Money Players
Excerpt 1 - Hired Gun
Excerpt 2 - Disclosure

Hired Gun

If the dressing room is a hockey player's home, then a beer joint is his
sanctuary. Dressing rooms are for media sound bites, weary cliches and
coach's speeches. It's the last place a player wants to bare his soul. To
get honesty from players, you need to put them at a battered corner table
filled with beer glasses. It was in pubs and taverns that the Players
Association was spawned in 1956 and again in 1967. The stale smell of beer
and the flckering TV high against the wall are a player's truth serum, his
firewall against the pressures of fans, owners, media, wives and agents. As
a man with hockey in his blood, Bob Goodenow knew this better than anyone.
When the rookie director of the NHLPA needed a secluded spot for an
economics lesson during the 1992 NHL players strike, he found it in the dank
atmosphere of a pub in Toronto's trendy Leaside district. In the executive
director's job just four months, the Detroit product sketched his theory on
the economics of the NHL for a reporter on a bar napkin.

Goodenow put the rich clubs, such as Detroit and Toronto, at the top of the
napkin. The poorer clubs, such as Pittsburgh and Minnesota, were scribbled
at the bottom. In the middle of the beer-stained napkin were teams such as
St. Louis and Los Angeles, the NHL's middle class. "Here's where you find
the fair market value of a player in today's economy," he said, jabbing the
pen into the words Kings and Blues on the napkin. "Not up here with the
Rangers and Leafs. In the middle. But the NHL wants them to be paid down
here." He jabbed derisively at the words Penguins and North Stars on the
lower portion on his napkin as if identifying a neighbourhood where it
asn'tr safe after dark. "And we're not going to get a settlement till we
establish this (another arrow points back to the middle-rank teams once
more) with the leagues." The pen clattered onto the wooden table top, and
Goodenow sipped on his beer.

In the course of a few months, Goodenow had used this message-- probably
delivered with the same flourish-- to unite hockey payers as never before.
As details of Alan Eagleson's handling of the Players Association surfaced
in police reports and media outlets, Goodenow had become the saviour players
longed for 25 years earler at the advent of the NHLPA.

There are others who might not have such a warm appreciation of square,
sandy-haired Robert Goodenow. Harry Sinden, who's run the Boston Bruins for
over 30 years, lowers his voice and looks straight into the questioner's eye
when asked about the NHLPA executive director. "This is my opinion only.
Alan Eagleson had a genuine concern for the good of hockey. I don't think
Bob Goodenow does. That's pretty clear how I feel about that. If you could
show Alan Eagleson that the game was in trouble, he'd try and help you out
of it. If you show Bob Goodenow you're in trouble, he says, 'I don't believe
you' or 'I don't care'. That's how he comes across to me."

Agent Rick Curran sees another side of Goodenow. "Bob has his own
challenges, his own agenda he has to deal with, and that's fine. But I think
he's done a hell of a job. I really do. Having been a part of the early
days, sitting here 25 years later, he's done a hell of a job. Has he made
some mistakes? He'd be the first to admit it. Is he always right? Not
necessarily so. You'll always have the debate--is he good for the game, bad
for the game? Whatever. But from a player's standpoint, every player today
is better educated than he was in the old days. They're better off for it
and I think that's a positive."

There are as many views on Goodenow as there are people in the hockey
business. He is characterized as everything from a pariah to a saviour,
bragging bully to protector of the weak, a pitiless exploiter to an
emancipator on the order of John L. Lewis. He inspires fear, awe and
loathing--sometimes at the same time.

"I remember I had a player held out at training camp," says Tom Laidlaw.
"The contract finally got done and Bob called up and said, "What are the
numbers?" I told him. I think I got 1.5 in the first year and 1.8 in the
second--something like that. Bob automatically says, "Well, I think you
should have got 1.7 and 2." If I told him we got 2 and 2.5, he would have
said 2.2. and 2.7. At first it kind of takes you back and you think, what a
jerk this guy is. But you know what? Bob always wants everybody to be doing
their best for the players. For that I admire him."

Employees of the NHLPA operate under as strict code of silence when asked
about the boss. But the man himself will confide closely guarded secrets to
trsuted reporters. What cannot be denied is his impact on the hockey
business: in ten years, the inscrutable Harvard-educated lawyer turned the
NHL Players Association from a house union into one of the most effective
employee associations in North America. While maintaining many of the legal
rights of a union--such as protection from owners' collusion--he has also
protected the players' individual right to negotiate independently with
management. Without him, it's doubtful that players would make half the
money they do today. How you feel about that last statement probably
determines on whether you see him as a hero or a villain.

"That guy helped everybody," says agent Gilles Lupien, the former Montreal
defenceman. "Even the teams--I think he helped them, too, because the value
of a franchise was $50 million, now it's $150 million for many."

"I think Goodenow's done a great job if your only concern is making money,"
says former Rangers GM Neil Smith, "I think the NHLPA is killing the golden
goose. To me, they've got their foot on its throat, stomping it to death. I
don't understand that. He's got to take the long view. You can't just pound
the shit out of everybody."

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Disclosure

It is the summer of 1991, and agent Rick Curran has a problem. Glen Sather,
the Edmonton president and GM, is on the phone, and he's hot. Sather, who
has a cutting wit and the vocabulary of tow-truck driver, is not a man to be
crossed in the hockey world. The High River, Alberta, native built the
small-market Oilers into five-time Stanley Cup champions with guile and
swagger and by speaking his mind. One agent suggests that taking a cut man
with you for a frank exchange with the 10-year NHL agitator. As Curran's ear
burns against the receiver, Sather implies that he had been less than
forthcoming in negotiations to re-sign the young Oilers centre Adam Graves.

