Teams trying to manipulate CBHL ratio rules

[MDHockeyMom]

If teams are allowed to add players to their rosters up until Jan. 31'st what stops a team from adding a enough minor year rec players or even non-hockey playing kids to their travel roster to make them playoff eligible.

Take the Harford Northstars for example. This is from their own board meeting minutes:

December Board Meeting Minutes
Board reviewed the email from CBHL listing the HNS teams that are ineligible for league playoffs. At this time, Squirt Wales and PeeWee Wales are the two teams ineligible. PeeWee Wales will add [NAME OF A CHILD WITH THE SAME LAST NAME AS CLUB PRESIDENT] to their roster to allow them to be eligible for the playoffs. Becky O’Connell will need to revise the roster before the cutoff deadline of 12/31/14.


January Board Meeting Minutes
Peewee B team was notified of their team eligibility in December 2014. They submitted their roster on the deadline in early January. They meet the mathematical requirements for the league playoffs. Dave Frongillo had emailed Mike Alfaro, CBHL Commissioner. He will follow up again.

To me, this seems like a clear case of a team adding a player to their roster just to be compliant with the ratio rules. If this was a legitimate situation, where a team had a new player join them mid season, why are they being added at the very last second (and they were added at 11:30 PM on Dec 31/14)? This new player also has the same last name as the club's president. There may be a legitimate explanation for this, but it seems this is an obvious attempt at bypassing the CBHL's ratio rules for playoff eligibility.

If anyone with knowledge of the situation would like to respond, that would be great.

Hopefully the CBHL will understand this situation, and act appropriately.

[Julio]

Sounds like the league was up to speed on what was going on. My guess is someone quit mid-season or the club/league missed something with this rule. It was just one player. I don't think it'd fly if they tried to add a whole line. The club in question doesn't have a history of being very strong. They fall on the Rec side of hockey. The people involved aren't interested in cheating. Just tying to get the rest of the boys to keep playing.

[MDHockeyMom]

The league does not determine if a team is playoff eligible until December. They then notify all teams that do not play minor/major year ratios. It is up to the club at the beginning of the season to be sure they are playing with the proper ratio. Its not like they are out of place where they are because they are not a dominating team. However, it would still be unfair and a set bad precedent to allow them to be playoff eligible after playing the majority of the season with an incorrect ratio with, what appears to be, a suspect roster addition at the very last second.

I understand they would like to keep their kids playing so there is no reason they cannot sign up for a tournament. There are plenty at that time of year.

[Julio]

Why wait until December? What's the point of that other than to permit roster additions?

[MDHockeyMom]

I do not doubt that waiting until December is in place because of potential roster additions/subtractions. It also gives a chance to see whether a team is dominating their division or not. There are cases where teams that were declared in September have changes. There are cases where legitimate changes to a roster may change the major/minor ratio and playoff eligibility. That does not mean that by just adding a player 5 minutes before the deadline for roster changes (Jan 1) to "fix" the ratio that a team has to be declared playoff eligible. I think there is room for a judgement call by the competition committee of the CBHL. If it was truly a legitimate roster addition, or there was some other circumstance that changed the ratio unexpectedly, I could see it being fair to make them playoff eligible.

In this case, it appeared that a minor year player was added just to make the ratio eligible for playoffs. I may be wrong though, but that is how it appears based on timing of the addition and what was written in the meeting minutes.