For more information:
Chris Bilder, Public Relations/Marketing, Eugene Generals
541-359-4154 (office)
541-680-6222 (cell)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 10, 2008
NORPAC to Hold Inaugural Draft on Tuesday
Eugene, OR – The Northern Pacific Hockey League (NORPAC) will hold their inaugural NORPAC Draft Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 7:00 PM PST. The draft will consist of twelve rounds with each of the 13 teams in NORPAC picking once per round. Each team will have three minutes to make each pick.
“The greatest benefit of the draft will be awareness for NORPAC,” NORPAC Commissioner Mike Butters stated. “NORPAC made great strides last year by how well we fared at the National Tournament, and there are a lot of players taking notice of our league. Our tender system is one way to bring awareness to the league, but the draft will solidify that awareness.”
Butters went on to say, “I don’t foresee any major problems with the draft this year. It is a work in progress, and in the long term I think it will be a great component of the league. There are no boundaries right now, in terms of age, for which players can be drafted, but that might change next year. If a player gets recruited by, and wants to play for, one team and gets drafted by another we will have some work to do. We will mediate at the league office level, and work something out. NORPAC wants to insure that a player who gets drafted into the league stays in the league.”
The draft order is determined by winning percentage from the previous regular season with the team with the lowest winning percentage picking first and the team with the highest winning percentage picking last. The second round will be in reverse order. The draft order will switch back and forth between these two orders for the remainder of the draft. There are no teams in NORPAC this year with identical winning percentages, but if that were to occur in the future NORPAC will follow the same tie-breaker used to determine playoff seeding.
The first round draft order is as follows: 1) Rogue Valley Wranglers; 2) Yellowstone Quake; 3) Coeur d’Alene Lakers; 4) Butte Rough Riders; 5) Puget Sound Tomahawks; 6) Missoula Maulers; 7) River City Jaguars; 8) Billings Bulls; 9) Eugene Generals; 10) Tri-City Titans; 11) Bozeman Blackhawks; 12) Helena Bighorns; 13) Seattle Totems.
The second round draft order is as follows: 1) Seattle Totems; 2) Helena Bighorns; 3) Bozeman Blackhawks; 4) Tri-City Titans; 5) Eugene Generals; 6) Billings Bulls; 7) River City Jaguars; 8) Missoula Maulers; 9) Puget Sound Tomahawks; 10) Butte Rough Riders; 11) Coeur d’Alene Lakers; 12) Yellowstone Quake; 13) Rogue Valley Wranglers.
NORPAC officials will contact all drafted players subsequent to the draft. Every drafted player is property of the team that he was drafted by until the first regular season game (September 27, 2008), however players who were drafted can attend a tryout camp of a NORPAC team who did not draft him as long as the team who is holding the tryout camp receives permission from the team that drafted the player.
If a drafted player wishes to sign with a different NORPAC team than the team that drafted him, he would not be allowed to report to his new team until the first regular season game. Compensation will be due to the NORPAC team that drafted the player. All drafted players will only have protected status in NORPAC.
For more information on the NORPAC Draft please visit eugenegenerals.com.