Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (36 page)

Adams signed Lindsay from the grasp of archrivals Toronto Maple Leafs and the tough left-winger was a perennial all-star. Lindsay and Doug Harvey, the splendid defenceman from the Montreal Canadiens, were named as the players' representatives on the NHL pension plan board. When Lindsay asked questions about the pension—the players made large donations, the owners very small ones—league officials essentially told him to mind his business. That inspired Lindsay's 1957 efforts to form an NHL Players' Association, and led to bitter confrontations with Adams.

UNION-BUSTERS

Adams, with help from Maple Leaf owner Conn Smythe, mounted a strong campaign to squelch the “union.” Lindsay had representatives from all six teams and used his own money to hire a New York labor lawyer who had helped major league baseball players gain their first collective bargaining agreement. Adams called Lindsay a “traitor” and a “communist” and even showed a false contract to a reporter listing Lindsay's salary as $25,000 when the all-star had really earned only $17,000. When such great Wings stars as Howe, Marcel Pronovost and Red Kelly failed to back Lindsay, it was a setback for the union cause. Adams then traded Lindsay and one of his supporters, outstanding goalie Glenn Hall, to the miserable Chicago Black Hawks. Other teams followed by trading their union reps (the notable exception being the Habs' Harvey), and the association was crushed.

A GOOD GUY?

Typically, Adams claimed he traded Lindsay because the quality of his play had declined. That was after Lindsay had the highest points total (85) of his excellent career. Just to show that loyalty could be a one-way street, two years later Kelly told a writer that Adams had ordered him to play with a cracked bone in his ankle and when he wouldn't, the stellar defenceman was immediately dealt to the Maple Leafs. In 1962, Adams, 66, was sacked by the Red Wings after 44 years in the NHL and decades later, controversy still exists in how he is viewed.

The 2004–05 season-killing lockout of the players by the NHL ended a relatively peaceful owner-player history.

T
he lockout of the players by the NHL teams after failure to reach a new collective bargaining agreement and cancellation of the 2004–05 season plus the Stanley Cup playoffs, a dispute involving billions of dollars, was a great distance in time and money from the league's first serious labor action. The initial tiff was the 1925 strike by the Hamilton Tigers when the NHL refused to pay 11 players a demanded $200 each when the schedule increased from 24 to 30 games and no bonuses were offered for lengthened playoffs.

STRIKES AND PAY HIKES

In the 80 years between those happenings, the league and its workers had a smooth relationship with only a few labor disputes, one involving the minor league Springfield Indians. The most serious was a 103-day lockout that reduced the schedule from 84 to 48 games in 1994–95, though the players also went on strike for ten days in April of 1992, delaying the start of the playoffs. The NHL officials staged a 16-day strike in the 1993–94 season, but use of replacement officials meant no games were cancelled.

Creation of the NHL Players' Association was an uphill task. The league owners crushed the first serious bid by the players to form a union in the late 1950s. A decade later, led by Toronto lawyer Alan Eagleson and with most players in a newly expanded league signing on, the NHLPA compelled the owners to reluctantly deal with them.

THE RED GREEN SHOW

The Quebec Bulldogs became the Hamilton Tigers in 1920, joining the Ottawa Senators, Montreal Canadiens and Toronto St. Patricks in the fledgling NHL. The club won only 28 of 96 games in four seasons in the league basement, often needing player aid from opponents. But good young players Alex McKinnon and brothers Red and Shorty Green with top scorer Billy Burch and
goalie Jumpin' Jake Forbes lifted the Tigers to first place in the 1924–25 season.

The schedule increased from 24 to 30 games and salaries—average pay was $1,100—were not boosted. Playoff participation was increased from two to three teams, the first-place Tigers receiving a bye to the final against the winner of a Toronto-Montreal series. NHL president Frank Calder suspended the Tiger players indefinitely and declared the Canadiens, 5–2 winners over the St. Pats in a two-game, total-goals series, as NHL champs. The Canadiens lost the Stanley Cup final to the Pacific Coast champs, the Victoria Cougars. The NHL solved the “problem” by selling the entire Tigers roster to Manhattan bootlegging king Bill Dwyer for $75,000, and the team became the New York Americans.

