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welcome to the massachusetts school
of law
educational forum thank you for joining us
this program is brought to you by the massachusetts school of law
and is shown nationwide
the topic for today's show is the n_h_l_
for hockey fans hockey isn't a game it's a way of life
there've been great players like gordie howe bobby orr and wayne gretzky
hockey has given its fans great moments
one of the most memorable is when a group of college students from the
u_s_a_ defeated the mighty russian olympic team also known as the miracle
on ice
the n_h_l_ has produced great teams such as the big bad bruins
for which derek sanderson mike milbury and ken hodge played
and who could forget the high-flying edmonton oilers of the nineteen
eighties
plus hockey has one of the most successful franchises in sports history
the montreal canadiens
in an effort to get as many perspectives as possible
we thought it would be a great idea to get the thoughts of a man who knows
the game from a players view as well as from managements view
we visited with michael milbury in new york
mike was a top defenseman with the boston bruins
after retiring he progressed through the bruins organization
from player to head coach of the bruins affiliate the mariners where his team
captured the division title and he was named coach of the year
mike then became head coach and assistant general manager of the bruins leading
the team to division titles mike then became the general manager of the new
york islanders
mike tell us a little bit about the game of hockey how's it changed over the
course of your career first as a player
well it's changed in a whole lot of different ways from the
just from the size of the players who are so much bigger so much stronger so
much faster than they've ever been
and uh... and that makes for
a whole different set of uh... rules for coaches to live by and they coaches
have adapted incredibly to the game and now we're much more they're much more
sophisticated in terms of
positioning and technical play
uh... makes for a real challenge for an opposing coach when you
come into a new building and they've seen everything that you're gonna do
and from the business perspective it's uh... incredibly different it's uh...
there's all sorts of things that go on in an arena during the course of the game
advertising even here in this little rink that you're seeing everything that you can
possibly imagine on the side boards
uh... and of course the money
is uh... hugely different do you think in any way it's becoming a game or it's
going to become a game of speed and and of size and strength as opposed to
technical skill
you know we're we're facing a time now where teams have become so
uh
detail oriented and they play the trap which is a
real tight defensive system
i don't know how we're going to get around that it's there's still a lot of
excitement to the game there's a lot of
transition off this defense
but a lot of us are concerned about what it's doing to the flow of the game so
it's something that we're looking at and especially with the new CBA around the
corner
we're looking at it very intently in the next year or so
so we'll have to stay tuned see what happens yeah i think so but i but every year there's
probably three or four general managers meetings
most of the managers are ex-players but all of them are dramatically interested
in the welfare of the game
and we're always looking for a way to make it better and we get input from the
players as well so I I think the game should be flow excitement and
that's its roots it's uh...
its essence was on rivers and ponds and
where there was just an explosion of energy and speed and and the more we can
keep that essence of the game the better it is for all of us do you
believe that the fighting or the violence is an essential part of the
games is that what viewers want to see
well that's two different questions uh... i don't believe that that fighting is an
essential part of the game
i believe that we've allowed it to become a part of the marketing
aspect of the game
uh...
no other major sport allows it to occur in its uh...
in it's field and i don't think we need it
uh...
other people will argue that this is a way to
to that people police themselves on the ice
uh...
i frankly think that's
uh... sales pitch and i think we could easily do without it
and make the game
uh... better because of it but uh...
you know I'm in the minority on that one and i'm not that i mean i fought
plenty of times when I was a player it's not that i'm uh...
a pacifist in any way shape or form no way
but i uh... i think we can it's time to move on
that's right
let me ask you a somewhat related question hockey players are rarely in
trouble with the law or are in trouble far less than other athletes why do you
think that's so
you know we've had the we've been lucky to
to uh... in many ways unlucky i guess the salaries have been low they haven't been
introduced into the fast lane
there are a lot of us that are very concerned about that we had a recent episode
with uh...
a tragic episode where
where one of our players in atlanta passed away and it was a fairly
innocent occurrence you know somebody driving a little too fast
but it's it's when you introduce
the opportunity and all the money that comes with it it's something that
concerns me but up until now it's been
sort of a down to earth group and and i guess maybe that
maybe most of the time people are coming from canada forty percent of our players
are still from canada
but it's a kind of uh... an earthy game
and the guys are generally well
grounded and uh... i hope we never lose that entirely
i wonder if you might comment on the diversity now in the league you said
still forty percent of the players are coming down from canada but where's
everyone else coming from
well there's uh...
they're coming from everywhere and we have people from long island now that
are playing in the league
we have people from the midwest of course
and all across a europe uh... the russian
the russian system which seemed to be in incredible disarray
ten years ago with a
the political changes has now somehow rebounded
as as they become economically more viable a lot of these
businessmen have poured money into the hockey system so we're getting
a real rebirth in russia
finland has always been there and i think can produce more sweden has always
been a great source of talent in the last ten years the czech republic
and slovakia is an up-and-coming uh...
hockey power uh... they won the world championship a couple years ago so it's
uh...
