1700
Mr. David Branch: The Canadian Hockey League is
proud to be entrenched in communities across this
country as a vital part of their cultural activities
in many respects. At the focal point, as Mr. Dley
outlined in terms of the facilities, teams are
certainly an important and integral part of the economy
in those communities and surrounding areas.
We would also suggest that the Canadian Hockey League
represents a huge part of the future of this country in
terms of being responsible for developing so many of
tomorrow's leaders, whether that development takes
place in a hockey arena, in a boardroom, or in some
other activity that puts back into the community and
serves our country. As we have seen, through the power
of sport, high-performance people-which these young
men we are blessed to have in our leagues tend to
be-go on to contribute and give things back.
We would appreciate any support and consideration so
that together with you we can work toward supporting
the interests of the educational foundation that we
would ideally like to structure for the benefit of the
players so that we can continue to support their
educational needs. We hope you will explore the Prime
Minister's millennium trust fund in this regard, as Mr.
Dley pointed out. We also hope you can assist in
supporting in any way the lifestyle programs that we
provide and must continue to provide, and which only
enhance drug and alcohol programs, other lifestyle
issues, and abuse issues.
As well, we would appreciate any support that you may
provide in the interlocking portion of our plans for a
schedule. We're a little different from
professional leagues in terms of interlocking schedules.
Teams in professional leagues can go on a swing out
west and spend three to six days on the road. We're
dealing with student athletes. The reality is that if
our goal is to be realized to send Rimouski to
Medicine Hat, the team must leave on a Friday and
come back on a Sunday in order to support, accommodate,
and serve the needs of their educational interests. A
short stay like that, in which they would play one or
two games, just does not generate the necessary
resources for us to move forward with that undertaking
at this time.
We are very grateful for the opportunity to appear
before you, and we thank you for your time.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Branch.
Before I go to Madam Tremblay, who will be our first
questioner, I was asked by the Liberal whip of the
House to give you his regards. Mr. Bob Kilger is a
graduate of the Canadian Hockey League, and he very
much wanted to be here, but he could not make it
because the House is active today.
[Translation]
Ms. Tremblay.
Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: There were certainly many subjects of
discussion in the presentation you have just made. I thank you for
this presentation and for the quality of the documents that you are
providing to us. We will probably run out of time. Every one around
the table probably would like to ask questions.
There's one thing that I am very concerned about, and that's
violence in hockey. Since the beginning of this season, we have
seen Eric Lindros in the NHL-I was glad to see it was the helmet
he knocked off and not the head-get away with a hit that had
someone carried out on a stretcher. It was in all the headlines. We
read that, by the end of the season, 80 NHL players will have
suffered a concussion.
A number of these players come from your league. In late
August or early September, the newspapers were full of talk about
the make up of certain junior teams. We read that a certain player
didn't have much talent, but that he had been signed up for boxing
lessons and that this kind of player was needed as an enforcer on
the ice.
It's true that, in places like Rimouski, the arena is full and
I'm not complaining. There are a lot in Gaspésie to, and on the
North Shore, they're doing well.
1705
Things are going well almost everywhere, and there are still
some young people who are developing their talents, who are playing
hockey and who are perhaps heading for a quite interesting career,
but we are also turning out Alexandre Daigles, young people who go
up too fast to the NHL. We have seen the pressure put on the young
Vincent Lecavalier. His every move was followed. After playing four
games, he hadn't even made a pass. It was becoming a dreadful
spectacle. People wondered whether he had enough talent to play in
the NHL. One day, they said: "Look, he scored his first goal." He
was very happy to have scored while his parents were watching.
Everyone is watching it and it doesn't look easy.
Do you not think that the quality of hockey is not as good as
it used to be? When the European teams arrived here we told
ourselves that we would finally see players who knew how to skate
gracefully. We thought that NHL players would learn how to play,
but it's the Europeans who learned how to fight so that they could
come and play in the leagues that paid money instead of staying in
their own country.
There is something that worries me. Yesterday, I learned the
results of a study. It showed that hockey ranked sixth in
importance for men; for women, it was so far down the list that
there wasn't even a number for it. That was in the test group. In
the control group, hockey ranked 21st in importance for men and
19th for women.
