Login

ShadowFenix · 01-23-2024, 02:23 PM

The New York Times - Daryll Motz

NOTE: Any accusations in the following article are purely the opinion of the article writer, and in no way shape or form imply guilt towards the accused. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

We all watch the SHL games, and the SMJHL games free on YouTube. The league has existed for years, and while sure, ticket sales and advertisements probably help pay for some aspects of the league, one begins to wonder how exactly teams are able to afford dishing out these multi-million dollar contracts to their players. My team and I went undercover to do some investigative journalism on where exactly this money is coming from–and to whom it is going.

Let's take a trip back to the SMJHL S74 Entry Draft. Players of all skill levels entered the draft, but when looking in hindsight of who was picked and where, it opens up a whole word of questions:

#1 (QCC) Demir Bellona - Bank Balance: $110,460,000
#2 (CAR) Olīvija Agate - Bank Balance: $5,170,000
#3 (COL) Pinli Switchbang - Bank Balance: $99,916,000
#4 (STL) Charlie Slurpe - Bank Balance: $127,523,000
#5 (DET) Kal Åkar Kekkonen - Bank Balance: $28,439,000

Notice the commonality between the top 5 draft picks? They're all multi-millionaires. With no care for size, or even skill before coming to the SMJHL, it seems like money is one of the strongest indicators in how a player will be drafted. Our research has shown that GMs even have a word for players like these ones that come into the league with large amounts of money: "Recreates".

How is it possible that a single player who has never played a game of professional hockey, and had almost no brand until they entered to be drafted have this much money? And that's not even to ask the question about why we can see this information in the first place. Why are SHL player's bank accounts public? The only logical outcome is that the powers that be have some ulterior motive for this requirement.

"Officially", player guidelines state that they're allowed to make money through their contract, obviously, but also through endorsements with media, various interviews, and although we've been unable to confirm this, it seems players can also take on various "site jobs", whatever that means. From what we've been able to gather, players then spend this money on training, and seasonal coaching. To be the best, it's understandable that one might need to invest in extra ice time, but for a typical SHL player, they can spend about $17,000,000 per season on these training sessions. It seems like a large amount, especially when compared to player salaries, which rarely top $10,000,000.

Some players sign up for the SMJHL draft and they don't have money. These players, dubbed "New Creates" by GMs, are actually given a free $500,000 interest-free loan from the SHL just for signing up for the draft! Many players spend this on "training", which is the suggested way to spend the money, as allegedly listed by an internal guide given to all SHL and SMJHL players. We were unable to obtain this guide to confirm what exactly this training entails, but for the SHL to be able to give such a large some of cash, in expectancy that it is spent in the way that they want it, it just screams of something hidden in the dark depths of this sport we love.

Of course, it's not like this comes without risk. It's an open secret that these New Creates are riskier than the Recreates, as evidenced by the latter typically being drafted higher in the SMJHL draft than the former. Are Recreates already involved in the money laundering process? Are GMs involved as well? We've heard that Recreates are prioritized higher because of their dedication in what they bring to the league, and that can be translated into the dedication that they've already brought in laundering money. There's a well connected network here where people know other people, and perhaps this means that this goes even deeper than the SHL, with a recruitment funnel starting all the way from peewees.

We've also heard of players buying "trading cards", which we can only assume is an allegory to drugs, or worse, money laundering. Notable card collector Micool132, when asked why he buys these so-called cards, at first seemed calm stating "I bought my first trading cards because they were cute, and I didn't want the card team to feel bad for their hard work." As he continued, Micool132's eyes became increasingly more bloodshot. "Now, I'm addicted to it like it was drugs, and if there wasn't a limit of 3 per day, I would be bankrupt. Getting that sweet dopamine from rare cards is what keeps me buying. Oh lord I need more cards now, hit me up for trades!"

His words left me with more questions than I started with. What did he mean by a 3 day limit? Could there be a secret number of money laundering actions that if someone took more than it, they would raise suspicions and have the police seize their assets? Micool132 is, or rather was, the agent for SHL player Angus McFife XVIII, before his recent retirement. McFife XVIII came out of the SHL with $81,144,000 in his bank account. Could the connection be that the agent is the one doing the money laundering by siphoning money into and out of the player's bank account? We'll have to keep an eye on SMJHL new draftee Nathangus McExplosion, who recently signed Micool132 as his agent.