it's nice to see that hockey is flourishing across
some of these places and one day hopefully we'll have a
an artificial ice surface that will introduce it easily to to warmer
climates that's uh... that's something they flirted with but haven't really
quite
been able to uh... perfect
let's talk a little bit about the popularity of the sport why is hockey
nationally less popular than other major league sports
uh... huh
my opinion the reason is that
people don't play it yes
I mean in south florida
or alabama
it's very expensive
uh... there are no natural surfaces on which to play it people
ball hockey is a tremendously popular game right now
but it's not ice hockey and
to get a sheet of ice like this is this is a
you know multimillion dollar facility
so therein really lies the biggest rub that that people just don't have access
to the
to the ice surfaces
and the expensive
the expensive nature of the equipment also is
prohibitive so
that is going to keep us somewhat unfortunately
contract what advice would you have for kids that really wanna make it in the
n_h_l_ is it a realistic goal
every kid uh... should have a dream and if it happens to be in
athletics i think they should be able to dream that I think
that the first thing that you need to do 0:08:19.419,0:0820.919 is learn how to skate
uh... my advice really doesn't go to the to the kids it goes to the parents where
i think we've made a mockery of what we should be doing
in uh... athletics as far as hockey is concerned anyway
we've got kids that are six and seven and eight that are on travel teams
traveling around two and three hours to play a fifteen minute game
I know there's some socialization that occurs there but
that could happen uh... a lot closer to home and for a lot less
expense and
i think if we could
we could get more training into our early
uh... hockey programs
more training less travel less game playing
and then of course less nonsense among parents in the stands
that i think we're much better off and and some of the european countries we've
always known that they've been much better technically
it's because they're trained more more thoroughly and properly
they don't play as many games there's not as much emphasis on the games
so consequently as they get older and do play more games
they're better prepared and i think that's something that we should all look
at
and my advice to the kids in general is
learn to skate learn the learn the skills
and then you'll get your game sense as time goes on a kid though that wants to
make it in the n_h_l_ all they can do today is play hockey they can't diversify themselves and
do other sports it's a it's a sad comment really for me but uh...
specialization is here to stay it looks like
i think we just have to be careful you can still
as a kid play other sports uh...
but the way things have been structured
there's if you're part of a program it starts in september it doesn't end until
april
there's offseason
conditioning programs that they want summer hockey schools that they want you to be a
part of
it's tough i still think there's a little room for it
but like anything else if you put your mind to it if you have a gifted with
some
some natural ability you've got a chance but it's not something
professional sports is not something anybody can count on this is
this is a your chances are remote that you'll make it but
it's uh...
not a
unfair or unwise to dream
and yeah like you say it's good to have a dream
different question unlike other sports
hockey is much more reliant in my opinion on what i call ticket or gate
income what does that mean to the game the reason why is simple we we have
uh...
never been able to expand to a regional
or national audience on on a great scale
the game is difficult to broadcast there's a very small object of
everybody's attention the puck is not very big
it's tough to see it as
as you will note or most people note but once you go to a game
you can get
you can get
hooked on the thing oh sure the problem is that we have uh... we have enough issues
in sort of selling it to the public i guess
somewhat related question do you think that hockey players now are going to
start to look for the big salaries like other major league sports it's already it's already
there
as a business
i think it's safe to say that the case will be made by ownership
that they can't afford it we're
we're paying more money in many cases to players than
than football and and baseball and basketball for the marquee players it's
it's a
it's not big money will come it's big money is here right
and hockey
has a unique problem as i see it any way that you have a lot of teams out
there that are losing money and you have expansion of the n_h_l_ and how does
that all play into it i think what happened here is that that uh... in the
days of the sixties fifties sixties and
and seventies really
uh... i think ownership took advantage of players
i think there was a real
uh...
one way street and that was uh…it was not going the players way
as the union changed
as the uh... as times changed
the union became much more powerful much more in tune
and the pendulum swung the other way
uh... now it's the players that are in control consequently there's a lack
of trust between the two parties
and we'll say something and they'll smear they'll say something and we'll say
can you believe they don't understand it
until we get to some sort of understanding of each other's
difficulties
and the fact that this is a business that requires
obviously players and obviously the capital and the input of ownership and that
we're a partnership
we're in for a rocky road right
so get on the same page
that's the answer there's obviously people want to come to the
game
we play to mostly full houses
uh... as we mentioned earlier it is that's where we get our revenue
uh... so we've got something that people want to see people wanna watch on
on t_v_ when they're familiar with the game
but we need to
we need to know that we're we need each other in this whole business oh yeah
you look at boston you look here in new york i mean we love hockey but that's
not true everywhere
no it isn't true everywhere because they haven't been introduced to it and for the
other reasons not
the lack of kid participation but
once you see it once you're part of the action once you actually get people to
a game
you can really hook them and uh...
it would be a shame if we couldn't find a way as players and owners
to to and manages to come to some
commonality without having a work stoppage for a length of time yeah i mean i wonder
whether the n_h_l_ would survive long-term some type of a lockout
well the
no matter how we try to screw it up the game keeps bouncing back yes it does
and it's great
let's talk a little bit about you what was your experience what has
hockey meant to you it's been your whole life as i can see it
I had a dream like all other kids but it was at a time when you played football and
you played hockey and you played baseball and basketball and soccer and
everything else you could get your hands on
so I you know as I headed off to college
i guess it was the dream was still there but i was being a little more realistic
about
you know options as a professional athlete but when i got out of college
i got the opportunity to try out for the old boston braves
uh... and showed them enough to get me back to training camp in the fall
and then that I got lucky enough to to stick with the bruins organization
uh... a lot of it's luck a lot of it's timing lot of it's hard work
I had a good fortune of having uh...