The importance of hockey is on the decline. Attendance is
dropping everywhere. Fox network has trouble keeping its ratings
up. What are you, the bigwigs of hockey, going to do to save the
sport? I am talking about the kind of hockey we watched when I was
young, the kind of hockey that drew us to the sport. That kind of
hockey no longer exists. There aren't any more players like
Béliveau, Richard, Gordie Howe. Those people knew how to play
hockey and how to pass the puck. There are a few left.
An Hon. Member: Cournoyer.
Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: He wasn't the scrappiest of the lot. Léo
Labine was perhaps worse. I am talking about people who knew how to
play hockey with elegance, how to pass the puck, and put themselves
in the right place. There aren't any more like that. That is not
what we see. We see people who shoot the puck any old place, who
get rid of it as soon as they get it. They rush into the corners.
Hockey is no longer an elegant game. It seems like people are
playing hockey without using their heads. That's the impression I
have. In football, players play intelligently. What are you going
to do to save hockey? To start with, it has to be interesting,
there has to be good hockey.
[English]
The Chairman: Your answer must be less than
thirty seconds long.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
The Chairman: Just before you begin your answer,
Mr. Branch, very rarely does the chair challenge Madame
Tremblay, but I think I'm going to have to challenge
her today. I have watched Vincent Lecavalier
play hockey, and he'd be a pretty
graceful hockey player from where I come from. I think
everybody should also know that Monsieur Lecavalier
comes from Madame Tremblay's riding, so you forgot to
talk about him.
Go ahead.
Mr. David Branch: I think Madame
Tremblay illustrates the passion so many of us have for
our game. I think there are a number of statements she
has made with which we would agree.
Recently we had a
most unfortunate incident in Ontario. A young man
clearly violated what I think we all would agree would
be proper deportment on the ice, and he has been
banished for the balance of his junior career. That's
because we clearly accept the burden and understand
that the value system must be such that in the
Canadian Hockey League, which is the number one
development league in the world, we must provide an
atmosphere in which players may develop their skills to
play the game as you described, without fear of injury
and other needless acts. We do that, and we'll
continue to do that to the best our ability.
1710
There has been a tremendous evolution in our game.
Without question, hockey has become a universal game,
and I think we should share our game with great pride.
However, we must continue to work even more diligently
to maintain our position as the number one
hockey-playing nation in the world. Working along with
Canadian Hockey-Bob Nicholson and his
organization-we have a number of outstanding programs
under way, in place, that we are all involved in for the
benefit of skills development: strength and
conditioning, nutrition, all the latest ways and means
in which players should train, coaching programs,
referee programs, athletic therapist programs. All of
these things are out in the field. They've been
generated and they're working. But yes, we can do
better; and yes, we will do better.
On some of the situations you described, I went with
great pride to Bathurst, New Brunswick-which happens
to be my hometown-and watched the opening game of the
Acadie-Bathurst Titan. It was an
outstanding evening and a great hockey game. I
commended Mr. Courteau on the quality, style, and
level of play.
We have the benefit of going around and watching these
young people play, and I think there comes a time when
we ask ourselves if it's right or fair that players
like Vincent Lecavalier or Alexandre
Daigle or Chad Kilger
should leave at the age of 18, when
they haven't fully developed. We wonder if they will
ever reach their potential. There is a lot of evidence
to suggest that it's not good, but that's out of our
hands, out of our control. We'd love to have these
players come back to our program to continue to foster
their own development and to help the development of
others that they play with and against.
I think there is a much more enlightened approach to
the game, and we will continue to take strides to serve
what we feel are the best needs for our game.
[Translation]
Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: You've touched on a very important
point. Who could set the stage so that young players are eligible
for the draft at age 18 but remain in the junior leagues until they
are 20? Why can't you reach that kind of agreement? Physically, a
young man undergoes a lot of changes between the age of 18 and 20.
[English]
Mr. David Branch: Well, possibly through support
from this committee and from the federal Government of
Canada, we could go together to the National Hockey
League and speak about that issue once again. In
the past there have been challenges to the idea of a
person of the age of 18 having the ability to work for
a living. There was the Ken Linseman case back in
the 1970s, and it was upheld. The National Hockey
League had to change their entry draft rules so as to
provide the opportunity for players of the age of 18 to
go forward. But if you were to ask the NHL people
themselves, Madame, they'd love to see a 20-year-old
draft, because they would then have a better sense of
who's going to be good, who's going to be ready, who's
going to meet their needs.
