Affiliates Will Get Their Shot at the Q

Affiliate: af·fil·i·ate : officially attach or connect (a subsidiary group or a person) to an organization.

The 34 man QMJHL training camp roster announcement may have some organizations is scramble mode right now, but local talent in Q based cities will undoubtedly get their shot at playing in the league.

Undrafted local talent will be highly sought after commodity this season across the entire QMJHL.

Obviously, teams have their go to call ups and prospects, but the 2020-2021 season will be vastly different than years gone by.

Historically if a franchise was decimated by injuries, or suspensions, teams would simply call up players for two to three games in a back to back or triple header scenario or wait until the team came into their hometowns.

Gone are the days of easy access to drafted players and travel abroad.

Every QMJHL team will rely very heavily on local talent this year and may even look to sign older players playing in the junior A ranks in order to ensure roster stability within their protected lists given all of the uncertainty.

The very seldom discussed and somewhat private protected lists will undoubtedly get a workout this season and should be heavily scrutinized by fans and the media alike.

As previously mentioned in the article “Wildcats Facing Difficult Decisions Ahead of Training Camp undrafted free agent invites are definitely going to be on the outside looking in, but that certainly doesn’t mean they won’t suit up at some point in the season.

Teams will look to sign many of those players if locally based as affiliates and obviously protect them so other organizations in their division or region don’t snatch them up.

There’s still hope for many undrafted local players to reach their ultimate hockey dreams to play in the QMJHL.

The invite to training camp might not happen, but prospect of being part of the organization is still ever present as ever.

As they say “when one door closes, another one opens.”

Hopefully all of these players will be ready to take full advantage of that opportunity if and when the time comes.

With adversity, comes opportunity.

Local talent will definitely get their shot, it all depends on how they handle the opportunity to live out a dream.