Major NHL Antitrust Lawsuit Against the CHL: Dismissals and Appeal

The NHL antitrust lawsuit against the CHL is a proposed class action accusing the National Hockey League, the Canadian Hockey League, and its three regional leagues of running a cartel that drafts teenagers as young as 15, binds them to a single club for up to five years at wages well below minimum, and blocks them from playing elsewhere in North America. Filed in February 2024 by the North America division of the World Association of Icehockey Players Unions and two former junior players, the case has been dismissed twice on jurisdictional grounds and is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with briefing completed in February 2026 and no oral argument yet scheduled.¹

Who Sued and Why

The named plaintiffs are Tanner Gould, a Calgary player drafted at 15 by the Western Hockey League’s Tri-City Americans, and Isaiah DiLaura, a Minnesotan drafted the same year by the Prince George Cougars.² DiLaura lived a 25-hour drive from Prince George and says he was benched for two months after asking to be traded, with no ability to move to a closer team because the Cougars owned his rights. Gould says that after a serious back injury in the 2021–22 season, his club made him keep skating in pain and delayed an MRI for three months while a higher-profile teammate was seen right away.³

They are joined by WAIPU’s North America division and represented by a coalition led by Constantine Cannon.⁴ The proposed class covers everyone who played for a CHL club between February 14, 2020, and any eventual judgment.⁵

What the Lawsuit Says the CHL Does to Players

The CHL groups three regional leagues, the Western Hockey League, the Ontario Hockey League, and the Québec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, into roughly 60 teams across Canada and several U.S. states. Together they are the main development path to the NHL.⁶

According to the complaint, the three leagues have divided North America into exclusive territories. A player who lives in Ontario can only be drafted by OHL teams; the WHL and QMJHL are barred from recruiting there.⁷ Each league holds an involuntary draft of players turning 16. Once drafted, a player signs a non-negotiable Standard Player Agreement that binds him to one club until he ages out at 20. He cannot switch teams unless traded, and a club can charge “professional development fees” of up to $500,000 to release him from a protected list.²

Pay is nominal. WHL players receive about $250 a month and OHL players around $470, while American Hockey League players earn upwards of $5,000 a month and ECHL players average over $2,800, both under collectively bargained deals.⁸ The SPA also assigns all rights to commercially exploit a player’s name, image, and likeness to the leagues and clubs, with nothing shared back.⁵

Why the NHL Is a Defendant

The complaint casts the NHL as a co-conspirator, not a bystander. The NHL sends the CHL annual multi-million-dollar payments and pays individual CHL teams up to $175,000 each time one of their players is drafted into the NHL.⁸ The plaintiffs say that funding is conditioned on the CHL keeping its restrictive rules in place.⁷

The complaint also targets the NHL-CHL transfer agreement. Under it, a North American player drafted by an NHL club but not kept on the NHL roster has to return to his CHL team if he is under 20, rather than developing in the AHL. Plaintiffs argue this lets NHL clubs put off triggering entry-level contract costs while keeping the junior leagues stocked with talent.⁹ The AHL and ECHL, largely owned or controlled by NHL franchises, have separately agreed not to recruit players still in the major junior system, further narrowing where teenagers can go.⁵

The Antitrust Theory

The legal spine of the case is that none of these restrictions were negotiated through a collective bargaining agreement with a players’ union. In professional sports, CBA-negotiated rules typically get some shelter from antitrust scrutiny. Because CHL players have no union, the plaintiffs argue the arrangements are per se illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act.⁴ They seek damages, an end to the challenged practices, and an injunction against any future drafts held without a CBA in place.⁸

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston sits behind the theory. That ruling confirmed that sports organizations have no special immunity from the Sherman Act and that compensation restrictions must survive rule-of-reason review even when the organization argues they are essential to its product.¹⁰

Two Dismissals and a Pending Appeal

The case was filed on February 14, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York as Case No. 1:24-cv-01066.⁵ In November 2024, that court dismissed the CHL defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction. Weeks later, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the remaining claims against the NHL.¹¹

About a month later, they refiled substantially the same lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, evidently counting on a state with four WHL teams to establish jurisdiction. The NHL and CHL both moved to dismiss in February 2025. The NHL argued the plaintiffs lacked standing because neither Gould nor DiLaura had ever been drafted by an NHL team. The CHL invoked the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act, arguing the dispute belonged in Canada.¹²

