No insurance, no play. That was the consensus of the Edmonton Drillers players following a meeting with head coach Ross Ongaro in Detroit Sunday night.
 
Clearly, the issue of medical and disability insurance far outweighed the Driller players' playoff aspirations or their crucial home-and-home series with division rival Montreal.
 
"I talked to (NPSL commissioner) Steve Paxos (Sunday) night and told him, 'Be prepared, if there's no insurance I'm not coaching the team (Tuesday) and I know the players will walk with me,' " said Ongaro yesterday.
 
"I definitely made (the Drillers front office) aware of what was going to happen if there was no insurance. It says right in the contracts you must have players' insurance.
 
"It first came up when Domenic (Mobilio), on loan from Vancouver, asked me if he was insured,'' Ongaro explained. "When you have a loaned player you have to cover him in case he gets injured to where he can never play again. In that case, his mother club would get compensated. The front office said, 'No.' Then I asked about the rest and they said, `No there isn't.' "
 
The Drillers secured insurance before the team left on its just-completed six-game road swing, but that policy was scheduled to lapse at 12:01 this morning.
 
According to team president and GM Zach Pocklington, the team has acquired the coverage mandated by the NPSL and is covered from now to the end of the season.
 
"We're set and I've got the league squared away," said Pocklington.
 Mobilio says he and the rest of the players were ready to back Ongaro had the issue not been resolved.
 
"I know if we weren't going to be insured we were going to make a stand,'' he said.
 
"After what happened with Lloyd (Barker), we're just looking after our own interests. We're not asking for anything out of the ordinary.
 

"We're just looking for insurance, to be covered in case an accident like that occurs again. If Ross was not going to coach, we were going to stick behind him, and if he didn't want us to play we weren't going to play."
 
Paxos indicated the insurance was in place but said he was still awaiting a fax confirming the team had, in fact, secured coverage for the balance of the season late yesterday.
 
"There had better be something that's faxed here in the next 12 hours or we're going to have to do something about it," said the NPSL boss.