don cherry who was a
big supporter of mine and harry sinden who was a
great friend and mentor
and who uh has always meant the world to me in terms of
personal and professional life uh... he gave me an opportunity to get my career
started not only as a player
but then when it was over as a coach and manager in in portland
uh... so
it it's just sort of
popped up it was there and and i've been able to take advantage of it and
it's been a great life for my for
my kids and my family and uh... been fun everybody sort of rallies around
you know whether the bruins or now the islanders it's a it's a way of sort
of
you know everybody getting on the same bandwagon even as a family that's hard
to do so
it's been a great ride for me i've been privileged
uh... to be part of the professional scene you've done everything
what have been some of your favorite experiences from a hockey standpoint it's
been uh... it's
been wonderful to get the chance play with a group of guys
I mean even in the minor leagues which is a different time in the early seventies
when i played i played with guys like a you won't recognize harry
shaw rick pagnutti who
played from september until
april and then went home and they were truck drivers or mailmen or
whatever the case may be but when they came to the rink they gave it everything
they gave me a lot of experience a lot of their time
and we had a ball i mean
and uh...
the american hockey league was a great place to get started and then of course playing in a
city like boston
when i came in we went to the stanley cup finals my first two years and
stanley cup semifinals my third year too many men on the ice against montreal in
seventy nine was a
was a incredible experience despite the fact that it ended
somewhat bitterly but to be
playing in front of the hometown
fans for the bruins
of harry and bobby orr esposito jerry cheever
was a thrill in and of itself uh...
the things that we did the games that we played
there's too many to enumerate but i i i'll never forget
being in that old barn
even just standing there for the national anthem and getting
goosebumps every time we came out on the ice it was a
the whole thing still was a little surreal for me
and uh... I never ever
forget how lucky I've been
to be part of the boston sports scene
joining me now is the n_h_l_ rookie of the year for the nineteen sixty seven
nineteen sixty eight season
derek turk sanderson
derek is well remembered as one of the finest four checkers to play the game and
for setting up bobby orr's cup winner on may tenth nineteen seventy
with his pass behind the saint louis goal
he played on one of the finest defensive lines in the game
derek was also the first athlete from any sport to sign a contract in excess
of one million dollars
derek tell me how the game of hockey has changed since you've been a player with the boston bruins
see I didn't read these questions but that's a good one
uh... the game is I mean vastly different
and if i can say but it's really the same
uh... you know why i played in the original six teams
uh... for boston
and they were everybody was good
two-way positional
response time you had no time to think out there
as expansion came in it started to get watered down to the point
defensively
not offensively
the skills have always been there
the goal tender's equipment has gotten a little bit bigger and so the numbers
have kinda stayed the same
and then the
patrick while flop style goal tending shut lower
uh... that started to creep in goal tenders have
become very very good
and there's been an explosion in that area of talent
uh... offensively the europeans have come i the americans have
tremendous contributions
stevenses
these guys that can play
there's just tremendous talent
uh... so extension was something that had to take place
and uh... i think somewhere along the lines
they forgot
about the defensive aspect of the game about both ends of the building
that's all they have the players are bigger stronger better shape
uh...
but they're not faster
just just the game is played at a certain speed
and uh...
i think it's a great game my sons love it and i've always loved hockey and
whether it changes it but it's kinda stayed the same there's still
there's still only a few things you can do to get out of your own end
little bit of a different question
has the n_h_l_ expanded too far
have we diluted the talent pool too much
what the when you bring in the when you bring in the uh... europeans
they're very skilled offensive set of players
they are used to playing
a schedule that is not nearly as long
so they have
dreadful slumps sometimes uh... and then
when it's moved up a couple of notches in the stanley cup
they haven't made that acclamation yet
the canadians the north american players and the canadian american players have but the
european has to get there yet
and once that takes place it will be terrific
do you believe that the violence or the fighting is essential to the game is that
what the viewers want
absolutely
hockey is not for everyone uh... wish the national hockey league would learn how
to market the game
I agree it is not for everybody diane it's a game
that is a physical
it's a violent game played by violent people
and you're gonna get hit you know you're going to get hit and you're going to get hit hard
you're going to bleed
you're going to lose teeth things are going to happen to you
uh and you accept that when you sign your contract
fighting is a
essential part you have a club in your hands
frustration gets to such a level when a guy's hookin' ya and grabbing' ya slowing you
down impeding your progress
one you're not allowed to touch a player
without the puck
and if they would just call the rules it would be terrific but they don't
so now a player gets frustrated he starts to slash and spear and using the stick as a weapon
you're far better off dropping the gloves and having at it with fisticuffs it's over it's very aerobic
it's usually over in forty five fifty seconds
you're balanced on a sixteenth inch of steel off of frozen water I mean
how strong can you be
so you're ripping guys it's a lot of wrestling
but i think it it gets out frustration that keeps the level of
violence down
hockey players are great athletes though and i think we lose sight of just how
talented a hockey player is
i do i do firmly believe that
when you look at uh... at the n_f_l_and football as good as they are the
quarterback the running backs and
and the defensive backs
those are the skill positions most of it is just in the trenches hitting hard
movin'
uh... and they don't go very far
uh... hockey is a game that is played by
uh... offense can hit defense
uh... there's no out of bounds there's no set rules
i don't have possession like a basketball I give you the ball
except for the jump ball
it's uh…a I haven't got posesion hockey it's dropped it's anybody's puck
uh... so there's no set plays it's a game of ad lib it's an entirely different game
uh... when the puck changes hands
uh... and you don't have it and the puck changes hands your job changes
and you have to be able to read that if you can't read that i can't coach that
you have to have the sense for the game
if you don't then you can go up and down the wall mind your own business
probably have an
okay career if you're really talented
the art of it is in understanding the game
why isn't hockey as popular as other sports is it that it is hard to follow on
t_v_ that you really have to be at the rink to really enjoy the game
well there's two very good points
the puck is too small even for t_v_
uh... so when you they come up with that silly laser puck remember that one
okay and it was in the stands sometimes people going
uh... but
when you look at hockey and the puck being so small it's actually game that you have to be there
to feel the energy
uh... i've watched it I think they do a far better game today
with they make it exciting today on television ESPN has done a marvelous job as uh...
