the division was allowed to sign one international player to its practice squad who would not count against the normal 10-player limit, but would not be eligible to be activated during the season after being signed. The pathway was expanded to eight teams (NFC South and AFC North) for the 2018 season. Additionally, several international players have tried to find their starts in the NFL through spending time on teams practice squads without having initially been part of these programs, such as Efe Obada, Moritz Böhringer, and Jarryd Hayne. CFL In the CFL, the "global" player designation was started in 2019 as part of an international partnership with amateur and semi-pro leagues in Mexico and Europe. In addition to the requirement of each CFL team to have one "global" player on their active rosters, each team may have a maximum of two "global" players on their practice squad who do not count against the team's normal practice squad size limit. Each "global" player designated is paid the CFL minimum salary and a portion of their salary may be sent back to the leagues they were taken from, depending on partnership arrangements; players taken from Mexico, for example, currently have 10% of their salaries sent to the Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional, Mexico's top level American football league. Other sports In the National Hockey League, the term "taxi squad" was used for the 2020–21 season to describe a group of players who traveled with but did not play for their respective teams until called upon to do so in the event that a positive COVID-19 case on the team forced the club to make a call-up immediately. The concept was used exclusively for that season; league deputy commissioner Bill Daly said it would likely not be used in future seasons as it was devised solely to circumvent the difficulties in summoning back-up players that were presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. On December 26, 2021, after a large number of disruptions to the 2021–22 season schedule due to COVID-19 issues within teams (including a suspension of all games from December 23–27), the NHL announced that it would reinstate the rule. References Bibliography College sports in the United States American football terminology Canadian football terminology