History
Ex-Wing helps unite players
Hall of Famer Ted Lindsay sides with the union he sought and worries owners might have ulterior motives.
DETROIT -- For most of his life, Ted Lindsay has been in and around hockey's player-management relations.
In 1957, Lindsay, 79, a Hall of Fame player with the Red Wings, was a pioneer of the movement. Along with Montreal's star defenseman, Doug Harvey, Lindsay attempted to unionize hockey players. The effort failed, and it wasn't until 10 years later that the NHL players finally succeeded in unionizing.
Lindsay was vilified by owners as a troublemaker, and the Red Wings, an NHL power, shipped him to hockey's Original Six hinterland, Chicago.
The cancellation of the 2004-05 NHL season Wednesday disappoints Lindsay and other former NHL stars, including Hall of Fame defenseman Bill Gadsby, who played with the Red Wings from 1961-66.
But at the same time, Lindsay leaves no doubt of his support of the players and the association he fought so hard to achieve.
"I'm on the players' side," Lindsay said. "But both are wrong. This is about stubbornness or egos, or whatever it is. The players gave back 24 percent of their salaries. That should have been enough.
"I hope the players stand firm. They're getting crucified a little bit in Canada for being greedy, but if a guy offers you that money, what are you supposed to do, say no?"
Lindsay doesn't believe the owners' message, delivered by commissioner Gary Bettman, is just about salaries and finances.
"I think he's got another motive," Lindsay said of Bettman. "He might be trying to break the union. I don't know all the legal ramifications of that, but I think that's what they want: A whole new league with new players -- maybe that's what he's thinking."
That rubs Lindsay the wrong way for several reasons, but mostly this:
"The owners have nobody to blame but themselves, and now they want the players to correct it for them."
The chief mistake the owners made, Gadsby said, was "eight, 10 years ago when they started to give these guys all that money.
"Once you give it to any human being, it's pretty hard to take it back," Gadsby said.
Lindsay's attempt to unionize had less to do with money and more to do with other issues.
"The reason I did what I did, talking to Doug Harvey, is we didn't have a voice," he said. "The owners used to meet six, seven, eight times a year. We never met. As soon as the season was over, the players went home and went to work in the summertime."
Gadsby would return to his Edmonton home, where he operated and owned a driving range.
"Something like this (a lockout and canceled season) never entered our minds," Gadsby said. "We just tried to make a union go so we would get a little more money in playoff (bonus) and things like that. That's what we tried to raise, tried to get some more money from the All-Star Game. It's different today. They don't need bonus money.
"I just can't believe it got out of hand like this."
The early days
Lindsay's failed attempt to unionize the players wasn't the first in professional hockey. In 1910, the NHL's predecessor, the National Hockey Association, and its best player, Art Ross, became entangled over the league's salary cap of $5,000 a team.
Ross was dismissed as unappreciative and, in some quarters, as a communist. The concept of a player union quickly died. There was another similarly ineffective attempt in 1925, and the team involved, Hamilton (Ontario), was not invited back the following year.
In 1946, the players joined again to discuss a league-wide pension plan. The idea was for the players to operate the pension fund, but instead, the league took over control and the plan was skewered so the owners, not the players, derived a greater financial benefit.
Lindsay and Harvey joined forces in 1957.
"When I signed my contract, I couldn't take that contract out of the manager's office," Lindsay said. "It was against the league's bylaws. That was a dictatorship. We weren't trying to ruin hockey, but the owners didn't give us credit for having a brain. We wouldn't do anything to hurt our game."
One of the very first things Bob Goodenow did when he became executive director of the NHL players association 13 years ago was publish player salaries. He believed it was imperative for the players to share the same information the owners had. It was a major stroke for the players association, which long had existed under the thumb of Goodenow's predecessor, Alan Eagleson.
The Eagleson era represented an inglorious chapter of the association's history. Representatives from the NHL's Original Six teams met in 1967 to organize the union, with Norm Ullman representing the Red Wings. Bob Pulford of the Toronto Maple Leafs was elected president, and the owners, faced with a challenge that the players would seek recognition through governmental agencies, reluctantly agreed. At the same time, the players appointed Eagleson their executive director.
Eagleson remained in the position for 24 years and did the players far more harm than good. In 1998, Eagleson pleaded guilty in a Boston court to three counts of fraud and was fined $1 million (Canadian). The next day in a Toronto court, Eagleson pleaded guilty to three more counts of fraud and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
The players association, in disarray, sought out a strong-willed, dynamic individual who would have only the union's best interests at heart. Goodenow, a Dearborn native and graduate of Harvard (where he played hockey), was an overwhelming choice.
"Eagleson was bought off," Lindsay said. "That won't happen, ever, with Bob Goodenow. I'll swear on a Bible on that one."
Slippery slope
Lindsay and Gadsby agree that the owners and Bettman have neglected areas, among them marketing, that would paint a brighter financial picture for the NHL.
"It was not unintentional," Lindsay said.
Gadsby added, "I think the marketing has been terrible."
"And the league expanded too fast," Gadsby said. "Take Nashville, Atlanta, Carolina, Columbus -- they've only got two, three, four (NHL-caliber) hockey players. There are too many teams."
His conclusion: "I think the lockout will hurt the sport for a while but not in the Original Six cities."
Lindsay is concerned that the changing dynamic will continue to take the NHL, and hockey in general, down an ill-advised path.
The stalemate is changing the perception of the professional hockey player.
The fabric of the game is being altered. Hockey players were once passionate and so often talked about playing simply for the love of the game and spoke of the shinny ponds as birth rites.
The million-dollar salaries and the owners' portrayal of the players as insatiable money-grubbers is changing that, even in Canada.
"I'm sorry to see that," Lindsay said.
You can reach Vartan Kupelian at (313) 222-2285 or vkupelian@detnews.com.
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