and all the stations have
uh... you did a marvelous job when we played when we playedi i
remember when i watch the highlights of bobby orr I was showing it to my sons one day
and my wife
sitting their
and I said whoa
we look slow were we that slow
and she said yeah it does look kinda slow
and i went to the game that night and i spoke with fred cusick
who was probably the greatest broadcaster ever
came down the pike
and i said fred is it really we we were that slow
he said no
when you played derek in that era it was one camera game
it was at center ice thirty feet off the ice and it
panned and that's all it did
and so the downtime through center ice has now changed
they have forty eight cameras now
they take a guys hands feet *** this player breaking that player breaking no puck
you don't see the puck half the time
and they take you through the coming under your own end through center ice till
you're around the net
then they pan out and see some action
so it's actually the producer the director how they pick the camera the
shots and
they make it very excited
and they make it look faster but it really isn't
so how do we increase the popularity
i think you market to people that that that love it and the people that like it
boston fans
yeah you just really pay attention to your fan base
uh... let the bruins go and reach the community
columbus atlanta
reach the community
go out and street hockey
uh... i mean you got wonderful equipment for kids franklin manufacturing has a
whole line
of street equipment
so you get the kids into street hockey then you get them onto the ice and you get them
feeling better about it
but the teams have got to go to the community
and take all the suburbs and sure and those hotbeds thirty thirty
one cities i mean that's all you need
and market out
from the building
and then start to develop a fan base
the national hockey league excludes its fan base
they go to general
they go to some ads say watch hockey it's the coolest game in the world
well if I'm sitting in
peoria illinois
you go to if you get familiarity get the players out to the community and start to
market it
is hockey though accessible to most kids
no to expensive yeah it is it's an extremely expensive game
the goal pads are up to a thousand twelve hundred dollars
the gloves are state of the art now wonderful equipment kids are better protected
than they ever were
maybe more so
not enough fluidity
not enough movement not enough ability to get out of the way
because you're so encumbered with equipment
uh... so
it's it's a different game
with the equipment and that aspect of it
what advice would you have for kids in the audience that think you know one day
i'm gonna play in the n_h_l_
well I that was a dream that i had the
the boston bruins bought me when I was ten years old
and uh... it was professional rights for a hundred
dollars and that's what they did in the old days
follow your dream if you're a young kid and you wanna play you've gotta think it all
the time though
it isn't something you can do part time no not anymore you're not going to make the red sox part-time
you're not going to make the patriots part-time celtics' part time
you gotta think about it all the time
your diet
your decision making your building your body getting your rest
uh... what you know it's just
all-encompassing now athletes today are in tremendous shape yes they are
while we're talking about players something that i'm personally intrigued
about you think of hockey
as being an aggressive sport as a violent sport but yet we rarely if
ever hear about hockey players being in trouble not like other athletes why do
you think that's so... i have always had kind of a personal opinion
i think it's
hockey
in all the campuses in the united states
and all the junior teams in canada
and all the europeans
hockey is a
game of humility
hockey I tell ya
to play it you're humbled
time after time shift after shift by other people's talents or jobs or just whatever
there's no
uh... social set like on campus
big man on campus in high school
there's no cheerleaders
there's no uh...