Dev, is there anything else that you might want to add
to that by way of your-
Mr. Dev Dley: No, I think you've covered it.
The Chairman: Mr. Mark.
Mr. Inky Mark: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have
a short question following on the same topic of player
development.
I've asked this of other delegations here regarding
the sport of hockey, which is our national game,
obviously. Regarding the whole area of development
from the perspective of the Americans, they've taken a
high school or college route versus the junior hockey
we have in this country-and we have many tiers of
hockey. Certainly where I come from, it's tier two
hockey, but we're also very proud of the
Brandon Wheat Kings. It's unfortunate that a
province of the size of Manitoba doesn't have more than
one Canadian Hockey League team.
What's your answer when people ask you if this is the
right approach in the long term? I understand you're
producing a lot of good hockey players at this time,
but in the long term, say twenty years down the road,
should we be switching somewhere, midstream?
Mr. David Branch: Do you mean the system in terms
of where our players-
Mr. Inky Mark: In terms of the system of
development.
Mr. David Branch: Not unlike any other industry or
walk of life, you must continue to look at what is
best, what you can do to work towards the future. Two
summers ago I was asked to go down to speak to a
gathering of the United States Amateur Hockey
Association general assembly in Boston. What
became apparent is that there is a very strong movement
and there are very definite and specific results
they are attempting to achieve. They are attempting to
move their hockey development program out of the
educational system and into club team programs known as
that animal, junior hockey.
1715
In the last two years we have seen the involvement of
two junior leagues in the United States, and now
there's a third. They have clearly said that in order
for them to compete at the level we're at in Canada, to
compete internationally, to compete in terms of the
number of players going on to the NHL, we've come to
realize that the best way to develop these young men is
through having them playing in a program that's very
demanding.
We are on the ice virtually every day of the week, and
we get top-level coaching and top competition in order
to meet the needs of high standards. In fact the
Americans have taken it a step forward and now have a
program in place in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They
bring the top forty players from across their country
into an intensive training program period. In speaking
to Jeff Jackson, who runs that program on behalf of
U.S.A. Hockey, I asked him if he was worried that this
may even take away development opportunities in those
areas from which a player is taken away-say, the top
player from Edina, Minnesota-and what about those
players left back there. He said I was right, but that
what they're trying to do is initially create a spark
that will show Americans they can compete with us damn
Canadians at a high level. Once they establish a
better mindset, they will then push them all back to
their club team programs.
So in consideration of that, in looking at what's
happening around the world, we have virtually-and I
guess I have to be careful what I say before a
parliamentary committee-put a program in place that
limits the number of Europeans who wish to come here to
play. In our opinion, that's to serve and to protect
the best interests of Canadians in order to develop
their skills.
I think people from all over the world regard our
system as being the
best system to develop hockey players. To pick up on
what Madame Tremblay said, that's not to say we can't
do better work to improve some individual skills, and
we're seeing a huge change back to that. Hockey goes
through cycles. I think the National Hockey League is
starting to set a better example in this area, and all
of us can work together for the betterment of the
game.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Mark.
[Translation]
Mr. Coderre.
Mr. Denis Coderre: First of all, I would like to welcome
Mr. Courteau. I know that he has been convalescing. You are looking
very well and we are happy to have you with us.
I am going to nuance what Ms. Tremblay said. I remember some
games between the Trois-Rivières Draveurs and the Shawinigan
Cataractes, where there were some all-out brawls. They gave each
other dirty looks before the game started and they battled it out.
During the 1980s, there were a huge number of brawls and the
numbers have dropped off slightly. We have teams like the Val-d'Or
Foreurs with Lionel Brochu, who has done extraordinary work, and
the quality of Huskies' game. We are sad however to have lost the
Granby Prédateurs because they did win the Memorial Cup. And it's
more or less from that perspective that I'd like to talk to you.
I would like to thank you for the figures you have given us,
because that is exactly what the committee requires under its
mandate. We see the economic impact a franchise has on a region and
on a province.
Mr. Courteau, I want to talk to you about the future. A new
team is being set up, the Montreal Rockets, and it will be managed
by Serge Savard's son. Has the contract been signed? And that leads
me to a question about the cost of franchises. We've seen that with
respect to operations, the budget is $1.3 million, but if I
remember correctly, a franchise costs $850,000. Is that accurate?
