The holiday season often features on-ice action in minor-league hockey, but 2025 will instead be remembered for labour action. On Boxing Day, the ECHL’s players, represented by the Professional Hockey Players Association (PHPA), began strike action.
The PHPA represents both American Hockey League and ECHL players, with separate collective bargaining agreements governing each league. The PHPA and the AHL have been working on a new CBA – their prior one reportedly expired at the end of August – and they’re operating under the terms of the prior agreement while they hash out the new one. That was also the case with the ECHL’s players, but things have apparently moved slowly enough that the union served the league a strike notice on Dec. 18.
A full update, including details of our last, best, and final offer is available at echl.com/cba
“If we strike, we’re kicked out of our apartments the next day & they’re calling up players from the SPHL. If we don’t strike as one, we’re selfish assholes to the rest of the league.”
As @ECHL players sit at home, the holiday break will be spent stressing about uncertainty.
My thoughts on the ECHL strike and how we got here.
The Calgary Flames have an affiliate team in the ECHL, the Rapid City Rush. The Rush have home games scheduled for Dec. 27, 28 and 31. As of this writing those games are still on the books, but that will likely change on a day-to-day basis as the labour action continues.
For those curious, here’s roughly how pro hockey works, and we’ll use the Flames as an example – we’re simplifying things by ignoring one-way and two-way deals.
The Flames have 45 players on active NHL deals. They’re all paid by the Flames, even if they’re playing in the minor leagues (such as the AHL’s Calgary Wranglers or the ECHL’s Rush).
The Wranglers are owned by the Flames, and they have 14 players on AHL deals. Again, these players are all paid by the Wranglers, even if they’re playing for Rapid City. As of this writing, there are eight players with AHL deals on Rapid City’s roster – the most prominent is goalie Connor Murphy, who was briefly on an NHL deal last season. More than half of the AHL’s teams are directly owned by their NHL parent.
Finally, there are players on ECHL deals that are paid directly by the Rush. Based on who’s listed on the Rush’s roster on the ECHL website, this category covers 13 players. All of the ECHL’s teams are independently owned – e.g., they’re not directly owned by an NHL or AHL parent. And while having a good chunk of your roster paid for by your AHL partner is great, the economics for ECHL teams can vary wildly throughout the league depending on the local market – average attendance is 4,700, but it’s propped up immensely by a handful of teams who do really well at the gate.
Nobody – players or owners – get involved in minor-league hockey to get rich. Usually involvement is fuelled by love of the game. Here’s hoping that the ECHL and its players can hash out a fair agreement that provides stability and security for everyone involved.
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