Minor League records

[khittle]

Who holds the ACTUAL all time goals leader for minor league hockey? Don Parsons claims to have set the record this year in the IHL, but I think there is an older record than the Kevin Kerr record broke this season by Parsons. Any information?

[Ralph Slate]

A few years back, the Flint Generals made a big deal about Kevin Kerr becoming the "all time minor pro league goal scorer". It was more a publicity event than anything -- the only way they could say that Kerr was the #1 goal scorer was to ignore Dick Roberge, who scored 756 goals, mostly while playing for the Johnstown Chiefs of the Eastern Hockey League.

The UHL and Flint discounted Roberge because they claimed that the EHL was an "amateur" league. However, the term amateur vs. professional is very squishy. Eastern Hockey League players were paid for their work -- they clearly weren't playing for free. Sometimes they were given jobs at local businesses, possibly no-show jobs. Other times they were just simply paid. I found an article about the EHL in the mid-1930's that called it a "wink-wink" amateur league. That was 20+ years before Roberge played in it.

Keep in mind that the International Hockey League was also considered "amateur" until the mid-1970's. I don't know how or why they lost that distinction, but they were listed each year in the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States hockey guide as a "Senior" league.

"Amateur" vs. "Professional" is very hard to understand. It has a long history and although it is tied to Olympic competition, it is also tied to some type of hockey governance structure. For example, in the 1940's, the NHL had some kind of territorial rights to the West Coast left over from the old PCHA, and the Pacific Coast Hockey League played as an "amateur" league because the NHL demanded a large fee to allow professional hockey there.

There were other issues surrounding player rights -- particularly involving the NHL. I've heard the story of Jean Beliveau playing "senior" amateur hockey in the Quebec Senior Hockey League and being quite content with his arrangement even though Montreal Canadiens owned his pro rights. So the Canadiens purchased the QSHL and turned it into a pro league, meaning that Beliveau had to join them. I don't know how accurate that story is, but it illustrates how governance came into play here.

Based on all that, I think that the UHL and Flint were wrong to discount Roberge's goals. The EHL at that time probably had better hockey than the current UHL given that there were fewer hockey teams meaning fewer opportunities. There were 6 NHL teams, maybe 8-12 AHL teams, maybe another 8-12 WHL teams, a few QHL/EPHL/CHL teams at times, and then the EHL.