National Hockey League Hit With Teen Players’ Wage-Fixing Suit

The National Hockey League and other hockey organizations are facing an antitrust suit claiming they conspired to restrict competition among young players and suppressed their wages.

The North American and US divisions of the World Association of Icehockey Players Unions argue the leagues entered unlawful deals that allowed them to exploit players and illegally profit from their labor, according to a proposed class action filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“This case promises to force a reckoning over how teens are completely dominated by the major junior hockey clubs that control them, and the role that the NHL plays in enabling and profiting from this mistreatment,” plaintiffs’ law firm Constantine Cannon LLP said in a press release.

The suit is among a string of antitrust cases targeting the power to set wages and other terms of major sports organizations including the Ultimate Fighting Championship, National Collegiate Athletic Association, and Major League Baseball.

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The Canadian Hockey League, along with the Ontario Hockey League, the Western Hockey League, the Québec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, and those leagues’ members clubs are also named as defendants. The unions accuse the leagues of working together to exploit teenagers who pursue major junior hockey as a full-time job. The major junior league are designed to train young athletes for the NHL.

“The lives of the teenagers playing in the Major Junior Leagues are subject to a level of physical and psychological control that is abusive and borders on absolute,” the complaint states. “The directives of coaches and management dictate almost everything—from what to eat to when to sleep—while maintaining a vice-like grip on Major Junior Players’ future career prospects (and, as a result, their future earning potential).”

NHL didn’t immediately respond to inquiries.

The case is World Association of Icehockey Players Unions North America Division v. National Hockey League, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:24-cv-01066, 2/14/24.