SPHL adopts new player movement rule

ORLANDO, FLA – In the world of professional sports, one of the biggest goals of teams is to find the very best available talent. Getting the best out there is about as close to a guarantee of putting the best product on the field or the ice as a coach or general manager can give to the fans.
But what happens when your fishing hook isn’t the only one in the talent pool? And what if the other hook starts pulling your fish away?
This was the case during the past couple of months when the Southern Professional Hockey League and the Federal Hockey League, both single-A developmental level circuits, found themselves in a tug-of-war over players.
Specifically, the disagreement was over players on protected rosters in either league being poached by the other. In an effort to eliminate problems, the SPHL made a rule change, allowing “protected” players the opportunity to sign with the second-year FHL but not being allowed to return to the eight-year old SPHL until the following season.
“It’s really not a big thing. Any player that’s on our protected lists, if they decide to go play in the Federal Hockey League we just ask that they honor their commitment to the FHL, stay there the whole season and they’re not eligible to return,” SPHL President Jim Combs said in a phone interview Thursday. “What it does is it helps the FHL to say you want to take one of our players that is established in one of our towns or the player says ‘hey I don’t want to be in this city anyway I want to go to the FHL’ and you know what, be committed, don’t look back. Be committed to the FHL if that’s where you want to go or if you want to stay here, stay here.”
By way of explanation, players at the single-A level play on year-to-year contracts. At the end of the playoffs, each team is asked to provide the league with a list of players – in the case of the SPHL it is 13 names – that the team expects to bring back for the next campaign. Even though the players are not under contract in a strict sense, no other teams in the league are allowed to talk to those “protected” players. The players who do not appear on the protected list become free agents and can be courted by any team.
“I understand fully trying to protect assets. We have our teams freeze twelve guys. Same reason – because there’s inherent value in those players,” FHL Vice Commissioner Andrew “Sarge” Richards said. “They’re arguably the best players that you think you can bring back next year.”
During this current off-season, the FHL signed a number of SPHL players to its rosters. Everything was fine until some of the names were found to be on SPHL protected lists.
“If I understand SPHL rules right, I think they were allowed to protect 13 players and they had the eight teams so that’s 104 players they could protect at the end of last year,” Richards said. “Of those 104, I think at current we’re dealing with six guys.”
Those six players -Glenn Cacaro, Michael Richard and Jeff Winchester from the President’s Cup champion Mississippi Surge, Bill McCreary and Dan McWhinney of Huntsville and Jim Jensen of Knoxville – should have been left alone in the view of the SPHL. With no guarantee that the FHL would cease drawing protected players away or that players would want to leave, Combs and the SPHL Board of Governors decided to enact a rule that would put up a stop sign.
“It’s just a way to say to the guys you’re on the protected list (so) we want you to come play for our team. If you want to go play in the FHL, well be committed there,” Combs said.
According to Combs, any SPHL player who is on a protected list and chooses to head for the FHL will not be allowed to return to the SPHL until the following season. No exceptions. The rule also extends to three-game contracts that SPHL coaches use to fill roster spots in the event of injuries. He continued on to say that even under the circumstances of a team folding mid-season, the player would not be welcome back.
“If they go to a FHL team and the team folds they can find other employment in the FHL,” Combs said. “They’ve made a commitment to that league and they need to honor that commitment.”
Richards, whose son Mark is the general manager of the Augusta RiverHawks, said he would have preferred to come to a mutual agreement with the SPHL on staying away from each other‘s protected players. Combs and the SPHL however did not want to take that route, choosing instead to alter its own rules independent of any kind of agreement.
“We don’t really have any relationship with them (FHL). There’s a lot of integral parts about an agreement, this, that and the other thing,” Combs said. “We just said you know what, the 13 guys that are on our protected list that we want to have playing in our cities, if they wish to not play here and not play in the SPHL and go to the FHL, we just say to them honor your commitment. Stay there the entire season. Don’t look back. You’re not coming back. Stay forward. Stay focused and go play wherever you’re committed to play.”
Neither Combs nor Richards would speak directly to the idea that the two leagues are in direct competition over talent. As Richards explained it, there are plenty of reasons for players to choose either league.
“I think it’s a completely different marketplace. There are kids who would prefer to play in the northeast because they were born and raised in the northeast. They got family, they got girlfriends, they’ve got maybe part-time jobs. Then there’s kids who would prefer to get as far away from home as possible just like the college scenario,” he said. “I think there are many reasons why kids choose to go where they go. They may like the coach. They may like the climate. They may like the league or the arena. They may have a girlfriend there. The money may be better. The kids make that determination.”
On the subject of salaries, Combs said that his understanding is that the FHL is offering more financial incentive to play there than the SPHL. He added that if money is the sole motivation for playing, the players should simply go where their heart leads them.
“As far as dollars and cents, players are being offered much more money to go play in that league and we just say that if money is your motivation and that’s what you want to do, go do it,” he said.
As for the notion that the two leagues are at war, Richards said that is the furthest thing from either sides minds.
“We’re not getting into a war with the SPHL. We consider them partners in the game. We did good by them in the first year and they did good by us,” he said. “We‘re not going to get into any verbal or otherwise backstabbing kind of stuff. They have the right to do what they think works for them as do we and we‘re going to support them. We want all of them to succeed and hopefully they want all of us to succeed.”
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com