TSN INVESTIGATION from rwesthead: OHL investigation finds Niagara IceDogs signed secret deals with multiple players
The Ontario Hockey League’s Niagara IceDogs agreed to unauthorized side contracts with the families of two players - one of whom is still in the OHL - and likely had similarly secret and unsanctioned deals with a number of European players, according to an investigation into the team’s recruiting practices.
The documents also open a window into the back-and-forth negotiations between the OHL and its teams regarding sanctions. “We were shown a copy of a side deal between the club and Mike Ham, father of Liam Ham, that the Club admitted it entered into with Mike in June, 2016, and which provided for payment of $2,000 cash to Mike per year. We were also told that the Club had entered into side deals with European players to pay them more than the maximum they were entitled to receive under their Standard Player Agreement, and find that evidence to be credible.
OHL president David Branch wrote in a May 5 email to TSN that the IceDogs sought a sealing order to “maintain the confidentiality of the players involved and the integrity of the investigative process… Any further steps considered will continue to be confidential. Neville initially told Zola that the IceDogs could not offer Wilkie a “full ride” scholarship, which was typically available only to first-round draft picks and which guaranteed the OHL team would pay for four years of tuition and books once a player had played a single game in the league. Players selected in later rounds of the OHL entry draft were typically offered a year’s tuition and books for each year they played in the league.
The Wilkies met in a boardroom at the Holiday Inn with husband-and-wife co-owners Bill and Denise Burke and their son, Joey Burke, the IceDogs’ assistant general manager.Burke later said that during the five-minute meeting he only promised that Wilkie’s education package would be “inflation protected,” meaning if tuition costs increased between 2013 and the time Wilkie went to university after his junior career finished, the team would pay the full tuition amount.
Burke replied three days later: “Hey Zack [sic], Thanks for your note and congratulations on a great junior career, wow hard to believe you’re off to university already! Not to worry, I remember your Dad’s concern about inflation and we agreed to cover it.”“Zack, you have left me completely speechless and quite frankly for the longest time I sat here not even knowing how to respond to this,” Burke replied the same day.
Seven months before the IceDogs purportedly signed a secret deal with the Ham family, Denise Burke said that it would be"catastrophic" if the IceDogs had to pay players. Williamson said he had kept the document in case the Burkes alleged that any side deals negotiated during his tenure as the club’s general manager were done without their knowledge.
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