Nine Lynx ruled ineligible

November 23, 2005 - ECHL (ECHL)
Augusta Lynx News Release


The Augusta Lynx announce today that because of a ruling by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Nicholas Corbeil, Phil Cole, Ryan Lang, Martin Lapointe, Steve LeCuyer, Brian Passmore, Joe Pereira, Dan Sullivan and Doug Wright have been temporarily ruled ineligible to play.

The team was advised by the USCIS late Tuesday that its petition for temporary employment of certain Canadian players in the United States had been denied. In conjunction with ECHL immigration counsel, the organization immediately re-filed its petition and team and league officials have been working around the clock to expedite the process and gain the players' eligibility as quickly as possible.

Team and league officials spent the day Wednesday working to resolve the issue before the Thanksgiving holiday, with the hopes of immediately restoring the players' eligibility. However, the Lynx were notified late Wednesday afternoon that the re-filing of the petition for temporary employment for the affected Canadian players could not be processed in time by USCIS.

The nine players are not allowed to play until the issue has been resolved, a process which could take several business days.

"The denial of our petition has placed us in a very difficult situation, but we are not going to do anything that jeopardizes the future of the players involved," said Augusta general manager Rob Mueller.

Upon receiving initial notice late Tuesday, Mueller and head coach Bob Ferguson began procuring additional players for the team which will play at Gwinnett on Thursday while hosting Greenville on Friday and Charlotte on Saturday.



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