner’s mother, Coral Gould, wrote in her affidavit that her son was betrayed by the WHL.

“If you think of hockey like a job, no employer would treat employees the way these kids are treated,” she wrote. “As young, elite athletes, their health and welfare should be a number one concern, but I saw nothing to confirm this.

“Just like Tanner, these kids show up and after being recruited and made to feel like superstars (signing autographs, giving interviews, social media posts, etc.) and then they are treated like a commodity or a piece of meat, and they are so scared to talk to anyone for fear that it might impact their chance at an opportunity. If Tanner had gone into the WHL and been given a fair shake, including proper medical treatment when he was injured, but still had not made it, I would have been fine with that. But nothing about how he was treated felt fair.”

Spokespeople for the Cougars and Americans did not respond to emails requesting comment.

The NCAA is also fighting a junior hockey antitrust lawsuit after Canadian junior hockey player Rylan Masterson filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in August against the NCAA and 10 universities, alleging they are violating antitrust laws by preventing anyone who has played a game for a major-junior team from playing NCAA hockey.

Masterson, 19, plays for the Fort Erie Meteors of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League. In 2022, he played two exhibition games for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires, which cost him his eligibility in the NCAA. Masterson argued in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York that the NCAA and U.S. universities are anticompetitive and violate antitrust laws because of that rule.