No, Bure was 18 years old on Sept. 15 1989. The uncertainty regarding Bure's eligibility came from the fact that the rules were extremely complicated at the time and changed depending on where the drafted player came from. Bure could have been drafted in the first three rounds of the 1989 draft and that would have fine, as long as he was selected in the first three rounds. However, when the 1989 entry draft took place, the Soviet Union had yet to fall, and no team was willing to gamble such a high pick on a player whom the Soviets might not allow to leave. At this point, some other Eastern Bloc players had defected, but that's a pretty tough decision for a young man to make, especially when he knows that the Soviet government could make life miserable for any family left behind.
Luckily for the Canucks, there was some weird rule that said that an 18-year-old Soviet player could be taken after the third round, so long as he had played at least 11 games for his Soviet Championship League team in each of the previous two seasons. The official records seemed to indicate that Bure hadn't met this requirement, but the Canucks scouting staff found evidence of extra games that no one else uncovered(remember this was pre-Internet). Even then, it took nearly a year for the NHL to finally accept that Vancouver's Bure pick was in fact legal.