How are things going on that side? I will get back to that.
I would also like you to talk a little bit about the impact of
losing a franchise. We want to show the importance of sport as an
industry in a region. What is the impact of losing a franchise? We
lost the Trois-Rivières Draveurs and the Granby Prédateurs. The
Beauport Harfangs and the Quebec City Ramparts are still around.
There were several teams. I remember the good old times in Sorel.
There was Saint-Jean. We lost a lot of teams. Have you been able to
measure the impact of losing a franchise?
Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: -
[Editor's Note: Inaudible]-
Mr. Denis Coderre: That bothers her, because she thinks that
Gordie Howe was a good player. Forget about that.
[English]
An hon. member: He still is.
Mr. Denis Coderre: He was a goon. Everybody knows
that, but it's okay.
Voices: Oh, oh!
Mr. Denis Coderre: When Bob Gainey
was playing for the Canadiens,
he said he was tremendous player, but ask the other
teams.
1720
[Translation]
Mr. Gilles Courteau: First of all, with respect to the
Montreal franchise, we are currently negotiating with a group of
businessmen interested in obtaining a franchise in the Montreal
metropolitan region. The team would play in the Maurice-Richard
arena. We agreed, at the Quebec Major Junior League, that by
mid-December a final decision would be made as to whether or not
everything is in order so that they can obtain a Quebec Major
Junior League franchise.
Secondly, at the Major Junior League level, the cost of an
expansion franchise is $850,000. My partners David Branch and
Dev Dley will be able to give you more details on the cost of an
expansion franchise for their league. It's specific to each league.
What is the impact of losing a Major Junior League franchise
or a Canadian League franchise in a city? There is no doubt that we
do not want to lose franchises when a city is granted a franchise.
However, there are circumstances that explain and justify decisions
that are made by club owners when the time comes to decide whether
they continue their operations in the same city, transfer their
franchise or sell it.
Over the years, we have experienced those situations at the
Quebec Major Junior League level and at the Canadian Hockey League
level, but at the end of the day, these are positive elements.
You mentioned earlier that with respect to the Quebec Major
Junior League, for example, we have expanded to the regions and
have been very successful. Ten or fifteen years ago, that was out
of the question. The same thing happened in the OHL and the WHL.
They expanded for the good of hockey and the Canadian League, to
maintain the level of development of hockey players, coaches and
managers. Moreover, we went into cities where major junior Canadian
hockey was the number one event. You can see how successful we have
been.
When we talked about bringing Chicoutimi into the league, in
the mid 1970s, a club owner in the metropolitan region wondered if
all the trees in the park would have to be cut down to put in a
road to get to Chicoutimi. I remember when there was talk about
bringing Rimouski-
Mr. Denis Coderre: Was that-
[Editor's Note: Inaudible]-
who said that?
Mr. Gilles Courteau: No, it wasn't him. He was not there.
When we talked about Rimouski, people wondered if they would
have to take a boat to get there. All that to say that the new
vision we had at the Canadian League has been very beneficial over
the years, with the new franchises that have been put in place.
Mr. Denis Coderre: I'd like to go back to what Ms. Tremblay
said about developing players. Basically, it is true that 18 years
of age is too young. The problem is not the National League or you.
It's one Bob Goodenow. We will be meeting with him next Tuesday. We
have some juicy questions to ask him.
Put yourself in our shoes. What question would you like to ask
him? Let yourself loose, like we say back home. Now is the time.
[English]
I don't know the translation for this expression.
Voices: Oh, oh!
Mr. David Branch: I suppose the number one
question would be whether or not the NHL Players'
Association would support an initiative to see the
draft age raised. I think that's the number one
question that would be on the lips of every person
involved in hockey across this country, and not only at
our level. For us to say it, it sounds like we just
want Vincent back. Yes, they do want him back in
Rimouski because of what he brings. As you say,
it's beautiful to watch him play, but he also helps
development as a whole.
As we say, we'd love to go to Winnipeg and win back
our pride at the World Junior Hockey Championships, and
have Vincent, Manny Malhotra, and others in the
lineup. So I think that's the number one question.
Continue to 1725