you're special
but football and basketball in america is treated special
the athlete starts to believe that
he starts to walk around like he just owns everything
let's talk about derek today
uh first of all the farthest thing from my mind was ever to be in the investment business
but when i was playing and i was fortunate we spoke earlier about
free agency and
the WHA and making all that money I went to
my lawyer and he took me to uh... an investment firm and
he got power of attorney and
i was taking advantage yes
I did a lot of foolish things on my own
but i didn't spend all the money
so it's gone
and i did not want to have that happen to any other player you know
and uh... I did the tucker anthony golf classic
and john goldsmith was the chairman of tucker anthony
and clyde fizioli
brought me on board and then john goldsmith encouraged me to go back to get my series
seven understand the industry I did
and then i realized that it's basically an industry of all the money management
the brokers everybody's pretty talented
what do you pay me
what do you charge me
and what do you give me what dod you do for that
as basically what i wanted
a fee based
sports group
i wanted to protect the athlete number one from himself number two
take him out of the hands of
the philistines take him away from the people that would take advantage of him and over power him 0:28:47.840,0:28:51.580 so the athlete spent so much time on his game that he doesn't he or she does not spent
a lot of time on their financial life right
and i figured if i could be an agent supportive
a financial arm
uh... and responsibly prudently manage money and wealth
it would be an added service
and it was uh…I started it about ten years ago it's been extremely successful
I moved
from a couple of firms for services
and i started in the business with J. henderson
who is the president here
uh... of the investments side
uh... so senior vice president
and jay and i known each other for eleven years and I said to him
talked about my athletes being here because this is a wonderful firm to have your money managed
it's simple high service
high touch high technology
but always a warm body
and that's what the players needed education compassion understanding
where they're not embarrassed to ask a question
they don't feel foolish about
uh…you know mailing or forgetting stuff
you know how your bank they get mad at ya it's my money they get mad at me
I say whoa
I made a mistake
joining me now is a hall of fame hockey writer
the long-time lawrence eagle tribune's sports editor russ conway
russ was a nominee for a pulitzer prize in recognition of his outstanding
investigative journalism and he was the nineteen ninety nine recipient of
the elmer ferguson memorial award as selected by the professional hockey
writers association
he is the author of game misconduct
alan eagleson and the corruption of hockey russ welcome to the show my pleasure
delighted to have you here russ you've been covering hockey a number of years
tell us how the game has changed over the course of time
the gaming hasn't changed
its what's gone on around it the business end is entirely different
uh…the players are bigger stronger faster
not necessarily as skilled yeah
but the business part
of hockey as in all of professional sports
is basically the uh... engine that runs the
locomotive
why haven't hockey salaries escalated like other sports salaries oh they have
they're getting there but still less than other other sports' athletes are receiving they've gone up
they really have caught up
you must remember
uh... there are thirty teams there are roughly seven hundred players
that are on rosters
uh... and each team also
fields at least one
minor league team
the overall
salaries
which are the big bite
uh...
for a
the price of a ticket
uh...
are the single number one reason why tickets have
absolutely shot through the roof
people think right or wrong that hockey players are aggressive they're fighters
but you never hear or rarely do you hear I should say
about hockey players getting in trouble
why is that i think there is
a real good reason for that
most hockey players
their upbringing
is
either in a low class uh...
low middle-class income bracket
very few hockey players are well to do
when they first break into high school or college now but
by the same
token it's a very
expensive sport to play
and these kids
really have a work ethic
i think originally that is
probably in the uh... stems from
the canadian upbringing
I mean for years in canada I mean people were brought up
to appreciate things
they they remember their roots that's one thing i like about hockey players
today and always
if there's a tradition off the ice
they've been some of the most
generous
when it comes to charities and community involvement
popularity of the sport why is it that hockey is not as popular as some of the
other sports is it because it's low scoring
hard to follow on t_v_
uh... a little bit of that
they've really made great strides
in their telecast they they went to
canada and basically ah...
took the uh... work ethic and and the type of
production that they did in canada finally brought it to the states and
they've done a much better job with it in the last few years
but you must remember
by its own definition there isn't a lot of ice
in south eastern or south western united states
now the n_h_l_
to gary bettman's credit
has slowly worked its way
into
different regions that had never seen hockey before that's right yeah
I mean the florida panthers uh... you know when they
made it to the stanley cup
finals
south florida went absolutely crazy for them
and uh... they built a brand new rink whoever thought you'd see an NHL rink in ft. lauderdale
a sunrise florida
another one in tampa
brand-new rink just come in phoenix
you know that has brought more people
to the game
there are more hockey fans today than ever
but has the league expanded too far
that's a great questions uh...
sometimes i think it has
and yet
in order to in order
to find your level
you've got to be able to see how far you can go we tend to think of
hockey as a violent
or as an aggressive sport so i have a couple of questions
first question is is the violence and the fighting essential to the game do
the fans really wanna see it
I uh... cringe every time people say it's violent
the n_b_a_ they have these
bench clearing brawls all the time
end even in the NFL
and if you watch a major league baseball season
how many are there uh... i mean you know
twenty twenty-five a season
uh... i don't find it violent
when it is a contact sport
and whenever you have
two people going twenty five to thirty mile an hour
and they crash into each other is that how fast they go russ sometimes twenty twenty eight miles an
hour on skates you can reach
and you have a little disc a rubber disc that your winging ninety five
miles an hour some players
can wing it up to a hundred
miles an hour
i mean people some people are gonna get hurt it's not
for the uh...
the sissies that's for sure are hockey players in your opinion becoming too greedy at
the expense of the league are they in it just for themselves and not
considering the longevity of the league
I don't think all players are like that
by the same token all owners aren't like that either
you must remember
player is offered
x_ amount of dollars and I'll use bill geren as an example that played here in boston
the owner of the dallas stars offered him
five-year contract
for forty five million dollars now what would you do
he'd be a fool not to sign that
so take it that was a
guaranteed contract
he took care of his family
his grandkids his own kids his grandkids
and what whatever generations there are to come
the owners in
some areas
have been their own worst enemies
what about revenue-sharing
what can we do to have a better equity they have a slight revenue
uh... sharing program but you've got to lose x amount of dollars for the
canadian teams and that was because of the dollar the u_s_ dollar
uh... versus the canadian dollar the exchange rates were just out of sight
for a long while
all NHL players are played paid in u_s_ dollars
well it's pretty difficult
for the calgary flames or the vancouver canucks or toronto uh... montreal
etc. to
complete when they're paying their payroll in u_s_ dollars but they're income
is derived in canadian dollars sure
uh... it's amazing some of them held on ottawa was in big trouble for a while
if they really want to look at it
positively for the sport
for the fan
for the player for the owner
the owners are entitled to make a profit
i mean they have an investment that's why they're in the business
the players are entitled the good ones are entitled to be paid
good professional sports money
but in order
to bring those two together you've got a look and say
are we going to be partners
because you must remember they do not have the television contract
that the other three major league sports have yes that's exactly what i wanted to ask you
they don't have the t_v_ the merchandising the other
you know the other sponsorship revenue that all the other sports have
TV is the big issue t_v_ for example in the n_f_l_
basically pays the payroll
the player's salary payroll
if you look at nascar i mean nascar gets two point eight
billion dollars for its
television commitment
for uh... the course of five years
that pays the purses that those drivers go at each different track basically
takes care of the whole purse
in the n_h_l_
the t_v_ revenue in canada and in the united states
doesn't come close local
local t_v_ pays separately
right to clubs but the t_v_ revenue doesn't come close
now their merchandising and marketing
has been really well done
it's a billion dollar business
uh... the n_h_l_ and their teams
have done a great job they've they've
come up with revenue sources that
they never had before
but they had to
sure they did to exist
uh...
