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CAHA Becomes Bonus Baby SitterBy GEORGE GROSS (Special to The Sun)The price of a 19-year-old amateur hockey player may well be between $5,000 and $10,000 in 1967.This is the crux of an agreementreached between the National Hockey League and the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association in Montreal recently.The NHL and CAHA have signed a five-year pact effective July 1, 1967 whereby professional sponsorships of amateur teams will be eliminated and A, B and C forms regulating tryouts for amateur players will be abolished.What does all this mean?In the past, professional teams have sponsored various minor clubs all over the country at a cost of many thousands a year for the right to sign talented players.According to this new agreement they will no longer be able to sponsor those teams. The administration and financing of such minor clubs will now be the responsibility of the CAHA.Where will the money come from? How will the CAHA provide thousands of dollars when it has trouble financing its national team? The only way this will be possible is by putting a price on an amateur player drafted in the future by a pro team.In the initial joint announcement by the NHL and the CAHA there is no indication of such an arrangement. But the only way to keep the minor clubs going will be putting a price tag on the players.NHL president Clarence Campbell expressed the views of pro hockey officials, when he said: We’ve always said that sponsorship is a dreadfully expensive way to stock pro teams with amateur players.In simple words, now the pro clubs have to buy a cow in order to get a glass of milk. Through the new agreement they’ll be able to buy the glass even though it may be at inflated prices.In the future the only agreement between a professional team and a player will be a standard player contract. The A, B and C forms will become a thing of the past.What are these forms?The A and B forms, in short, were tryout forms for 19-year-old amateur hockeyplayers for a period of one year, which had lo be renewed each year. A player signed to an A form received no money. A B-form player was given some money, although this form hasn't been in use for many years.The C form has been the most controversial. In several instances angry parentsthreatened court action when pro teams shifted their youngsters from city to city or refused to release a young player, when the parents moved to another new town.Although there have been suggestions that pro teams have been signing youngsters to the C form earlier than at the age of 19, permitted by the rules, this was never proven. This age limit has actually changed from 18 to 19 and now to a player’s 20th year.The C form was the first step towards a professional contract in a young hockey player’s career and he received a fee when signing.Now, with the new agreement effective next July, the field will be thrown wide open. All professional clubs, including the six new NHL entries (Los Angeles, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh) will be able to participate in a universal draft.Said Campbell: It is the intent of professional hockey that, in the future, professional teams will acquire amateur players only through a universal draft, except in the case of overage players not selected in draft procedures, in which case they can be signed directly to standard player contracts.The main purpose of the universal draft, so far as the NHL is concerned, is to place our six new' member clubs on a fully competitive basis as soon as possible.Mr. Campbell also said that if a sponsoring team had the rights to a player prior to the recent agreement, the team would retain these rights which it could exercisefully.CAHA president Fred Page said: We feel today’s meeting was a historic one. We are completely satified with these changes. We are confident that the return of these administrative responsibilities to amateur hockey will result in the growth in amateur ranks.