Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Joining the Clubs The Business of the to 1945 by J. Andrew Ross Hoghee! While doing research for my new book, Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League to 1945 (pre-order now at Amazon.ca or .com!), I ran into several trophies that were inaugurated in the early years of the NHL to reward both clubs and players for their performances. Most of these are familiar, like Lady Byng, Hart, Vézina, and even the Prince of Wales, but I was also intrigued by those that had apparently fallen by the wayside. (Click here for a link to the Hockey Hall of Fame trophy collection.) The disappeared on the club competition side include two trophies for intra-city "derbies": the Kendall Memorial Cup (named after Canadiens owner George Kendall nom de sport Kennedy), which was fought over by the Canadiens and Maroons of Montreal, and the West Side Merchants Association Trophy, competed for by the New York Rangers and Americans. Both of these disappeared with the respective demises of the Maroons and the Americans (and two-club cities in general). The player awards persisted better, although even a few of these did not. The Greyhound Cup was given by the bus company for the league MVP (seemingly in competition with the already existing Hart Trophy), but I haven't found much on that. The other that intrigued me was the one given by bandleader Paul Whiteman to the "the leading scorer in the National Hockey League." Like most, I assumed the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy was the first to reward -scoring (as distinct from the Art Ross Trophy, which is for goals and assists). My first clue was this image accompanying an article in Maclean's Magazine : Paul Whiteman and his trophy presentation to Ace Bailey (Frederick Edwards, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Hockey Star," Maclean's , 1 December, 1929) Here, then-famous bandleader Paul Whiteman is seen presenting the trophy to Ace Bailey of the for his output of 22 goals in 1928-29. "Scoring" could refer to both goals and assists, but the caption specifies that it is for "the most goals." (Ace is more famous for getting creamed by Eddie Shore in 1933.) I have looked into connections between Whiteman and hockey and found none so far, but Whiteman's own history is fascinating. He was the man who commissioned George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as part of a campaign to bring jazz music into the mainstream. Some felt his influence sucked the improvisational element out of the style, but a figure no less than Duke Ellington said of him, “Paul Whiteman was known as the King of Jazz, and no one as yet has come near carrying that title with more certainty and dignity.” This article by João Azinhais has a good overview of his forgotten legacy. As to how Whiteman got interested in hockey. well, it probably speaks to the nature of the entertainment industry in New York in the 1920s. It was a roaring time, as they say, full of novelties like jazz and hockey, with many new stars and celebrities of film, sport, and society emerging (all lubricated by illicit booze, no doubt). I expect Whiteman got turned onto hockey by American and Rangers games at Madison Square Garden, courtesy promoter extraordinaire, Tex Rickard. (And remember that Americans owner Bill Dwyer had been the biggest bootlegger of the age.) In any case, the mystery of the trophy's present location was resolved by Google. Apparently Bailey kept the trophy (it never seems to have been awarded again) and it wound up in the Bracebridge Sports Hall of Fame in Bailey's hometown, where it is part of a display on Ace. It's great to see it well-preserved and acknowledged. Paul Whiteman Trophy on display at the Bracebridge Sports Hall of Fame (image courtesy Don Campbell) Now onto that Greyhound Cup. Rest in Peace, Jean Beliveau! (At least you knew that Frank Selke did not buy the Quebec Senior Hockey League!) The story of how general manager Frank J. Selke had to buy an entire men's senior amateur league in order to get access to one of the enduring stars of the game, Jean Béliveau, is often repeated and has become, as my friend Lloyd Davis called it, “a hoary old chestnut.” The latest references are from Béliveau obituaries (here and here), and has been cited recently in Grantland. (Dave Stubbs got it right in the Gazette). Time to take the rime off the nut. The senior amateur QSHL comprised teams from Quebec and and was the best hockey outside the NHL in that region. Teams were owned and were profit-seeking, but players were amateur (in name at least). This being the case, the QSHL (unlike minor professional leagues) was not obligated to transfer players to the NHL. The players themselves had to decide to become pro, and were under no obligation to do so. Indeed, given the prevailing high QSHL salaries and off-season office jobs for stars, some players were understandably reluctant. This frustrated NHL clubs, who had often paid to develop the players through sponsorship of amateur teams. (In addition, stars remaining in the senior amateur ranks also threatened the supremacy of NHL hockey.) Jean Béliveau was one of the coveted stars, but the Quebec Aces player repeatedly refused to sign with the Montreal Canadiens, holders of his professional rights. At $20,000 per year, Béliveau's 1952–53 Aces