i think at the end of the day
they've gotta say
what is the value of a franchise
the value of the hockey rink
if the boston bruins didn't play there sure
the answer is
no and you've got to
go further than just the hockey rink
to see
what the hockey team is responsible for in terms of revenue
right the answer no longer can be to raise ticket prices because i mean i think we're at it's tapped
out yeah exactly
pretty much tapped out other than maybe cost of living or whatever
boston uh... uh... takes a bad nock for that harry sinden has done a pretty good job
putting a cap on
tickets the best they can
it used to be
not long ago
that ticket revenue paid the salaries of the players
and pretty much every dollar that's spent by a fan ends up going back into salary
you're about tapped out you can't keep
jackin' the ticket prices
last question tell us about your book tell us about your investigative work
well the eagle tribune
and it's publisher at the time
irving rogers junior
and editors
were totally supportive
i had a number of players come to me
with various suspicions various complaints both current and past players
of where their international hockey money was going about their pensions
they had questions they couldn't get answers and basically eagleson wouldn't
service them
uh... he'd shut you out browbeat you and
we went after it
uh... had total support we did eight different series in the eagle tribune I had
a number of
publishing companies come to me ask to do a book
we conducted that investigation the f_b_i_ got involved justice department the
mounties
and it became an international event
so to speak that
certainly took a lot of patience
and uh... a lot of support
uh... it was no one person but it was quite a
uh... an experience to go through
i
said during the
during the saga and finally he went to jail went to prison I said you know i
hope there's some life left after this thing's over
and uh...
justice was served
uh... thirteen hundred forty three players got pension money back
eagleson was fined he was exposed
he was kicked out of the hockey
hall of fame so to speak he resigned because he had to under pressure
uh... he was kicked out of the order of canada
and uh...
people in canada certainly around the sport know
that he was a fraud and he was a crook
and we were able to uh... uncover it
wow you know terrific job you've heard that a million times i know but as i
prepare for the show and i'm talking with various people
everybody is so grateful to you I appreciate that okay 0:42:58.149,0:43:02.670 joining me now is former boston college and NHL player ken hodge
ken was drafted by the minnesota north stars in the nineteen eighty four draft
ken played with the north stars as well as the boston bruins before
retiring with tampa bay
welcome to the show ken thank you so much for coming thanks for having me diane
ken is joined by his attorney kenneth larkin
he has represented a number of professional athletes over the years ken
great to see you again diane always a pleasure to see you welcome to the
show
ken let's start with you how has the game of hockey changed in the past two decades
has it become a game of speed and strength as opposed to skill
uh... well the easiest answer to that one would be the money i think is the biggest change
changed to a game of money you go back to the era of the seventies when my
dad played
uh... they only made maybe twenty five to fifty thousand dollars per season which was
big money back then
uh... and then i went in in the nineties
guys were making a million dollars which was probably
you know the top end guy and then after that it's been
if you don't make more than a million dollars as a low end guy there's something seriously wrong
but wow you can also look at the the size of some of these guys
there some six four guys as the average size
size strength and speed
is a big attribute for that hockey for
playing hockey now big part of the game today absolutely is
uh... and that's if you don't have that size and speed
your not going to play
wow ken is it the lawyer
is it the agent is it the representative of the player that's
responsible for this escalating salary problem uh... I'm often asked that question
both not only in the NHL but in the NFL representing
NFL players over the years
you know there's a lot of factors involved with it
uh... commissioner bettman has done a great job of bringing uh... the league out in licensing and
advertise in the league
at different levels the problems been what number of teams have spent money stupidly
unecessarily that's created a quagmire
obviously the t_v_ revenues as opposed to the other
sports is a significant issue that the NHL has to face
but players and the agents and the lawyers who represent them are out to get
them what they can get them
and if a team is going to pay them money for that
in their services today it's a free market system they're entitled to get that
that's the foundation of the whole country is a capitalist system but does it
become a situation of personal greed over
really the security of the league
no i wouldn't classify it as greed there's revenues that are there and each
team's different you you take teams like
ottawa and buffalo and atlanta that have had significant the first two were in bankruptcy
significant issues but the other teams like the rangers and other big market teams
have done very very well it's up to the individual owner and their management team
and the player and the agent involved
to get their value for that player and if the player is going to draw in people in that
particular
uh... location that particular team then that person should be rightly compensated for it it's not
the role of the player or the agent or the lawyer
to be into into the management game for different for different cities and
different teams that's their responsibility is the violence
and the aggressiveness an essential part
well i think it's because uh...