ThisSeemsFishy, on behalf of Jussi Mutou of the Colorado Raptors, another card collector, was able to forward our questions about why he buys these cards. "I buy them to stuff under my mattress like a little freak." Mutou answered, "I only ever pull them out to use as currency to bet in the Top Secret SHL Fight Club (shhh. Don't tell anyone)." Mutou's answer gave us the much needed context that we sought. These trading cards are a form of currency, and they're almost definitely involved in the secret underground money laundering scheme. While Mutou's agent also asked us not to include the second half of Mutou's statement, we have included it in the effort for more transparent media, as well as to outline how cool it is that one of Colorado's Legion of Boom participates in an underground fight club.

While it seems that Mutou is more directly involved in these cards, rather than his agent, such as in the case of Micool132 and Angus McFife XVIII, we wanted to take a deeper look at these connections between players and their agents. The first place we looked was towards those at the head of it all, the owners of the SHL: Leafs4ever and DrunkenTeddy. Both of these people act as the owners of the SHL, but at the same time, they are the agents for SHL players Guy Incognito, and Luc Blouin, who have $139,901,000 and $103,816,000 respectively in their bank accounts. Disregarding the clear conflict of interest for a moment, it's clear that the bank accounts of these players are large, and in fact they're on the same level as those high level draft picks from earlier. The connections are everywhere.

This conflict of interest isn't just at the head of the SHL. In fact, it goes all the way down, from Head Office positions to GMs to even interns, people with connections to players are put into these positions. Of course, this could just be nepotism at play, but when players give money to the league for "training", and then the league pays the people in these administration positions money, it seems like it's a direct funnel of money from the players to the top of the SHL administration. And everyone involved knows that this happens, from players, to GMs, to the owners. Everyone gets their cut along the way, so nobody says anything.

Angered by our findings, we reached out to the Head Banker of the SHL, RangerJase. Surely if anyone would be able to stem our fears, it would be him. We asked him about the secret underground money laundering scheme in the SHL, and he vehemently denied it, even stating procedures such as "Nash the money sniffing dog [being] an integral part of sniffing out those laundering cash around the league."

While RangerJase did admit that there could be the possibility of money laundering, he emphasized that the league was taking steps to prevent it. However, as reporters, we were unsure about the truth of his words, noting his connection to Buffalo Stampede defenseman Nash Topalo and his $125,768,420 bank account.

It would be difficult to find someone not involved in this dilemma. After scouring the lists of players in the SMJHL or SHL, we finally stumbled upon Shadow Fenix of the Colorado Raptors. As of the time of writing this article, Fenix's bank account sits at -$864,000, and he acts as his own agent. Someone with a negative bank account could be the only person that we could trust. We asked him about the "training" that SHL players sink millions of dollars into every season, to which he replied "Well, we do have weekly trainings that we pay something like a million or so for every week, and it's a good source of TPE, but to be honest most of our TPE is gained from these tasks that the league gives to every player every week."

"What kind of tasks?" He said, in response to us asking, "they're usually pretty simple, just writing about who we think should win certain matchups, what we did over the holidays, just basic stuff." Our reporter was horrified. Not only isthe SHL involved in money laundering, they force players to complete tasks for TPE or money which then goes back to buying "training" for even more TPE. Not being sure what TPE even is, we asked Fenix to elaborate. "It's kind of hard to explain," Fenix started, "but it's kind of like how good you are at hockey. Like your stat points are all based off TPE."

Fenix spoke almost as if he were out of a video game, and we had to cut the interview early, not wanting to endanger our reporter from this clear madman. Once again, we were left with more questions than answers. From what we could tell, the SHL gives out payments to players, both directly and through their agents in administration positions, and then this money gets funneled back through overly expensive training sessions, which then give "TPE", which much like the trading cards, seems to be some kind of drug or stimulant that players get hooked on.

After all was said and done, we couldn't confirm whether or not there is a secret underground money laundering scheme in the SHL. The evidence we compiled does give us a strong indication that something is going on underneath everything, but unfortunately we can't say for sure.

With the SMJHL draft right around the corner, we as fans need to ask ourselves if there's anything we can do. Of course, we'll be keeping our eyes open for Nash the money sniffing dog, in hopes that we can sniff out any money that potential draftees are bringing into the league. Pay attention to the Recreates this time around, and see where they get drafted, along with their bank accounts.

Beyond just being aware of the issue, there's not much that we can do, or even much we would really want to do. At the end of the day, the league seems to be built on the back of money laundering, and without that economic backbone there to sustain it, maybe there wouldn't be a league at all, so who are we to say what should happen here.