Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but this is an unrepairable issue.

This entire article is full of wishful thinking with ONE important paragraph that needs to be looked at closer:

"The reason this issue exists is due to the lax regulations enforced by the NHL and the Players Association. Currently, all that is required for a player to receive a rookie card is for him to play in a single NHL game; for goaltenders, they simply have to dress and sit on the end of the bench as the back-up goalie. A player can play one shift of an NHL regular season game, and he is eligible to be inserted into every single product for that year’s card releases. This rule is absurd."

Let's break this paragraph down and examine it's parts closer:


1) The reason this issue exists is due to the lax regulations enforced by the NHL and the Players Association.

This is slightly wrong because it's not lax regulation but rather STRICT regulation that creates this issue. Also, the only reason a manufacturer needs an NHL license is to be allowed to use team names, team logos and team dress uniforms; therefore the NHL itself doesn't care about which players get rookie cards and its' regulations are irrelevant to the issue at hand. The NHLPA, however, has a BIG hand into player selection since they are the one who allow use of players' images and names, so their regulations are the ones that one needs to examine.


2) Currently, all that is required for a player to receive a rookie card is for him to play in a single NHL game; for goaltenders, they simply have to dress and sit on the end of the bench as the back-up goalie.

One could also read this statement as "A player cannot have a rookie card until he becomes a member of the NHLPA".

A player cannot dress for a team unless he becomes a member of the NHLPA. This has to occur because of standard trade union practices that cannot be avoided, the same way someone cannot work at an auto parts plant without entering the United Auto Workers.

This is important because of...

3) A player can play one shift of an NHL regular season game, and he is eligible to be inserted into every single product for that year’s card releases.

There's a slight mistake in this section too. You should replace 'eligible' with 'encouraged'. Part of getting an NHLPA license is having to use 100% of its members as often as possible. That means every player that dressed for one shift.

If they were to cut back on the numbers of rookies they would not meet this requirement and when it comes time to get their NHLPA license renewed they would be denied their license which spells end of business...