Bob Goodenow RIP: The Man Who Rescued NHL Players From Alan Eagleson

In the brief 10-day strike in 1992 by NHL players (the only strike they ever called en masse) we received a call from new NHL Players Association executive director Bob Goodenow. The American former agent wanted us to know why the players had finally pushed back against the league and its former director Alan Eagleson. 

He knew we were one of the very few at the time doing any critical reporting on the incestuous relationship between the league and Eagleson, and when we met for coffee he gave me the background on why the players had finally said “Enough” in their exploitation by team owner, the league and the man he’d replaced at the NHL.

As we left the restaurant we commented on the new Roots NHLPA  jacket he was wearing. He said, “You like it?”. Then he took it off and gave it to us. We protested that we couldn’t take it, but instead he turned and sprinted back to his car, saying “Keep it”. (Next day we went to NHLPA HQ to compensate him for it.)

And so our story of how Bob Goodenow, who passed away this week at 72, would literally give you the jacket off his back. Tenacious, fearless and bold describes his style. Cuddly and sentimental he was not. The former lawyer and player agent for Brett Hull was not impressed by NHL self-dealing, and he said so. The Harvard product made a bad enemy after he succeeded Eagleson in 1992.

Players owe him so much for finally giving them self respect. To get some idea of how they’d been abused in personal negotiations and then collective bargaining with owners please read our book Money Players, a finalist for the Canadian Business Book of 2004. While players in other leagues ate steak, NHL players ate KD. It’s an exhaustive catalogue of dirty dealing and deceit.

He also was supportive in the successful 1993 pension lawsuit launched by former star Carl Brewer and the retired greats of that generation who’d discovered that Gordie Howe’s pension after 25 years was a measly $13K a year. He changed the landscape by changing how modest, self-effacing players— especially Canadian— thought of themselves. 

It’s hard to understate the mentality he had to change. As one example he told them that salary disclosure— a tactic Eagleson had always scorned on behalf of his league buddies like Bill Wirtz and Jeremy Jacobs— was the key to negotiating the higher salaries of NFL, NBA and MLB players. Within years of it becoming the standard, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Hull, Jerome Jagr and more led many making millions. And fans learned that owners did, in fact, have the money to pay.

Goodenow convinced hockey players that to earn their worth in the market they had to stick together in negotiations. It would be trying as fans and the media took the owners’ line under new commissioner Gary Bettman when they locked out players in 1994. He didn’t suffer reporters who were NHL echo chambers or old-timers who pined for there good old days of making $1000 a year.

The dramatic 1994 lockout cost 468 games, with players avoiding a cap. Shocked owners caved in January 1995 when they realized players meant business. A bitter Bettman vowed a rematch, this time with complete authority. That came in 2004.

In the run-up to that calamitous clash Goodenow had constantly canvassed players, telling them that they should expect to lose one or even two full seasons this time before Bettman would be replaced for a more conciliatory opponent. He was repeatedly assured that, like 1994-95, they’d hang together.

As we explained in Money Players, sadly they lied to him. In early 2005, with the season in peril, some prominent players, urged by their agents, went behind Goodenow’s back to strike a deal for a cap with owners. This time they caved and got the restrictive cap— with the added indignity of Bettman cancelling the entire 2004-2005 season. It was a rout. 

Abandoned by two-faced players Goodenow was replaced by a series of ineffectual successors who never galvanized players the same way again. By 2013 owners were back for more, seeking to reduce players’ share of revenues agreed to in 2005. This time, armed with the knowledge that players would fold in talks, it was no contest. As predicted, players folded early in 2013.

We’d like to say that our relationship with Goodenow survived. But while he still talked to our pal Russ Conway, he cut us off. Why? We’ve never been told. Attempts to reconcile through third parties failed. He returned to his native America where he passed away last week. If he had public thoughts on how he was betrayed he took them with him to his final resting place.

Which doesn’t reduce his impact on the game. CBA negotiations have never been the same. Player salaries have never been the same. Media covering hockey has never been the same. Eagleson was criminally convicted in the U.S. and Canada for the self dealing revealed by Conway and us. That’s an impressive legacy.

RIP the man who reformed pro hockey from within.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.