From the Archive - Boucher Urges Player Draft For All Hockey

MONTREAL (March 8, 1952) — The NHL draft is one of the marquee events on the hockey calendar, and it’s no surprise THN’s Draft Preview is one of our best-known issues. But even the idea of a draft was controversial back in the day. In fact, there was no amateur draft until 1963.

But way back in 1952, New York Rangers GM Frank Boucher made a proposal for a draft system that would dramatically alter the previous system of reserve lists and the sponsorship of feeder teams for the NHL. Boucher made a lot of excellent points in his argument, noting that teams would save money and that, with the worst teams drafting first, parity could at least be a possibility in the league. Boucher proposed shaving down the reserve list of 40 skaters and four goalies to 30 players total. He estimated that his own Rangers would save up to $100,000 a year – no small amount of scratch back then.

Perhaps most interesting about Boucher’s proposal was that it was not limited to junior players. In his draft, each NHL team could select players from the AHL and the Pacific Coast League, too (though no franchise could lose more than two players per year).

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