The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

c economist suhntrune m hockey players cor from page 1 they had inadvertently erred in dealing with the gthls import quota rule which enables each team to carry five imports those who reside outside the torontomississauga boundary i by signing genio whose gormley home isnt in markhams territory the islanders were one player over the import limit and because genio was the last import signed the gthl says he must be dropped from the roster it was a simple rnistake there was no malice whatsoever said randy jacobs general manager of the islanders organic zation im upset with the system its the last thing i wanted to see with any young ster were here to develop kids at a com petitive level in a great league he said l league officials are alsodisappointed ajsituation like thismoesnt happen that often and i dont like to see this hap pen to any youngster said john gardiner president of the gthl 1 marc caira genio s father said his son isnt the only victim but rather niany youngsters are victimized by a minor hockeysystem he says requires some major retooling- most people just accept the poli tics he said of major concern to mr caira is the manner in wwchplayers especially those at the rep level are treated almost like pawns in a chess game by teams that take a winatallcpst approach you cant heat mem as commodi ties youre dealing with youngsters here its about doing whats rightrfor them youll always have mistakes but you have to allow them to enjoy the game no youngster should go through what we went through he said the recraitment of players from other teams may be the biggest prob lem mr caira said islanders head coach brian blad who played for the newmarket saints of the american hockey league attended genios playoff games last season arid encouraged him to join his team the gairas said genio was invited to a con- troversial birthday skate an unautho rized offrseaspn practice held under the pretense of a players birthday party mr blad did not return calls v much to his chagrin mr gardiner said the recruiting wars have escalated overthe past 10 years in the gthl its not getting any better our sys tem seems to be fighting the change now its a win- win nibdel and there are agents and scouts and kids are being pushed too fast kids are now com- modifies we need to treat them as human beings its a terrible testimony of a developmental system in our own country that upsets me he said even the richmond hillbased ontario minor hockey association which includes the majority of rep teams in york region is not immune to the highpressure recruiting tactics its pretty bad bill jeffersonpresi- dent oft the markham waxers minor hockey association said its a terrible testimony of a developmental system in our own country mr jefferson thinks the problem in the omha coincided with the ontario hockey federation creating the lake ontario region in 1997 a geographic subdivision made up of toronto and mississauga gthl and surrounding omha areas including vaughah richmond hill markham pickering ajax brampton arid oakvule what youve done is create another smaller gthl centre with a free market at that point everyone became a free agent one year you could have a great team and then the coach decides to leave and he takesthe good players to another team he said mr jefferson thinks the gthl is in part to blame because it is touted as the quickest route to the national hockey league thus the exodus of players from one leagueto another as a gthl general manager for four years mr jacobs said the league is attractive to families because teams are packed into a small area not because of the socalled nhl hype at toe same time me import rule pre vents teams from having more than five players from outside the area he said with toronto being the media capital of canada mr gardiner says his league receives more press but the same prob lems exist across canada people in alberta and bc still run into the same problems he said mr caira would like to see organiza tions take more accountability for their actions how can you release a toyearold when youve made a commitment to himhesaid the gthl said it will allow genio to join another team that did not fill its import quota i appreciate that a lot of people in mmor hockey are volunteers but in tlus business theres a certain amount of accountability thats required this is like running a business where there are responsibilities that go with your posi tion said mr caira who is hesitant of accepting the gthls proposal mr jefferson isnt optimistic recruit ing wars will end in the near future these days youve got to be smart and get recruiting skills youve got to fight fire with fire gorrriley resident genio caira and his mom helan were devastated after markham team coach recruited him then dumped him from the team over an import rule staff photosteve somerville