Junior journeyman wants his college cash and he’s prepared to go a lot further.
Brody Todd was, by all accounts, a run-of-the-mill OHL player. The hulking left winger with limited skill bounced around four teams in five years, scored just 93 points in 295 games and faded into hockey oblivion without having been drafted by an NHL team.
But depending upon what transpires over the next little while, Todd could be remembered as the young man who shook junior hockey to its foundations.
You see, Todd, now 22, is not going quietly into the night. He and his agent are suing the OHL, the Kingston Frontenacs and league commissioner David Branch. And if Todd doesn’t get what he wants, it’s possible that one player’s crusade for his education money could become a class-action lawsuit on behalf of every player, past and present, who has played in the OHL since Branch took the commissioner’s job in 1979.
“Brody Todd literally gave his blood for the OHL for five years and it was a disgrace how he was treated,” said Todd Christie, Todd’s former agent and legal representative in the lawsuit.
“He is sufficiently pissed off that he’s willing to be in it for the long haul and be the guy who challenges the system. I can amend (the lawsuit) at any time and I’m perfectly prepared to do it.”
In September, Christie filed a statement of claim with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, suing the Frontenacs for $8,200 (all figures Canadian), which represents $7,000 for his first year of university education – as agreed to in his contract – plus $300 per year of off-season training money that Todd never received.
But in addition to suing the OHL for an additional $10,000, Todd is suing the league, Branch and the Frontenacs for another $150,000. The lawsuit claims the OHL’s maximum compensation of $50 per week per player constitutes illegal restraint of trade, as does the OHL draft, which Todd wants abolished. Christie argues the drafts in the OHL, WHL and QMJHL are the only ones in any sport that have not been collectively bargained with the players.
It will likely never get to trial, since Christie is already in negotiations with OHL lawyer Gordon Kirke (who, incidentally, was once an NHL Players’ Association agent just as Christie is). And just days after the lawsuit was launched, a $7,000 check mysteriously appeared at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., where Todd is now studying and playing hockey. Branch, who refused to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, acknowledged the Frontenacs have finally offered their first payment on Todd’s education plan.
But should the lawsuit ever proceed and Todd is victorious, it would be a huge blow to junior hockey operators, who, for decades, have been able to uproot teenagers from their homes, trade them whenever they pleased and pay them poverty wages.
Christie acknowledged the lawsuit started as an attempt to get Todd’s education money, but has grown into something far bigger.
“He wants to make things better for other players and he told me to sue them for whatever I can think of, so that’s what I did,” Christie said. “They’re going to pay for his schooling, there is no doubt about that. But he stands to make more money with these other issues.”
Todd, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound winger, was drafted in the second round by Kingston in 2000. By the middle of the next season, he went to Frontenacs GM Larry Mavety and demanded a trade. Christie said Mavety told Todd to go home and he would try to trade him, which he did two weeks later. Todd went on to an unspectacular career with the Sudbury Wolves, Ottawa 67’s and Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds that ended in 2005. But when Todd originally signed with Kingston, the team agreed to contribute $7,000 per year for four years toward his post-secondary tuition, provided he did not sign a pro contract. But when it came to paying last year, the Fronts and OHL maintained his education package was nullified by the fact he quit the team for two weeks in his second season.
BRODY TODD LITERALLY GAVE HIS BLOOD FOR THE OHL FOR FIVE YEARS…IT WAS A DISGRACE HOW HE WAS TREATED TODD CHRISTIE.
However, that didn’t stop the league from allowing Todd to play for 3-1/2 more seasons in the OHL. The Frontenacs also cancelled Todd’s disability insurance.
At least one agent said while the case has merit, Christie has to share some of the responsibility for allowing the situation to deteriorate. In fact, Christie acknowledges not even he nor Brody knows which of the four OHL teams is responsible for picking up the education package, though they think it should be the Frontenacs.
“The first thing we do when one of our clients is traded is we make sure who is responsible for the education package,” the agent said. “Christie should have done that.”
As for the $150,000, Christie said that represents what Todd would have earned had the OHL earmarked just 50 per cent of revenues to the players. He rightly points out the league has paid $50 per week since the mid-1970s, even though inflation has since rocketed.
“It would be interesting to hear David Branch in an open court say that salaries and assets for everyone involved in junior hockey have increased except for those of the product, which is the players,” Christie said.