With baseball season fast approaching, the Miami Marlins made headlines when they posted an ad recruiting players for a “practice squad”. They wanted nonprofessional players to form a team to play against one of their minor league affiliates for practice purposes only. Since our minds are always on hockey, we started wondering if the NHL and professional hockey could use this idea.
Practice squads are a common thing for football teams in the NFL. They practice with the team and players can be added to the main team roster if a player isn’t available (mostly injury-related but other reasons as well). The NFL, unlike hockey and baseball, lack a true minor league system that can develop and “call up” players. This is the closest thing they have.
Where baseball and hockey are alike is that both leagues have their own minor league development system. Specifically it was the Marlin’s high A affiliate the Jupiter Hammerheads. Since hockey’s minor leagues don’t have as many levels, we’ll just use the ECHL for this example.
This would be like if an ECHL team was seeking players to practice against
That sounds absolutely amazing for perhaps former college and junior athletes. It sounds like the dream job of every beer league hockey player we’ve ever met. The qualifications might be too strict for your friend who once played college club hockey ten years ago. Most likely any players that fit the qualifications would still be pursing professional playing opportunities perhaps abroad or in “unaffiliated” minor leagues such as the FPHL and SPHL.
Baseball has a good amount of independent leagues and teams through the United States and Canada. Even if the pay is low (the Marlins were advertising $150 a day) being a part of something that’s “affiliated” with an MLB team could be a step up. Some independent baseball leagues attract decent talent and player salaries. Others pay low enough wages that the $150 a day and the opportunity provided would be worth leaving for.
One of the first questions that came to our mind is how much interest something like this would generate if a hockey team (we’ll stay with the ECHL example) offered it? A few years back the Florida Panthers turned their search for an emergency backup goalie into a fun fan search contest.
Like we said before, if the qualifications for our imaginary hockey version are anything like the requirements the Marlins had, your middle-aged beer league friends wouldn’t make the cut. Would a player with the necessary skill chose this opportunity over the chance to play in a European league or the KHL? We’ll assume any stateside playing opportunities (even in hockey’s ‘independent’ minor leagues) would take precedent.
Our next thought was that the NHL already has two similar things to this. First was the aforementioned “emergency backup goalies”. Most team’s emergency backup are former players at a high level (college or minor league) or team employees. In the rare occasions they actually see game action they became legends in hockey lore, just like David Ayres in that legendary 2020 game with the Carolina Hurricanes.
On the less noticeable side are the “black aces”. They’re the extra players (usually high level minor leaguers) added to a team during their playoff run. They practice against the team regularly and can be slotted in the lineup if needed. That makes this process more similar to the NFL’s practice squad instead of regular NHL minor league call ups.
Unfortunately for all baseball players who already packed their gloves and bats for Florida, the Marlins took down their job ad and decided not to go forward with the plan. Apparently the league and the players union wasn’t thrilled at the idea and the labor implications it would bring.
“Black Aces” in the NHL playoffs are players under contract and emergency backup goalies sign a special contract if they’re ever tapped into game action (even if it’s sitting on the bench). That’s a problem we didn’t foresee coming in our hypothetical hockey example, but it’s one that would probably come up nonetheless.