Wow that sounds extremely harsh. Unless I missed it in the article, do we not know what offense they committed?

Posted by EDJ on 08/10/12 at 02:54 PM ET

What an excessive punishment. What did they do? Hire Graham James?

Posted by Jay Paterno from Myopia, PA on 08/10/12 at 02:55 PM ET

I’ve tried looking elsewhere as well.

From the Windsor Star.

Excerpt:
The league did not specify what exactly the club did to violate the policies and club officials have yet to respond to the punishment.

Posted by SYF from a viewing moratorium of NBC's hockey coverage on 08/10/12 at 03:04 PM ET

What’s with not telling us? Not digging it.

Posted by HockeytownOverhaul on 08/10/12 at 03:19 PM ET

Wow, it must be serious for that level of fine and penalty. It sounds like paying players and improper compensation.

Posted by timbits on 08/10/12 at 03:44 PM ET

Probably paying a kid who wanted to go to college.
There was another instance of a u.s. kid who had committed to paying at Michigan then backed out after the last second. Rumors are that he received $200000. This is not allowable, but there are reputable reports that it does happen.

Posted by teldar on 08/10/12 at 03:47 PM ET

Sounds like some of the accusations Paul Kelly made (when he was the president of College Hockey Inc.) about the Spitfires tossing around cash to recruit players were true.

Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/10/12 at 04:13 PM ET

They violated the Player Benefit & Recruitment guidelines according to the OHL’s press release.  That kinda’ speaks for itself.  They illegally compensated kids to play for them.  You don’t need ot know more specifics exactly given what they named.

So yes, teldar is likely correct.  Remember all those NCAA commits that suddenly switched their minds and chose Windsor instead?  You now know why.  Windsor apparently gave them good paydays for doing so.

What this means is that the argument that “Major junior clubs don’t do that!” is now completely destroyed, because you have the OHL admitting one of its premier clubs of the past few years did exactly that.  You can’t say it doesn’t happen.

You can also safely assume it was frequent, and not a lone, small offense, given the harsh punishment of three 1sts and two 2nds.  There were likely mutliple cases, over multiple seasons.  My guess would be multiple cases over 3 years (thus the 3 1sts).

What’s with not telling us? Not digging it.

Posted by HockeytownOverhaul on 08/10/12 at 01:19 PM ET

Being more specific would be a complete and utter embarrassment and cause even more problems.  OHL is undoubtedly trying to sweep this under the rug as quickly as possible and hoping it disappears.

I hope people don’t let it.  I hope they keep drumming the ever-loving crap out of it and don’t let them try and forget it.

Posted by Primis on 08/10/12 at 04:23 PM ET

One also has to assume this is going to severely hurt Windsor going forward for the next 4 or 5 years.  Not just losing 1sts, but 2nds as well.  It’s unlikely they’ll spend a couple years as a doormat, at least.  And there will be no reinforcements coming for a while when you’re losing, no draft picks to bail you out,

And that’s a good thing IMO.

Posted by Primis on 08/10/12 at 04:25 PM ET

“It’s likely”, rather.  Yeesh.  I need a nap…

Posted by Primis on 08/10/12 at 04:26 PM ET

Money under the table is rampant in the OHL.. It’s just a surprise they came down on Windsor.

Posted by 13 user names on 08/11/12 at 07:10 PM ET

Windsor Spitfires appealing the punishment.

Excerpt:
“We will pursue all avenues of appeal regarding the decision made by the commissioner, David Branch. We are proud members of the Ontario Hockey League and will be vigorously defending the well-deserved and established reputation of our hockey club as an exemplary organization both on and off the ice, through the appropriate appeal process.

Posted by SYF from a viewing moratorium of NBC's hockey coverage on 08/11/12 at 07:47 PM ET