January 1995

SPEAKING OF SPORTS

by Barry Stagg

JANUARY 1995

Mensa Hockey League to be formed by striking NHL players

Hockey continues to be a game played only in the sane environments of minor league cities and minor hockey arenas as this piece is written in mid-December. The rich and overweening players and their employers at the major league level still seem bound for commercial hell in the proverbial hockeybag. All across the spectrum of fanhood there is disgust mixed with outright contempt for these sheltered actors in an industry that has dodged the empty horrors of the decade long recession. It is time that players like Captain Testosterone aka Mark Messier got a chance to put their vast savings where their overworked mouths usually dominate. Messier has sounded off in Europe about a player's league if the National Hockey League cancels the season. I cannot wait to see how the good captain makes out as a full bore capitalist in charge of paying the bills.

Wayne Gretzky has already seen his commercial mentor, Bruce McNall prepare to plead guilty to crimes that revolve around defrauding various entities of a sum estimated at better than $230 million. Gretzky owes his somewhat unintentional entry into the American labour market to McNall's daring purchase of The Great One from the ever opportunistic Edmonton car dealer Peter Pocklington. Perhaps the public can judge some of the players potential for honest capitalistic effort by the company they keep. McNall, of course, is all set to keep extremely close company with a brand new circle of uniforms after he is sentenced for his decade of criminal deception. I would sincerely hope that any foray into team ownership by the Gretzky's, Messier's, Hull's and Chelios' is based on business principles other than those practiced by the likes of McNall in the course of his ruinous criminal rampage through the fields of finance.

Would the fan in the gray seats in Maple Leaf Gardens enjoy watching Mark Messier the first time he has to deal with a whining snot masquerading as a left winger making a demand for a mid-season contract revision. Better still, I would like to see him trying to arrange a line of credit for his team after a season of mature and sensible management by the legion of economists, actuaries and management experts who now populate the rosters of the strike-bound teams. Obviously Messier and his fellow player/owners/Renaissance men would look to their own ranks and to their close acquaintances for hired help to lease the rinks, negotiate the contracts and get the hockey equipment from airport to airport. Surely plenty of the 10% Brigade otherwise known as hockey agents will be frothingly anxious to sign up to manage these new teams for their longtime clients/meal tickets. These agents will be glad to get away from that old skimming procedure that now serves as their source of income. Getting 10% off the top of a contract will be eagerly replaced by the obvious pleasures of negotiating collective agreements with rink attendants and arranging to have the local scalpers arrested.

The pleasures of ownership are so many when compared to the daily tedium of a player's life. Certainly their friends who now act as their agents and as their bargaining team will want the sense of adventure and mystery that goes with making the Friday pay-roll when the accounts are empty on Thursday. This is the future as Mark Messier seems to envision it. After all he will be bringing his vast business experience and his knowledge of the flight plans between NHL cities to any ownership arrangement. It should be a new and quite adventurous chapter in the annals of mercantilism. I am especially waiting to see Bob Probert in charge of arranging immigration visas for these new teams. He has the most experience of any of the players in that delicate area. Doesn't he?

A choice for League commissioner will present an interesting dilemma for the player/owners. A recent fawning column in a Toronto daily suggested that former Canadiens' goalie Ken Dryden would be a wise pick for the job. Dryden now writes for at least part of his living and he recently wrote an opinion piece in Toronto suggesting that ending tax write-offs for corporate ticket purchases would go a long ways toward reforming the sports for money industry. This should render him irresistible to the democrats who will be running these new teams and who will want to remove all memories of the bad old ways of doing business which resulted in all those cumbersome million dollar contracts for Messier, Probert, et al. Dryden positively weeps at the indignities heaped on the working man from his perch well inside the borders of privilege and advantage. He will be an obvious pick to rule the league with his unparalleled insight and gifted interpretation of life as it appears to him from the frozen tundra of North Toronto. Look for him to be a big hit with the fans in Flin Flon and Marystown.

All this adventure and entertainment will be forfeited if the strike gets settled. It almost makes me wish that the players and owners do commit the frozen equivalent of Hari-Kari. Ritual suicide in the name of collective bargaining and the thrills of arbitration: That is a truly wonderful and disgusting solution to this impasse.

Until next month: Be Proud, Be Prosperous.


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