At a March 21, 2025 hearing, U.S. District Judge Tana Lin asked the plaintiffs’ attorneys, “The fact remains that they weren’t ever drafted. So do you just have the wrong plaintiffs for this case?”¹² In May 2025 she granted the motions to dismiss. The court found that most defendants lacked sufficient minimum contacts with Washington, that some claims involved foreign commerce outside the reach of the Sherman Act, and that international comity counseled dismissal because the matter was fundamentally “a Canadian, not an American issue.”⁶ As to the NHL specifically, the court held it is an “unincorporated joint venture association” rather than a corporation, and that Washington does not recognize a “conspiracy theory of long-arm jurisdiction” to reach it.¹¹

The plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit as Case No. 25-3929. After the appeal was released from the court’s mediation program in August 2025, briefing moved forward, and the appellees’ answering brief was filed on February 10, 2026. No oral argument has been scheduled as of mid-2026.¹

In November 2025, a coalition of 15 attorneys general led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an amicus brief urging the Ninth Circuit to reverse. The signatories were California, Washington, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. The states argued that letting the dismissal stand would create a “dangerous precedent” allowing conspirators to avoid liability by expanding schemes across state lines or borders, and that agreements to divide labor markets are anticompetitive whether or not the conduct originated domestically.¹³

Changes to Junior Hockey While the Case Sits

Even with the litigation stalled on jurisdiction, parts of the system the plaintiffs attacked have already shifted. In November 2024 the NCAA voted to end its longstanding ban on CHL players competing in Division I hockey, effective August 1, 2025. That change came months after 19-year-old junior player Rylan Masterson filed his own antitrust lawsuit in the Western District of New York calling the ban an illegal group boycott.¹⁴ Beginning with the 2025–26 season, CHL players became eligible to play NCAA hockey.¹⁵

Starting in the 2026–27 season, NHL teams will also be able to assign one 19-year-old to the AHL, sidestepping the old rule that sent CHL-age players back to junior.¹⁶ The existing NHL-CHL agreements expire on September 15, 2026, and further changes are expected as junior, college, and professional hockey work out their overlapping interests.¹⁵ The available reporting does not draw a direct causal line between the WAIPU lawsuit and these reforms.

What to Watch

The next decision point is the Ninth Circuit. If the court agrees with the 15 attorneys general that the district court set the jurisdictional bar too high for a transnational antitrust conspiracy, the case returns to the trial court to face the merits for the first time. If the dismissal is affirmed, the plaintiffs will have to decide whether to seek Supreme Court review or try yet another jurisdiction. Briefing is complete; oral argument has not been set.¹

1
CourtListener. WAIPU v. NHL Docket
2
Courthouse News Service. Young Hockey Players Hit NHL, Big Leagues With Antitrust Suit
3
TSN. Former CHL Players Ask Judge to Stop Major Junior Leagues From Holding Drafts
4
PR Newswire. New Lawsuit: NHL and Major Junior Hockey Leagues Hit With Antitrust Class Action Alleging Anticompetitive Collusion
5
ClassAction.org. NHL, CHL Major Junior Hockey Leagues Hit With Class Action Over Alleged Systemic Exploitation, Abuse of Young Players
6
Syracuse Law Review (Sports Law Forum). Major Junior and Minimum Contacts: Jurisdiction Concerns Delay Hockey Antitrust Litigation
7
ClassAction.org. WAIPU v. NHL Complaint
8
ESPN. Lawsuit: Junior Hockey Violates Antitrust Law
9
The Athletic (New York Times). CHL Antitrust Lawsuit, NHL Explained
10
Supreme Court of the United States. NCAA v. Alston, No. 20-512
11
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. NHL Secures Dismissal of Antitrust Class Action
12
UB Law Sports Forum. Case Update: Antitrust Lawsuit Filed Against NHL, CHL
13
California Office of the Attorney General. Trouble on Ice: Attorney General Bonta Throws Support Behind Hockey Players
14
Cronkite News (Arizona PBS). Inside NCAA Canadian Hockey League Eligibility
15
The Athletic (New York Times). NCAA Canadian Hockey League, College Hockey Explained
16
SB Nation (Pensburgh). Feeder Systems to NHL Experiencing Massive Changes With Alteration to CHL Transfer Agreement