you have to have some some kind of
fear factor in hockey in hockey and you hate to use those words but
uh... when you're not intimidating somebody maybe that's a better better
terminology than
you're gonna have they're gonna have the upper hand on you and that's kind
of what hockey is it's an intimidation game uh...
uh…I've seen recently I hate to keep going back to the early seventies
and sixties but
they had bench clearing brawls on a night in night out basis uh... now i
think you could count on the number on one finger the number of times in the last
ten years there's been a bench clearing brawl they've tried to cut that out of the game which i
think is a good thing
uh... but yet
there's still the intimidation factor there's still these uh... again six
four guys you
go in to lay a body check on a six-foot guy it's gonna be intimidating and
then all of a sudden you have to drop the gloves and now all of a sudden here you go and now
you have to fight these guys
and uh... you have to have some some type of intimidation to be able to play this game
the viewers love the fights though
well they do and i i i think uh... you
some of the bigger players like mario lemieux and and wayne gretzky when
they were prominent in the league
were trying to cut it out
because they I think the league went through a period of
uh... where a team would win games one nothing
two to one and the fans weren't as into the hockey game as
a as they are now when they see some more goals
so the big guys the bigger named guys like lemieux and gretzky and an even brett
hull to an extent
uh... advocated to get
fighting out of the game and that's exactly what happened for a little while but
it's slowly creeping its way back in
why isn't in your opinion hockey as popular as other major league sports i
mean i read reports that say well
the viewers find it hard to follow on t_v_ or the fact that it is low scoring
is problematic for people's interests i think there's two factors I think one is
it the speed of the game on t_v_ it doesn't come across as if you were actually
at a game you see how fast these guys are actually skating
and i think also to the second thing was when they came in with helmets
you don't get to see the guy's face as much
now the guys wear face shields some guys wear
uh... you know full face cages when they're injured obviously
so you don't really get to see
the player and identify with that player
and
and when that player's in one city he might not be there for more than a year
and all of a sudden he's playing somebody somewhere else so that's another part of the the name and
face recognition that you don't have any more as much as you had back in the early seventies
i think another issue along those lines also is hockey unlike
some of the other main sports
is kind of a regional sport
the northeast and the midwest in particular to the west and the southwest and the south
is not nearly as popular but isn't it interesting the teams are outstanding
now i mean you played in tampa bay right uh...they were trying to
get into a different market I think hockey was trying to
grab some different places and trying to get some different
uh...
establish some roots when I was i tamps bay we had uh... fifteen
thousand seat building we were at
and it was the first year of the team
they maybe had five thousand fans were cheering for us and a thousand ten
thousand fans were cheering for the other team that was coming in you know if you think about it
you got a lot of canadians a lot of northern people go down to canada or down to tampa rather
and spend their their winters down there sure
they're not rooting for the lightning they could care less about the lightning yeah they can't get tickets up north so
they're going to see their favorite teams well you see what happens with the red sox the red sox and the yankees play
down there and the same thing happens
not trying to diss tampa bay my brother john lives down in tampa bay I'd never try to diss his
area
but basically what's happened is the larger market teams not only in the NHL
but a lot of
uh... other sports as well is these large markets are subsidizing these
teams should not have a pro team maybe they should have a triple A team
or a minor league team not a pro team 'cause that cuts into the overall revenue issues that we
addressed earlier when you're supporting a nashville you know a tampa bay's these areas
columbus that
are you know arguably not major market areas that should have major
pro teams and
it's to some extent indirectly syphoning some of the revenues of the overall
overall NHL coffers and i think that's an issue i really do
I wonder in light of what ken just said unless you're
really at the game you don't appreciate
all of the skill and and the beauty of the game unless you're there 'cause it's
lost on t_v_
but how does one go when tickets are seventy ninety dollars how do
you take your two
kids into see the boston bruins gotta have good friends that have a lot of tickets
well you know it's funny my firm had season tickets for a number of years we couldn't give them away to
clients
so we don't have tickets season tickets anymore because if i need to send a client to a particular game
i could just go buy two tickets and sent them to the game i think the issue
that's a that's a quagmire the increase in NHL tickets has
been eighty one percent in the last ten years they've optimized
their growth level at this point
the ticket is seventy five dollars but
that's that just gets you into your seat yeah right you're looking at you gotta pay twenty dollars
or twenty five dollars to park your car down at the fleet center now
and that's not even that's in the lower garage where you might not even get a spot down there
first off
and then we you get into the building now you gotta pay five dollars for a hot dog
five dollars for a soda by the average family of four by the time they get to the hockey
games it's five hundred bucks to get home i mean an
and they can't do that they can't especially with the economics the way they are nowadays uh... you just can't
afford to take
a family on a consistent basis on a an eighty two game season
there's forty one home dates
you can barely go once or twice a season go to a game spend a thousand dollars
right
and hockey unlike
major league baseball unlike football unlike most of the other sports
heavily dependent from the numbers i've looked at
at that gate or that ticket income to pay
their biggest expense which is in fact player salaries so what's the hockey league
going to do to attract more sponsorship or more t_v_ contracts or do something to
bring down the
the ticket price
I think there's a couple issues there
the when you look at uh...