INDIAN REVOLT

In the 1950s and 1960s, the AHL Springfield Indians were owned and operated on a shoestring budget by Eddie Shore, the former Boston Bruins great. Shore had such unorthodox ideas on how the game should be played that NHL teams used assignment to the Springfield club as a punishment threat to players. Shore ran a notoriously penny-pinching operation and his ruthless treatment of players is part of hockey folklore. Shore, not the club doctors, decided when injured players were ready to play. In the 1966–67 season with the NHL on the verge of expansion, the Indians had three good defencemen (Bill White, Dale Rolfe, Dave Amadio) who refused to play until Shore gave them pay raises. Suprisingly, he offered them small increases, then during an eight-day pre-Christmas gap in the schedule, he suspended the trio for “indifferent play,” the pay loss equal to the paltry raise he had given them.

The Springfield players called Toronto lawyer Eagleson, who had made headlines earlier in 1966 when he negotiated a record first contract with the Boston Bruins for 18-year-old Bobby Orr. Eagleson described the Springfield situation succinctly: “If you ever treated dogs the way Shore treated these men, someone would call the humane society.” Eagleson gained an agreement that Shore would reinstate the suspended players and step aside from the team's operation. Eagleson's “victory” over the hockey establishment gave much impetus to his forming the NHLPA that season.

MARATHON-WINNERS

A 14-hour bargaining session on April 10, 1992 ended a 10-day strike by the players that threatened the last week of the schedule and the Stanley Cup playoffs. The two-year agreement, retroactive to the start of the 1991–92 season, changed the rules on free agency, increased the award money for regular season finishes, and playoff bonuses, improved the players' pension plan, installed a minimum salary of $100,000, and made adjustments to the salary arbitration process.

The NHL owners had extended the previous agreement by a year in 1991. Negotiations on a new deal through the summer of 1991 produced no agreement, even when owners abandoned binding arbitration to settle the dispute. The season opened with no negotiations between September 1991 and March 1992. Fruitless meetings led to the players announcing a strike deadline of March 30. The deadline was later extended by one day but when the players voted 560–4 in favor of strike, NHL president John Ziegler announced at 3 p.m. on April 1, the league would suspend operation “on a day-to-day basis.” An April 10 deadline was set when the season and playoffs would be ruled out if no agreement was reached. Marathon bargaining prevented the cancellation, creating temporary peace in the NHL.

PRE-GAME WARMUP TO '05

The NHL conducted the 1993–94 season on an extension of the previous agreement, gaining a season of labor stability while a plan was devised to reduce costs, especially skyrocketing payrolls—the average player salary climbing from $232,000 in the 1989–90 season to $680,000 in 1994–95. The players balked at the move, and training camps opened in early September with threat of either a lockout or strike hanging heavily over the team preparations. The opening of the schedule was delayed by two weeks, then postponed indefinitely. On December 12, the owners decreed that January 16 was the last possible date for a 50-game schedule, the minimum number the owners would accept. Again, a two-day negotiation brought an agreement, a six-year contract, training camps opened quickly, and a 48-game schedule started on January 20. While nothing in the new deal slowed the escalation of payrolls, the players' big aim along with unrestricted free agency at 31
years of age, an assortment of small adjustments to arbitration and pensions produced a deal neither side really liked.

KILLING A SEASON

The victory by Team Canada on September 14, 1995, 3–2 over Finland to decide the World Cup of Hockey, was more than an uplifting triumph by the Canadians. At 12:01 P.M. on September 16, the NHL governors locked out the players to start a labor dispute resulting in the cancellation of the entire schedule and Stanley Cup playoffs. While an assortment of smaller issues were never discussed, one big issue produced the impasse. The owners, who claimed to have lost more than $200 million in each of the previous two seasons, insisted on a salary cap while the players did not believe the owners' financial claims and would not agree to a cap. After a frustrating lack of progress, the players finally relented on the salary cap at the last possible time to save the season, January 2005, but the two sides could not agree on the number. The first full season in professional sports history was cancelled due to a labor dispute.

