The Business of Professional Hockey

The National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players Association have failed to come to a reasonable compromise that is favourable to both parties. The players have been locked out of their jobs, and it’s likely that there will be no hockey this season. But what brought this on? Who is to blame? This is not an isolated incident, but yet another monkey wrench in the cogs of a dishonest relationship that has been playing out for the better part of the past 80 years. In all of those years except very recently, the spoils of success have been overwhelmingly enjoyed by the owners and governors of the NHL. And it’s precisely because the pendulum is swinging the other way that the League finds itself in the current crisis. Anyone in power for this long would be adamantly resistant to change. And the National Hockey League, if compared with other professional sports, has enjoyed more profit and power than it has ever been given credit for.

1. The National Hockey League

For over half a century, professional hockey in North America was carefully and tightly controlled by a group of men numbering small enough to sit around a poker table. No other sport has had this kind of centralization of authority and power. One of the biggest myths about hockey was that the owners were all small-time, family run businesses. In actual fact, they were successful entertainment merchants, dealing in everything from boxing to horseracing, and during the era of prohibition walked hand-in-hand with organized crime syndicates. The Norris dynasty was one of the richest families in the United States at its height. At one point James E. Norris owned the New York Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, and controlling interests in the Boston Bruins—four out of the six existing teams—simultaneously. Even as far back as the early days professional sports had tight restrictions on monopolies and cartels running things. Baseball, for instance, prohibited anyone from owning more than one team. But hockey permitted it so long as the ownership was a corporation. Conveniently, the rules didn't require disclosing who was behind those corporations.

There are legal loopholes and tricks like this all over the place, some of them existing solely for the purpose of amassing the owners' power over the league. For instance, the farm system—a sophisticated network of sponsored amateur clubs and leagues—was introduced not to improve grassroots play, but to curtail mercenary behavior among players and thus keep salaries down. By maintaining exclusive rights over them and limiting their ability to market their services independently, owners essentially held the players in a sort of bondage. There was no such thing as free agency in the old days; the vast majority of hockey players were shackled to the same team their entire careers. In fact, demotions were more common than trades. It was also cheaper: if you were sent down to the minors, your salary went with you, dropping to half or even a third of what it would be with the NHL squad. And there was little to no compensation. The player dealt with his own moving expenses and broken leases. NHL clubs paid for very little beyond playing hockey. It even says so in the contract.

The Standard Player's Contract: an oppressive little piece of paper that dictated hockey players lives for over half a century. It forbade them from earning money in any other athletic-based entertainment setting (including playing other professional sports and activities). It required them to take part in any and all promotional activities of the club and the league, without pay. The team was free to use players' likeness, pictures, signatures, name recognition and endorsements on any merchandise or product it wanted to sell. The players saw no money from any of this. The Contract prohibited players from individually making any public appearances, having their pictures taken, writing articles or sponsoring products "without the written consent of the Club." Such consent was rarely granted. The Contract prohibited any player from disclosing his salary to any other player, the public, or the media. For all intents and purposes, the players were deliberately and systematically kept in the dark for much of the NHL’s existence.

Gordie Howe, the best player in the 50s, had the simplest contract ever. Striking a deal with Red Wings owner Bruce Norris to always be the highest paid player in the league, his salary served as a cap for nearly 20 years. During that time span, the Detroit Red Wings always netted at least $2 million net profit on hockey operations and running the rink, making them one of the most lucrative sports franchises of all time. Gordie's salary in 1957: $15,000. And up until the mid-90s, Mr. Hockey received a pension from the sport he played for 26 years of just under $13,000 a year.

The average salary in 1957 was $8,000. Many things that are standard issue today were not included in that, such as medical attention for injuries. Some teams supplied a doctor at times, but ultimately the player paid his own hospital bills. Players with career-ending injuries received no compensation at all. Players with grievous injuries often ignored or played through them. Players who refused to play because of injuries were contractually guilty of withholding services, and fined.

When owners bargained with the players for new contracts, it was usually during the tail end of the summer months, right before training camp. There, the players were more desperate, vulnerable and anxious to get their first checks after a long hiatus. There was little to no negotiating. Most players weren't even aware of what their legal or contractual rights were, mostly because they weren't allowed to have a copy of their contracts (they could request to have a look at it, but such behavior was frowned upon).

Few players had more than a high school education. Odd jobs—like janitors and parking lot attendants—were common in the off-season, so long as they were not in violation of the contract. Some players attempted to improve themselves with correspondence courses and Summer School, but they were strongly discouraged by their clubs. When Toronto Maple Leafs defencemen Robert Baun, a venerable Renaissance man, used his off-seasons to pursue interests like becoming a certified chef, taking a management course at General Motors and enrolling in the Wharton School of Business, he was branded a "deviant personality" with "perverted" interests by the owners.

Athletes have always felt apprehensive when it comes to money. They are afraid of looking greedy. They are afraid of the League's vengeance. They are afraid of looking bad in front of the fans. And most of all, they are afraid of losing themselves. After all, they should be happy that they're getting paid anything at all, right? Because they're really doing it for the love of the game? And they wouldn't want to do anything that would harm the purity and sanctity of the sport. The owners, of course, are not handcuffed by any such moral burden. Sports have always been about money to them from the beginning, and it will always be about money to them first and foremost. They think of the game with a clear conscience, and they have repeatedly used this leverage to milk the players for everything possible.

No player has ever put himself ahead of the sport that made him. But every owner has absolutely no qualms with doing just that very thing. The NHL is the only league in which the owners have exonerated and immortalized themselves to the point of being demigods. It is quite reasonable for them to feel that they are more important than the players who make the game what it is. In the old 21 team league of the 80s, the 4 divisions were the Smythe, Norris, Adams and Patrick--named after, respectively, Conn, James, Jack and Lester, the Mount Rushmore of hockey's builders pantheon (and the two conferences, Campbell and Wales, after long-standing NHL President Clarence Campbell and His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales). The league trophies given out every year, rather than using easily understandable names like MVP, Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, et. al. are instead graced with the namesake of NHL governors and executives: Frank Calder Memorial Trophy (Rookie of the Year), Conn Smythe Trophy (MVP in the Playoffs) Jack Adams Trophy (Coach of the Year), James Norris Memorial Trophy (Top Defenseman), and so on. Only two of the game's 18 trophies honour players: the Vezina trophy, given to the top goaltender, named after goalie Georges Vezina, who collapsed during a game in 1925, succumbing to tuberculosis. And the most recent one added to the NHL hardware list (1999), the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy, given to the top goal scorer in the NHL, named after the eponymous Montreal superstar of the 1940s. An exception can be made for a third, Art Ross, though he was a player first and an NHL governor later on in life, the trophy recognizes his outstanding contribution to the game in the latter role.

It is precisely this frame of mind that allows the owners to exploit the players the way they do. The result has been, for much of its existence, a skewed system of domination and control. The players, naturally, have had to defend themselves from the League they swore to serve.