Alberta Canada is a beautiful Province. It is also loaded with ice arena’s looking to sell ice time in order to survive in an economic time when Canadian’s are often just getting by.
With a population base of less than five million people in the Province of Alberta, there are more hours of ice time available than there are teams and players to pay for those hours. Naturally those available hours become attractive to people who may be interested in owning and operating junior hockey teams or academy hockey programs.
But just how much can Alberta actually sustain in a pay to play junior hockey model?
Four teams from the NJHL, and an additional team that the NJHL had been developing have put the league on notice that they are leaving and starting their own league called the Alberta Elite Junior Hockey League. Meanwhile the NJHL is continuing to move forward with its expansion agenda.
Couple in the CAJHL making its return for 2025-2026, and you have a three league player recruiting battle that will have some teams failing.
Forget the fact that the newly formed AEJHL is likely to face legal challenges from the NJHL regarding non-compete agreements and claims going both ways of breach of contract. Forget that teams in every league in Alberta outside of the AJHL struggle to attract paying players, fan bases, and sponsorships.
Looking at the landscape of Alberta pay to play hockey, it will come down to who offers the most to the player for the least amount of money.
When these teams cross paths when recruiting this spring and summer, tensions will be high. I can invision financial negotiations becomeing pretty contentious between teams in rival leagues. While this is good for driving prices down, it is also usually good for teams not being able to make ends meet financially at some point during the season.
How do these guys all come to the conclusion that working apart from each other is better than working together and actually forming a league that fits in with a development model that serves the players best interests. The teams forming the AEJHL did have talks with the CAJHL but made the decision to strike out on their own.
Documents obtained concerning the teams forming the AEJHL from the NJHL concerning their NJHL franchises, are pretty clear on the required notice for termination of those agreements. Ninety days notice is required under those terms, and according to both sides, notice was provided last week.
Claims from the teams founding the AEJHL against the NJHL, are largely concerning league management and finances. While they may or may not be accurate, the NJHL franchise agreements do not contain specific provisions for the basis of alleged breaches.
At the same time, the NJHL has claimed that franchise payments from one or more teams have not been completed. So the question arrises of whether or not the owners who havent completed payment actually own those franchises and have the ability to move them from the NJHL to the AEJHL.
This may come down to a race to the court house. Who ever files first is likely to get at least a temporary injunction or stay from being able to operate until legal questions can be resolved.
Meanwhile, the CAJHL can move along doing their own thing while everyone else sorts things out. The stage is set in Alberta for one of the most competitive pay to play recruiting seasons ever. Who survives? Thats the question players and parents need to answer before anyone is paid anything.
Hold on to your hats, its going to be a bumpy ride.