A NEW GAME

In July, excitement in hockey was renewed, but it came at a cost to the players. Having moved away from NHLPA Director Bob Goodenow's hard-line stance on the salary cap in January, the association executive finally agreed to a 24 percent rollback on all current salaries and a hard cap of $39 million per team. Aspects of both revenue sharing by the teams, and a tying of salaries (the cap) to overall league revenue were also part of the deal. To the advantage of the players, the league minimum salary was brought up to $450,000 and qualifications for unrestricted free agency will be reduced to from age 31 to age 28, or after seven seasons in the league, by 2008. In an attempt to bring back fans, the league also embarked on initiatives to increase excitement in the game: primarily the elimination of the center red line rule against two-line passes; an enlargement of the offensive zones and reduction in the area behind the net; stricter limitations on the size of goaltenders' equipment; and shootouts to decide tie games. Goodenow, clearly defeated in his determination to prevent a salary cap, resigned shortly after the agreement was announced.

Hockey is so lightning fast that it has the power to produce the most cardio-troubling, drink-spilling, coffee-table-toppling finishes in all of sports. You need proof? We've got your proof right here.

B
UZZER BEATER:
Philadelphia Flyer Chris Pronger

TIME LEFT:
2.1 seconds

COUNTDOWN:
During a March 2010 game, the Flyers were tied with the Chicago Blackhawks 2–2 with time running out in the third period. With 10 seconds remaining, the Flyers took the puck out from behind their own net, and…who cares? It's going to overtime, right? Wrong. A quick succession of passes found the puck on the Blackhawks' blue line, right side, on the stick of Flyer Claude Giroux. Meanwhile, Flyers' defenseman Chris Pronger had quietly followed the play on the left side of the ice.

SCORRRRE!
As Giroux passed the blue line, he looked to his left and saw Pronger streaking toward the Blackhawks' goal—uncontested. With less than four seconds on the clock, he passed the puck across the ice—right through two defenders. It met Pronger's stick just as he got to the net. Blackhawk goalie Cristobal Huet never had a chance: Pronger directed the shot into the net with 2.1 seconds on the clock. Overtime was averted, and the Flyers had won. After the game, Huet said, “It's something you have nightmares about.”

BUZZER BEATER:
St. Louis Blue David Backes

TIME LEFT:
0.8 seconds

COUNTDOWN:
The Blues were down 4–3 to the Boston Bruins in January 2009. With less than a minute to play, they pulled their goalie. That looked like it was going to backfire, when, with just 18 seconds left, a Bruin got the puck in the Blues' end and let go a slapshot at the empty net. But in a play that changed the game, Blues' defenceman Barret Jackman stepped in and defended his goal—and made the save. Then, with seven seconds left, the Blues recovered the puck and started down the ice. With two seconds left, the Blues Keith Tkachuk got off a shot on
goal. It hit Bruins' goalie Tim Thomas in the left shoulder and bounced into the air.

SCORRRRE!
The Blues' David Backes used his stick like a baseball bat and knocked the puck into the back of the net…with 0.8 seconds on the clock. The goal got the Blues into overtime. Nobody scored during the extra period, but the Blues made Backes' last second heroics count when they went on to win the game in a shootout.

BUZZER BEATER:
Philadelphia Flyer Freddy Meyer

TIME LEFT:
0.6 seconds

COUNTDOWN:
The Flyers were down 2–1 near the end of regulation during a March 2006 game against the Carolina Hurricanes. With less than two seconds left, Flyer Mike Rathje sent a slapshot toward the mass of bodies in front of the Hurricanes' net.

SCORRRRE!
Before anyone could figure out what had happened, the horn had sounded…and the ref behind the net was giving the signal for a goal. Instant replay showed that Rathje's shot had actually gotten through all the bodies and hit the Hurricane goalie in the right leg pad. The puck then bounced right to the Flyers' Freddy Meyer, and he whacked it through the goalie's legs. The puck crossed the line with 0.6 seconds on the clock. The Flyers went on to win the game in a shootout.