CHL crippling Europe's junior hockey programs?

When Sweden's director of hockey development, Tommy Boustedt, makes one of his several annual trips to North America, he says he makes a point to fit in as many junior hockey games as possible.

"I prefer to watch the CHL to the NHL when I'm over here," he admits.

"I have nothing to say about the quality of the CHL, it's the best junior league in the world, great games -- I love to see the Memorial Cup. It's the best junior club tournament in all of the world."

Make no mistake, Boustedt is a self-described 'big fan' of major junior, though his enthusiasm for the CHL comes with a caveat. "From a development perspective I think it's very good for North Americans, but for Europeans I think it's better for them to stay home until they have grown up a little bit more."

The issue of the CHL import players was the topic of much debate during Day Two of the World Hockey Summit in Toronto, where guest speaker Slava Lener, the director of the Czech national teams, detailed the dire state of junior development in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He says the CHL's siphoning of Europe's potential best has played a part in crippling his country's junior leagues.

"The effect is that the entire development system in Czech [Republic] and Slovakia is getting weaker ever year, and there is a decline in the quality of players every year," Lener says of the migration.

"The number of Czech and Slovak players drafted by the NHL every year has declined since 2000, and there is an all-time low this year when only one homegrown player from these two countries was drafted by the NHL."

The CHL has held an annual import draft since 1992, in which each of the league's 60 teams are allowed to carry a maximum of two imports per team.

Lener spent much of his allotted time presenting statistics which paint a bleak picture. According to his data, between 1997 and 2010, there were 840 players who left Europe for the CHL – more than 500 of which were either Czech or Slovak. He blames some unscrupulous agents for adding to the problem by failing to inform European players bent on chasing the NHL dream of the stark reality they're facing; more than 50 per cent of CHL imports are passed over at the NHL draft and that only 4.2 per cent of those who make it will go on to become established NHLers playing at least 400 games.

CHL president and OHL commissioner Dave Branch said he was aware of the issues facing junior development in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but didn't realize the situation was as dire as Lener presented.

"I think the presentation here today, clearly in my mind, shows that there are some issues in Czech hockey and Slovak hockey," said Branch. "I think with us all being part of the hockey community, we can not be insensitive to their issues and hopefully this can open up some good dialogue so we can really understand what are their issues and how can we assist in helping them move forward."

But Lener admits the problem in his country is not solely a CHL issue. He says his federation needs to do more in order to make their own junior leagues more appealing and make North America less of a desirable option for his young stars.

At the same time in the CHL, there has been talk about either dropping the number of imports to one per team or eliminating them altogether. But Branch says those discussions were "nothing serious" and that he still sees a place for European juniors in his league.

"I think there's an added value to it," said Branch. "It's the CHL and there are literally players from all around the world that would like to come and play and the balance is making sure we preserve the development opportunities for the North American players because that's our primary, shall we say, purpose – so you don't want to lose sight of that, which is the reason we capped it at two per team."

Still, there are some general managers in the CHL who feel the benefits of bringing Europeans over isn't worth the hassle of securing a player's release, paying a hefty transfer fee and then not having the player pan out.

"If I had my way we'd at least cut down to one (import), but I wouldn't be completely against eliminating it completely," said one veteran CHL general manager. "Because the amount of work you put into it is just ludicrous and then you may or may not get a player."

One of the most contentious issues for both the CHL and European federations is that of the transfer fee. Many European federations are no longer officially compensated for developing players who leave for North America because there's no transfer agreement in place for many countries.

In an added slight, if a European player is drafted by a NHL team out of the CHL, it's the junior league that keeps the pro development money.

"There is no compensation," said Lener. "When a player comes over (to North America) at 16 or 17, there is not one single Canadian dollar coming into our bank account."

And while there are a number of federations crying poor, many in the CHL aren't buying it.

It's well known amongst league insiders that the CHL's import draft has more to with brokering deals beforehand than it does with the teams actually drafting the best player available. According to one GM, the best way to cut a deal with an agent – and ultimately the player's European team and federation -- is to hold a high import draft pick and pay to have the player released.

"That (import) draft is controlled by the agents, so they determine where the player's going and they put the price tag on it," said the GM.

"It's the old story, the rich get richer. The rich (CHL) franchises are the ones that can buy (a release), so you spend money to make money. That's why most teams would be against it."

This year the WHL's Kootenay Ice decided against drafting imports altogether.

"Although we have been fortunate in the past with the CHL Import Draft, we feel that in this day and age it is becoming very hard to attract the top European players," Ice GM Jeff Chynoweth said via release in June prior to the draft.

But for Boustedt it's not so much the money as it is the overall development of players – on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Canada has 472,000 youth and junior hockey players – they have so many good players over here," said Boustedt. "So it's not a problem to provide players for these 60 CHL teams -- they don't need European players but the NHL needs them because they've helped develop the game. If the NHL wants to have more European players in the future it's important to stop bringing them over too early, because then development will stop in Europe."

He says his program in Sweden is more focused on practice where a player will accrue 10,000 hours of honing his skill before his junior career is over. In the CHL, teams play a more demanding NHL-like schedule of more than 60 games in each league. And because many European countries like Sweden are fighting an uphill battle against popular sports like soccer to land the best athletes, they can't afford to rush player development.

"You can speed up the Internet but you can't speed up development and that's a big problem," said Boustedt. "You can afford it here because you have so many players – it doesn't matter if some along the way are thrown out of the system – because you'll always have other players to put in, but in our country for instance we don't have that many players."

There's also the issue of the kind of player that's returning home to Europe from the CHL. Lener referred to those European players as 'hybrids' because instead of fully mastering their skills in their home country, they want to be more North American and leaving at a young age – 16 or 17 – instead produces a mix that ultimately leads to a more mediocre player.

"There are a lot of players that are coming back to the Czech Republic, to our leagues, that are third and fourth liners who were leaving with the potential to be the No.1 players on our teams," said Lener during his presentation.

Hockey Hall of Famer and former president of the Canadian Hockey Association, Murray Costello agrees, saying that hockey fans are the ultimate losers when a player's full potential isn't realized.

"What is the real advantage in us bringing young teenagers over to Canada to make them proto-typical Canadians before they can play in the NHL," said the IIHF vice-president. "If we leave (the elite player) there long enough to develop in their own way they bring a distinct style and a distinct flavour to the game all of which is thoroughly enjoyed by the ticket buying public. Why do we want to change that?"

Sunaya Sapurji is the Jr. Hockey Editor at Yahoo! Sports.
You can reach her at sunaya@yahoo-inc.com or on Twitter @SunayaS