Visa issues continue

Most Central Hockey League teams, including Oklahoma City, have had more immigration problems this year than in past seasons. But according to someone who ought to know, the Blazers have done a good job of dealing with those problems.

"The Blazers have been excellent," CHL president Brad Treliving said. "They've done everything they're supposed to do."

Further evidence of the Blazers' good work came this week, when two more players, Mike Lukajic and Ryan Watson, passed the immigration process. They will be eligible to play Friday night against Wichita. The five other Blazers who had immigration hurdles to clear — because they had been in AHL training camps — passed those tests in time to play in the team's season opener.

"The Blazers weren't impacted as much as some other teams," Treliving said. "We've had teams that only had six to eight players in training camp.

"To a certain degree, every team in league was impacted. Easily six to eight teams had major issues, significant problems."

Because of immigration issues:

• Bossier-Shreveport played two games without 11 of its players.

• Rio Grande Valley, with only nine in training camp, cancelled its exhibition season.

• Colorado was without four of its players in the first two games of the season, and only 10 Eagles have played in every game.

Each CHL team is allowed to dress 18 players, yet only seven Bossier-Shreveport, eight Arizona and nine Laredo players have been in all of those team's games.

Why so many immigration problems this year? For one thing, immigration laws have undergone constant tweaking since 9/11. For another, the people saying yea or nay to CHL immigration requests have changed.

"The processing center we've always used in Nebraska has been changed to Vermont," Treliving said. "So you have people that are doing it for the first time and there's a newness there. It's just taking longer."

CHL players who are not U.S. citizens must have a work visa or green card to play in the league. Other players must have an H2B, or temporary work visa, which is renewed annually. Each team is allowed to have no more than 15 players on an H2B visa. And because of a national quota system, only when an H2B player leaves the team is that team allowed to apply for another H2B.

"In order to even file for other players, people have to come off the petition," said Blazers assistant general manager Josh Evans, who is in his second season as the team's official in charge of immigration matters. "Before you can even send the papers away, you have to have space under your H2B cap."

Every CHL team has the option to pay a $1,000 premium processing fee for each visa petition, guaranteeing a ruling within 15 days. The Blazers pay that extra fee.

"It doesn't guarantee anything other than that they'll make a ruling on it," Evans said. "Their ruling might be that they need more information, and if they say that, your 15 days starts over. So it behooves you to make sure that all of your paperwork is filed correctly, all the forms are signed correctly, so that there's a diminished chance that your petition will come back because they need more information."