The audio above explains the difficulty of shifting jobs from Canada (or anywhere else) to the United States. The clip is courtesy of TSN and features Gord Miller and Pierre McGuire talking about the P-1 visa.
Hockey fans know that this is the season of trades; the NHL trade deadline is Monday.
While there are unusual reasons why traded players can't always report right away, Chris Kelly's story is worth noting.
Chris Kelly is a Canadian who played for the Ottawa Senators and was traded to the Boston Bruins — Canada to the United States. Getting traded from a U.S. team to a Canadian team — regardless of nationality — is pretty straight-forward; but Kelly was going in the other direction, and that was the problem.
Kelly needed a P-1 visa in order to play for the Bruins, well, to play games in the United States. Kelly stayed in Ottawa waiting for the paperwork and Boston played in Ottawa Friday night.
P-1 visas cover athletes and entertainers that have obtained "international recognition" — being in the NHL would qualify.
Kelly did get his P-1 visa and can play for Boston anywhere, even though ironically, the Bruins are on a trip in Western Canada. Kelly did miss one game against the New York Islanders. And Kelly isn't the only athlete who have had this issue.
In the audio clip, TSN play-by-play guy talks about how more difficult it is for Canadians to work in the United States. Though Miller never said so, you do have to wonder if he personally knows this story all too well.
The first thought was this had something to do with Miller working for Versus for a game, though the game for Versus was in Montréal.
Regardless, Miller sounded like he knew what was going on. And since the telecast was available on the NHL Center Ice free preview, Americans learned a valuable lesson even if that lesson doesn't apply to them.
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