how hockey has to draw I personally think they have to
downsize the league I think it's just too big of a league a couple of large markets
and strong geographical areas and then try to therefore than cut down on
some of the ticket prices across the board I think they did to do a much more
better job in marketing
doing merchandising licensing rights and things of that nature
like the NFL
if you look at the NFL players association they've done a tremendous job on that the
n_f_l_ in general has done a tremendous job
of attracting a new market of people maybe going overseas
into the european markets and the asian markets and doing things like that in order
to attract more money to bring it into the league but i think the way that the league is structured
now
and given that the t_v_ contract is is laughable I happened to be playing at the time when
gary bettman became the commissioner
he came in
from the n_b_a_
and the n_b_a_ was just at its height of its popularity bird and magic and all those guys
were coming into the height of their popularity well he said let's do the
same thing let's try to take that model of the n_b_a_ and let's bring it over to the n_h_l_
doesn't work because as you mentioned before they got the helmets and they don't have the name
recognition and guys are just constantly moving back and forth
that that's
hockey's got a kind of do its own thing and not worry about
the n_b_a_ the n_f_l_ or
major league baseball they gotta start worrying about themselves
joining me now from the sports museum here in boston massachusetts is richard
johnson he's fondly known as the soul man of boston sports *** welcome to
the show thank you very much
*** did you have a
favorite hockey team or favorite hockey player when you were a kid growing up
well the bruins of the bobby orr phil esposito era were as charismatic
a group
uh... that have ever played any sport in any league uh... they were
just you know the team and they worry that that was the team of my youth and uh... and the
team that made me a big hockey fan
great let's look at the evolution of the game tell us a little bit about how it began
as the original six and take us up to current
well it was interesting that hockey had had deep roots in the new england area
long before the start of the national hockey league
you had hockey being played at saint paul's school in concord new hampshire
in the eighteen nineties
the collegiate uh... hockey league started uh... pretty soon after that so
i believe uh... harvard's program started also in the eighteen nineties
so the sport
really uh... is uh i think the one closest to our hearts here because there
have been more
professionals that have come from the new england area in hockey than in any
other sport
and then certainly uh... the great number of uh...
olympic players
the great high school tradition here this is also the home of the first
interscholastic hockey league in the country
dating back to the nineteen teens
and uh... the boston arena now known as matthews
arena
is the oldest indoor ice arena in the world wow did not know that and that's still here
that's where the bruins started back in nineteen twenty-four
so the origins uh... of hockey in this area go back to the origins of the sport
itself
it helps get us through these new england winters i think that's why we
love it so much yes
*** different question is the violence or the fights of the game essential to
people being attracted to watching hockey
no i don't think so because in collegiate hockey
fighting is punished with a game suspension so
anyone that's watched top-level collegiate hockey knows that it's as
good as it gets and you don't need the fighting it's a distraction
but that being said certain teams had as part of their identity
a fighting mode to them uh... certainly the bruins had that for a number of
years
you know they were a tough team they were a team to be contended with a at all times
and the fighting was almost a part of the script
the flyers of the early seventies sort of took a page out of the bruins book
and tried to intimidate opponents as well as out play them
but that being said
i think anyone that's watched enough hockey knows
that when it's played well
it's a beautiful sport
and the fighting tends to delay it it tends to be a distraction
and in this day and age uh... they're not many teams that can really intimidate you
anymore
the game has changed a bit it's a more flowing sport
and uh... skating skill and overall talent
really are what you pay to see you don't pay to see a couple of goons out there
slugging it out
hockey players are great athletes yes
why haven't hockey salaries escalated like other sports salaries well uh... hockey
professional hockey the national hockey league in particular
just does not receive the television income
that the other major sports you know they really we really think of there being
four
major sports in north america
the national football league has the biggest t_v_ contract
they also have the most players to pay
but you know they're paid on an average higher than the national hockey league
players the n_b_a_
has a larger t_v_ contract major league baseball
uh... they're certain individual clubs in MLB that that paid an
enormous amount teams such as the yankees so
the national hockey league has always been the fourth
of the four major sports in terms of
pay just because the money's not there
the money has to derive from ticket income
and you can only charge so much
and is it accurate to say that
much of the
the gate income as i call it the ticket income is paid out in fact for salaries
that's where they spend the bulk of the money
well they claim that nearly seventy four seventy five percent of
uh... player's salary comes from ticket income and i believe it and the fact
is is that certain teams
charge an extraordinary amount i was at a game in toronto uh... two years ago
and the price for individual tickets in the loge good seats but not great seats
was one hundred and sixty two dollars and fifty cents apiece now that's
canadian but still that would be about a hundred and ten dollars uh... american
currency
for one hockey game and this was against the nashville predators not exactly a
classic contest
so
that's what they're up against
and uh... the league is really at the point now where
uh... i can't imagine them possibly increasing prices anymore than they have
let me ask a different question why do you think hockey is not as popular
throughout the nation as other sports is it that it's low scoring or hard to
follow on television or is there some other reason
well i think the popularity of of any sport is based on whether or not
kids have played it
so that in most of the country
kids have just never put the skates on and gone out and played hockey it's as
simple as that the other factor that really has an impact on the game not being
as popular as the other sports
it's so expensive yeah
just to outfit uh... a squirt player you're spending upwards of four or five hundred
dollars
*** thank you so much
for joining us here today thank you