Madam Chair and honourable committee, my name is Thomas Gobeil. I want to thank you for allowing me to attend today's hearing and to share with you all some of the issues I witnessed and experienced first-hand during my time in the Canadian Hockey League.
I played QMJHL for three years, and I'd like to share with you a little bit about my last season. I had just come from my first NHL experience with the Anaheim Ducks. I had a good beginning of the season individually, but as a team we were struggling.
After a few losses, our coach decided he wasn't happy, and he decided to put us through a discipline bag skate. Towards the end of the skate, he came up with a rather weird drill in which the forwards and the defencemen would compete. The forwards were to pass the puck at the blue line to the defencemen, and the forwards were to go up and try to block the shots the defencemen were attempting to bring to the net.
I ended up with a puck to the face. When it happened, I also drove myself to the hospital. I got evaluated and I was told that I had a double jaw fracture. I drove to the pharmacy to get medicine, and I had to head home for recovery.
When I came back from my injury, I learned that the team, which was supposed to have warned my teachers about my incapacity to attend my classes.... Actually, I learned that I had failed all my exams, so I ended up quitting school. The emotional turmoil and the anger I felt coming back had me quit the team I was playing for. I ended up playing for the BCHL, but it was really hard to get a release because the team owned my rights as a player, and they were trying to sell me.
I have a question from my time in the BCHL. Why is it that I lost my eligibility to go play college hockey if the CHL players aren't considered professional athletes or employees?
As I have shared with you, CHL players are required to be devoted and to sacrifice their bodies to help their team win. These are the conditions CHL players work under. This is why the players in the CHL need a third party to represent the players to make sure these issues don't happen again.
I recommend that this committee evaluate the CHL and recognize the players as federal employees so that they can have additional protection. This would then entitle CHL players to be federal employees under the federal labour code.
Thank you for your time.