The Kenaston Super Draft can be listed as one causality of the NHL owner’s lockout of its players this year.
Don George, chairman of the Super Draft, said they will not be operating a regular season draft this year and a playoff draft is currently up in the air as to whether one will be conducted. He said this is due to the length of time it would take to get a gaming license from the province and to get the forms made up of the players available to be picked as well as the poor response he expects to get from hockey fans turned off by the latest labour disagreement.
“It definitely affects our community,” said George of not having a draft, noting last year’s regular season draft raised $20,000 for community projects and employed a number of local people to implement it. “We have had a full-time employee who is out of a job plus all the part-time people who work during the draft and stuff. There is no employment for them either.”
George said it takes around six weeks to get the draft up and running putting them into the beginning of March before players could be selected, which would be about 20 games into the shortened 48-game 2013 season scheduled to begin this weekend. He said the season will also probably be extended into late April making the start of the playoffs occurring in early May when people have things on their mind other than hockey, if that is on their mind at all this year.
To read more please see the Jan. 14 print edition of The Davidson Leader.