QUICK AND DIRTY JUNIORS PRIMER (for prev but also everyone)
there are three "major junior" leagues: the OHL (Ontario), the WHL, (Western), and the QMJHL (Quebec Maritimes).
Eligibility is from when a player is 16 up until a player turns 20. More specifically, the year they turn 20. For example, it is now the 2025-26 season, and the oldest players are born in 2006.
Until the Memorial Cup tournament, (the final for the winners of the 3 leagues) each team only plays teams in its own league. You will not see Medicine Hat playing Rimouski unless it's June. (You might see Ottawa play Gatineau, but that is an infrequent exception)
Each league is small (~20 teams) but otherwise structured very similarly to the NHL in rules, with trades, bracket-of-16 best of seven playoffs, etc.
Which CHL league a player is eligible for is determined by his home before the draft: Quebec, the Maritime provinces and New England go to the QMJHL; Ontario and the states east of the Mississippi (excl. NE) go to the OHL; Western Canada and states West of the Mississippi incl. Minnesota go to the WHL. It is generally not possible for a player to play outside of his home league.
CHL players are not paid as laborers. They are given a small stipend to cover food and equipment, but it is expected that most of their expenses are covered by their "billet" (their host family).
A few CHL players (allegedly), typically the ones who have futures as NHL players, are paid under the table by their teams.
Some players (deemed "imports") are not from North America, but selected from overseas. Teams are permitted a maximum of 3 imports (recently changed from 2)
Players travel by bus to opponents. Yes, this means players from the Brandon Wheat Kings will have to make the 25-hour bus ride to play the Victoria Royals once a season. (likely as part of a longer road trip).
Western boys are often stereotyped as "the tough ones." Ontario boys are often known as the most skilled/seen as the default.
QMJHL tends not to attract many Americans, because most of the league runs its operations in French. The Q is usually slightly less competitive as a result, but oftentimes turns out the strongest import players.
Most CHL players do not have a future in the NHL. There are many that will have professional, non-NHL careers, but on an average team you can expect at most two or three players to become longtime NHL players. Many fill out AHL, ECHL, or European careers.
CHL players are eligible for a scholarship to a Canadian university, usually one year of tuition for every year played in juniors.
Up until literally last season, CHL players were not eligible to play in the NCAA, as their stipend ruled them officially "professionals." This is a really really crucial part of the history of hockey player development and I will exit out of a fic immediately if you get this one wrong.
CHL players are not eligible to play in the AHL until they have aged out of juniors, aka "are 20." Their options are either juniors or NHL. This is often a controversial rule and something nobody likes!
CHL teams are rarely truly financially stable and relocate not infrequently. If you're writing historical juniors, make sure that you look up which teams were actually Around that season - and where they were playing!!
Because of varying arena sizes (CHL teams get the vast majority of their revenue from ticket sales) there are generally Better Teams and Worse Teams. However, because eligibility is so short, teams go through the competitive cycle (good -> bad -> good) much more quickly.
The London Knights (based in London, Ontario) are the cream of the crop. Under their current ownership (the Hunter brothers), the amount and quality of NHL players they have turned out is unmatched by any other program globally, including college.
Juniors are emotional players. Fights are significantly more common than they are in the NHL, especially because their schedule is more unbalanced due to the whole bus travel thing. Kitchener and Owen Sound, for example, play each other eight times this year!!
The Ontario league routinely turns out the most NHL players of any developmental league, including NCAA. About 1/5th of all NHL players come from the OHL, and about half of them come from the CHL total.
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