"I told you wouldn't get it, and you didn't."

"Didn't get what?" replied Curran, who's worked alongside Alan Eagleson,
Bill Watters, and Bobby Orr in his lengthy career as an agent.

"You told me you were getting 500 for Graves," said Sather.

"I did."

"No you didn't. I've got the contract right here in front of me."

"Have you got the face of the contract?"

"Yeah, I'm reading it right now."

"Read pages 8, 9, and 10. Because that's where the rest of the money is. He
got the 500. He got every cent. And more, just like I said he would."

Sather thumbs through the contract. Curran is right; the New York Rangers
are offering the 23-year old Graves $500,000 a year to leave Edmonton.
Sather can only shake his head in exasperation: he had lost his rising young
star to a big-city team because his owner, Peter Pocklington, would not-- or
could not-- match the Rangers' lucrative offer for the young free agent. As
Sather hangs up the phone, he realizes that, after years of labour peace,
the inmates are suddenly running the hockey asylum.

Give-and-take between a miffed general manager and a determined agent is the
lifeblood of the hockey business. Leverage, terms, bonuses, ego, anger, and
strategic bursts of profanity all have their place in sealing a deal. "It
can become difficult in the heat of a negotiation," allows Mike Gillis.
"Especially when people are trying to enter the business as agents or
general managers, it can be extremely difficult for them." But most agents
and GMs can count the times they've truly lost their cool on the fingers of
one hand; anger and abuse are not widely accepted if you want to survive in
this world.

In previous years, NHL management controlled the negotiating dynamic. Free
agency was tightly controlled by a punitive compensation system. Players had
little knowledge of what even their closest friends made, and management
certainly kept them in the dark. General managers could consult with the
management of other clubs for advice on negotiating strategies. While
athletes in other team sports had made quantum leaps in pay and mobility,
the NHLPA under Alan Eagleson had always been a toothless tiger, rarely
challenging the owners' domination.

Longtime Boston GM Harry Sinden remembers a typical exchange in the
mid-'70s. "We had a player named Gregg Sheppard, made 65 or 70,000 dollars a
year. He was a 30-goal scorer that year. His agent came in and said, 'We
want a five-year deal at $230,000 a year.' I remember I was looking down at
a pad on my desk. I never looked up and said, 'You've got thirty seconds to
tell me you're kidding or get out of here.' I never looked up. And after a
pause he says, 'Well, what have you got in mind?' And we gotr a deal done.
That kind of nonsense wouldn't fly today. Sheppard would go out and get his
230 somewhere else."

As a promising young center in 1971, Larry Pleau, now the Blues' GM, tried
to wheedle money from the redoubtable Sam Pollock in Montreal. "I was
injured most of the year, I came back at the end of the year, and we won the
Stanley Cup. I was making $10,000. I didn't have an agent, so I went in to
talk to Mr. Pollock myself. He always had the white handkerchief in his
hand, and he was chewing on it as he talked to you. I said I deserved to
make $20,000. He looked at me and said, 'What do you base that on?' And I
said salaries have gone up since Orr came into the league, the cost of
living, everything had gone up, so I think I deserve that much. And he said,
'You were a benchwarmer all year. I'll tell you what, you go home, reassess
what you think your abilities are, and come back tomorrow.'

"So the next day I went back and he said, 'Have you thought about it?' I
said, 'Yes, I still think I'm worth 20.' So he said, 'I'll give you a
choice. You can have a one-way contract for 15 or you can have a two-way
deal for 14 in the minors and 16 in the NHL.' I said, 'I'll take the
one-way for 15 in the NHL.' That's a true story. That's what it was like."

The legendary Montreal goalie Ken Dryden, now president of the Maple leafs,
also recalls Pollock's handkerchief treatment. "He had this pained
expression the whole time. You had a feeling you were physically hurting him
when you asked for more money. For a moment you'd think, 'What am I doing,
inflicting pain on this poor man?' And then you'd come to your senses."

Islanders' forward Pat Flatley tried negotiating on his own with legendary
GM Bill Torrey. Ther pair had had several meetings when Flately arrived at
Torrey's office again. "You may have noticed that the last few times we
talked, I was holding a pencil," said Torrey. "This time, Pat, I am holding
a pen. That means I am not changing my number." Flatley signed for Torrey's
figure. So did defenceman Dave Lewis, now coach of Detroit, when he matched
wits with the Isles' GM and president. "Bill Torrey told me that a team is
like a pie," laughs Lewis. "There's a slice for Mike Bossy, a slice for
Denis Potvin, a slice for Bryan Trottier... and so on through the lineup.
Then he got to me. But for Dave Lewis, he said, there are only crumbs."

There were good reasons why the players found it so hard to squeeze decent
salaries out of the teams. "In the Eagleson era," recalls Devils GM Lou
Lamoriello, "you didn't have those big TV and other revenues. When I came to
New Jersey in 1987, the top contract on the Devils was for $300,000. We were
going back and forth over hundreds of dollars. Now we're talking hundreds of
thousands of dollars to make a deal happen. Maybe it was too one-sided then,
but it's gone the other way to the point where we have a CBA we're all
scared of."

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