No Major Penalty for this Hockey Fight During hockey's heyday in the 1950s, the sport was played at a high level by talented players like Maurice Richard, Gordie Howe and "Terrible" Ted Lindsay who all skillfully combined the vicious and graceful aspects the fans loved.   However, some hockey historians often say the biggest battle during that time was fought out of the golden era's aura between greedy and unscrupulous owners and the makers of the owners' profit, the players.
    The players' didn't enjoy the good life many of today's sports athletes enjoy.   Hockey contracts paid for six months work (not very well though) but dictated the lives of the players year long.
    The players had to comply with all promotional activities the clubs scheduled often without compensation.   In addition, almost all requests by the players to use their public standing to sponsor products or to use their athletic abilities in other endeavors to make ends meet were met with an emphatic "no" by team owners.
    Secondly the words "workers' compensation" seemed to be foul and vulgar language to owners such as Conn Smythe and Jim Norris, later convicted because of his ties to organized crime and boxing scandals.     Players' contracts had stipulations stating that injury benefits ran out after 8 weeks and didn't extend into the off-season.   For example, a player hurt in the playoffs received no benefits or compensation as he healed in the off-season, which placed a heavy financial burden on the player's family.   Also a hurt player was expected to play hurt.nbsp;  If the player was told to return to play but felt that he couldn't, he could be fired by management for witholding contracted services.
    Despite all this, it was the Players' Pension fund and its administration that finally brought the players around to seeing that perhaps management didn't care as much about the players welfare as they professed.
    Ted Lindsay and Doug Harvey, both eventual Hall of Famers, were the players' reps to the Pension board meetings, which were referred to by one author as "Clarence Campbell's Horse and Pony Show".   Largely ceremonial, Lindsay and Harvey were usually outvoted 3-to-2 in matters concerning the pension.   The players were told simply that it was the best in professional sports.
    Tired of being stonewalled, Lindsay enlisted the help of lawyers.   The lawyers found that the owners had become incredibly adept at hiding money by, among other things, purposely undercounting attendance numbers and seats in the arenas they owned.   The lawyers also found that the owners took the funds generated by the All-Star game, which the players weren't paid for, and used that to pay their end of the pension contribution, $600 per player.   In effect, the owners took the players own money they should have been entitled to for participating in the All-Star game and placed it in the pension fund.
    Upon being convinced of this, one-hundred and nineteen out of 120 players elected to form a players association.
    The owners didn't take the new association lying down.   They immediately began trading the "trouble makers", sending them down to the minors or harrassing them.
    Red Wings GM Jack Adams falsified Lindsay's contract to read that he made $25,000 and fed it to the Detroit papers that printed it as fact.   Lindsay was actually making $12,000.   (Players in those days weren't given a copy of their contract and were actively dissuaded from asking to look at it.)   Jimmy Thomson, the Maple Leaf player rep, was called a "traitor" and a "communist" by owner Conn Smythe, who lamented "jews" from New York intruding on hockey matters.
    Union-busting through fear is nothing new, but the owners actions showed that winning and profitability play second fiddle to ending employee solidarity.
    The Detroit Red Wings traded Lindsay, second on the Wings only to Gordie Howe in points and fresh off his best season ever, and Glenn Hall, hall of famer and in the top 10 in all-time goalie wins.   Both were traded to Chicago where Hall would backstop the Blackhawks Stanley Cup championship in 1961.
    The trades, banishments, and lies served the owners' purpose though. :  The union folded and in its place the league advertised a series of reforms meant to address the players' concerns.
    Bill Gadsby, one of the original player reps, rejoiced at the reforms. :  "We have the right to ask for a meeting any time we want," he said.   "That way if anything is really wrong, we can talk it over right away."
    The meetings did happen and they were able to talk things over but, as is usually the case when the owners have complete control, nothing came of the meetings.
    Simple requests like regional and/or biennial home games during Christmas so players could stay close to their families were scoffed at.   The pension questions were never answered and the new fountain of money the owners soon found in television broadcasting wasn't shared at all with the players.   Most of the players were convinced by management that the league was always on the brink of bankruptcy (not even close to being true).   Obviously when job security is threatened, employees tend to drop their struggle for fairness.
    Not much changed in 10 years after the failed organizing drive of 1957 so a group of Maple Leaf players called the "Young Lions" helped start another players' association with the help of Alan Eagleson, a man of questionable character later ousted by the players.   Despite the owners' best efforts, they organized successfully in 1968.
    Fresh off winning the Stanley Cup in 1967, their fourth in six years, Maple Leaf management tried killing the union drive by trading some of the Young Lions. These tactics, which proved fruitful for owners 10 years earlier though adversely effecting the Red Wings winning ways, failed this time but had a similarly negative impact on the Maple Leafs, who up until recently were known more for losing than winning.   They failed to make the playoffs in 1968 and haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967.
    The message is clear (I hope.).   Management will offer anything and do everything, including splitting up winning teams with a proven track record, with indifference to how detrimental their tactics are to the profitablity and success of the company to keep a union out of its doors.   However, if the union fails, a company usually forgets about the reforms it promised to keep organized labor out and quickly falls back to its old ways of iron-fist ruling.
    In any labor battle, from the mines of Colorado to the ice of professional hockey, respect, safety and the unfair concentration of profits in the board rooms are the issues always at the forefront.
    We must not let our labor be reduced to nothing.   We must guard against CEOs who say they are there for the shareholders because they are the ones who take the risks.   Just as the shareholders take the financial gamble, we risk our safety and health in getting the product out the door.   Also, our health may not be retrieved as easily as the investors dollars if we should get seriously injured in our efforts to make the profits.   We deserve to profit from our own risk as employees.

    For a more in depth look at the organization attempts in the NHL, read about it in Net Worth, the main source of information for this story and endorsed by the NHLPA, by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths.   A movie called "Net Worth" was produced by the Canadien Broadcast Corporation and is based on the book.   ESPNs top 50 all-time greatest athletes had a five minute look at the organizing drive during the Gordie Howe piece.   Also, in ESPN's "Legends" series, a significant portion of one episode centered on the first attempt of the NHLPA.



This is the famous picture of Terrible Ted Lindsay showing his disregard for the death threat placed on his and Gordie Howe's life before game three of the semi-finals against the Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens.  He put the stick to his shoulder and acted like he was firing it into the crowd.  Thanks for the signature Mr. Lindsay.