What if a professional athlete in the NHL, NBA, or MLB doesn't have a?
What if a professional athlete in the NHL, NBA, or MLB doesn't have a valid passport, but the team is traveling to Canada for a game, can they be admitted to the country? More than just a passport - they also need a proper work visa to cross the border. This would be the responsibility of the team - to ensure that the paperwork is in place - but if the passport was lost, they would indeed be stuck. I imagine that players dont carry their passports themselves but that they are held by a travelling secretary and only given to the players during their actual border crossing, and collected immediately after. The risks are too high to do otherwise. While most NBA players are from the US (76% - highest percentage of any sport), there are foreign-born players from 41 countries (also the most of any sport), and some of those countries have poor diplomatic relations with the US. Presently, 44% of NHL players are Canadian, with a further 26.4% from the US, but aside from 1 (and only 1) player from Australia, the rest are from European countries who all have rather good relations with Canada. MLB has 70% of players from the US, and the only other countries with a significant number are the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela. I would guess that the work visa paperwork is the bigger issue- though pro sports teams will have a team of legal experts or an immigration law firm on retainer to handle these issues. The fact remains that in this day and age, a passport (or enhanced ID) is a necessity for air travel, and without it, celebrity status wont make a difference. Again, this is going to be the responsibility of the team and not the individual player, but its not going to be ignored as it was in the past. I would bet that even into the 1990s, charter flights for pro sports teams faced minimal scrutiny upon border crossing between Canada and the US.