Portland sanctions

The much-rumored, much-speculated sanctions against the Portland Winterhawks for player benefit infractions came down today. Press release from the WHL here, but in summary:

• Portland's head coach and General Manager, Mike Johnston, is suspended for the balance of the 2012-13 season, including playoffs
• the Winterhawks are fined $200,000
• Portland is "suspended from participating" in the first five rounds of the 2013 bantam draft
• Portland forfeits their 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 first round bantam picks

(The 2014 first round pick was conditionally traded to Vancouver as part of a deal to acquire the rights to forward Rocco Grimaldi in July 2010. If Grimaldi reports to Portland for 2013-14 - which seems very unlikely - then Vancouver will get that 2014 first round pick and Portland will instead lose their 2014 2nd and 3rd round picks.)

To add more context to the picks, Portland has already traded its 2013 first, second, and fourth round picks. (The first rounder went to Seattle in the Marcel Noebels deal in January, the 2nd rounder to Edmonton in the Cam Reid deal in January, and the 4th rounder to Prince Albert for Charles Wells in September 2011). It seems safe to assume that those teams will get to keep those picks.

So what Portland loses in the 2013 draft is only any picks in the first five rounds that it still had. Those would be its own 3rd and 5th round picks, plus a 2nd round pick they had acquired from Everett in exchange for allowing Gerry Davidson to become Everett's General Manager.

So in total, they lose 2013 2nd, 3rd, and 5th round picks, plus 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 first round picks. The loss of all those first round picks is obviously a "holy crap" moment as this is a severe punishment that will have an impact on the team for the next 10 years, through the 2022-23 season as the 2017 first round pick could have played in the league through that season.

IMO the inability to participate at all in the first 5 rounds of the 2013 draft is pretty severe on its own as it means Portland will not get any of the top 110 1998-born players in the WHL talent zones. In fact, Portland does not have a 6th round pick either (they traded it to Vancouver for Brendan Jensen) and if they finish at the top of the standings this year their 7th round pick will be at the bottom of the round, so it could actually end up being that they get none of the top 150 or so players, although I suppose they will be allowed to trade for more 6th round and later picks. They're going to be really behind every other team in the league in this age group which will be a major obstacle in 2016-17 and 2017-18 when those players are in their 18 & 19 year old seasons.

Those punishments affect the team in the future (although losing the picks makes it difficult for the Hawks to trade for any impact players at this year's trade deadline too); this year's punishment is losing their coach and General Manager for the balance of the season. Portland is currently 2nd overall in the WHL (and first overall in winning percentage) so this is no small thing for them either. The Hawks have already announced that assistant coach / assistant G.M. Travis Green will take over both roles on an interim basis. Green has been there in those roles for a few years and knows the jobs so perhaps this won't have much effect on the team on the ice, we'll have to see.

After all this, everyone was, I'm certain, wondering WHAT THE HELL DID PORTLAND DO, EXACTLY to deserve these harsh penalties?

Well, the WHL didn't say and it sounds like they won't say. But the Winterhawks did issue a release of their own shortly afterward, in which they list the things they say the WHL found them guilty of:

• A player contract signed in 2009, involving flights for the player’s family and a summer training program
• Over the last five years, seven families were provided flights 2-4 times per season based on financial need and their distance from Portland
• Twice in the last five years the team paid for two players to each have a one-week summer training regimen
• The Winterhawks provided a cell phone for its team captain for a period of three seasons

The Winterhawks also stressed that "the WHL’s audit found no violations involving monetary payments made to players, their families or agents, or any violations related to the league’s educational packages." In other words, they did not make under-the-table payments to players and they did not offer any players educational packages above the league standard. And it seems the initial reaction to a lot of people upon hearing what the Hawks were found guilty of doing is to say that the league's punishment seems very excessive, based on this.

To me, the 3rd and 4th points above are trifling. Yes, they are against the rules and deserve punishment but these are not major benefits being provided which would call for punishment of this kind of severity.

It's the first and second points which may hold the reason behind the WHL's actions. Basically it boils down to the Hawks having provided free airfare 2 - 4 times per season for the parents (and perhaps siblings, it's not clear what "families" may entail) of eight players over the last five years.

In my view, if the provision of these flights to allow their families to come to Portland see them play several times a year was the perk that convinced these eight players to sign with the Winterhawks, then the punishment is entirely justified. That's eight players - a third of a roster - that the Hawks would not have had on their team otherwise. We don't know who these eight players were but in looking at Portland's roster over the last few years, it doesn't seem very likely that these were all marginal players since the team didn't have very many of those. So, if they got these players through these illegal perks and other teams didn't get players like that because they were playing by the rules, then this entirely justifies the punishments IMO.

Getting quality players that they would not have otherwise gotten has the obvious effect of improving the team on the ice (and they did make the WHL Final the last two years), which helps create the "winning environment" the team has been talking about for a few years and that has the snowball effect of helping persuade other players, even those legally recruited, to come to the team. So if this is what happened, then its effects are significant, far beyond whatever the cost of those airplane tickets was to the team. It deserves harsh punishment.

BUT, on the other hand, if Portland provided these flights just as a nice thing to do for its players, and the provision of the perks had no impact on the players' decisions to come to Portland (ie, they had already signed a WHL contract before the free flights were discussed) then the punishment seems very excessive. The team did not receive any benefit from providing the flights in that case. They already had the players. Obviously it's still a rules violation and deserves punishment, but not to this degree.

Based on what the WHL has done, I'm leaning towards them having evidence of this being more of the former situation and less of the latter. But we need more information about the offences Portland has committed in order to really judge what has happened here. It's unfortunate that the WHL has decided it's not going to say anymore about the situation because I think they owe it to the fans of Portland and everyone else to explain exactly what went on. How can we judge whether the league dealt with this appropriately and how we should feel about the league's integrity if we don't know the details of the situation?

And a last thought; regardless of what the final outcome of this situation is - whether the details ever come out or whether Portland has the punishment reduced on appeal (I assume they are allowed to appeal?), it it possible that the toughest punishment Portland will receive from this is the damage to their reputation. How will this impact them at the box office? On the recruiting path?