salary was already over double the NHL average, and he seemed in no hurry to play professional. Frank Selke of the Canadiens dangled cash and manoeuvred behind the scenes to oblige Béliveau to sign, and he was helped by the fact that the QSHL was already moving in the direction of professionalization. After the QSHL's parent, the Quebec Amateur Hockey Association (QAHA), was suspended by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA), the QSHL promptly dropped out of the QAHA to protect its player rights. (If the league had not left, the professional leagues would have been forced to recognize the CAHA suspension and would not have been able to deal with the QSHL teams.) Money was also an issue. The QSHL was not happy with the cut of playoff revenues taken by the CAHA. And at least one money-losing owner, of the Ottawa Senators, wanted to realize the value of his player assets by signing players to transferable commercial contracts, thus making them more valuable. In order to better control revenues and player rights, at a meeting in May 1953 the QSHL owners opted to professionalize as the Quebec Hockey League (QHL). This protected their rights to their players, who would now be put under commercial contract. Their rights could now be traded to NHL teams for $10,000 each. The QSHL clubs were also allowed to "reserve" the rights to negotiate the professional rights to a certain number of amateur players, just like other pro leagues did. In October 1953, Béliveau signed with the Canadiens, but was there a connection to the professionalization? And where did the story of Selke’s purchase of the league come in? According to the Aces coach, Punch Imlach, Selke had convinced the other owners to professionalize, at least partially with the offer of Canadiens exhibition games in their rinks. Even if true, a few exhibition games seems like a modest price to offer for such a major transition, especially given the greater revenues to be expected from keeping their own playoff money, not to mention the prospect of player sales to the other pro leagues. And the Canadiens did not “own” the QSHL/QHL at any point, not matter how you stretch the definition. In any case, Béliveau later recalled that he had already decided to sign with the Canadiens for the 1953–54 season before the QSHL professionalized. But since he kept this decision from both Imlach and Selke, it is possible that Selke’s actions to support professionalization in the spring may have been motivated by the idea of forcing Béliveau to sign. For to stay in Quebec, Béliveau would have had to sign a professional contract, and it was the Canadiens who held his professional rights, not Quebec. R.I.P. Le Gros Bill.(I met him once at a hockey conference. He was regal.) Sources: Jean Béliveau, Jean Béliveau , pp. 73, 75, 89–90; Punch Imlach, Hockey is a Battle , pp. 35–36, Al Nickleson, “Shouldn't Be Obligated to Go Pro, Says Dudley," Globe & Mail , 15 May 1953, p. 25; “Quebec Seniors Turn Professional,” Globe & Mail , 12 May 1953, p. 24; “Senior Loop Bolts From QAHA Ranks; Goes Independent,” Globe & Mail , 9 March 1953, p. 20. Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League to 1945. Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves. 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218. ©2020 Project MUSE. Produced by Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with The Sheridan Libraries. Now and Always, The Trusted Content Your Research Requires. Now and Always, The Trusted Content Your Research Requires. Built on the Johns Hopkins University Campus. Built on the Johns Hopkins University Campus. ©2021 Project MUSE. Produced by Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with The Sheridan Libraries. This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless. J. Andrew Ross' New Book on the National Hockey League. Our own J. Andrew Ross , a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the History Department, has just published Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League to 1945 with Syracuse University Press. Congratulations from all of us! from the jacket : How did a small Canadian regional league come to dominate a North American continental sport? Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League to 1945 tells the fascinating story. . The NHL had a special challenge: unlike other major leagues, it was a binational league that had to sell and manage its sport in two different countries. Joining the Clubs pays close attention to these national differences, as well as to the context of a historical period characterized by war and peace, by rapid economic growth and dire recession, and by the momentous technological and social changes of the modern age. How Hamilton lost its chance to win the Stanley Cup. The 1924-25 season gave long-suffering fans something to get excited about. Having finished in last place every season since entering the National Hockey League, in 1920, the Tigers had gone from worst to first and looked like strong Stanley Cup contenders. But when the players staged a walkout after the playoffs began, Hamilton lost what turned out to be its final chance to hoist the Cup. The addition of the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Maroons that season had expanded the schedule from 24 to 30 games. The contracts signed by the 10 Tigers specified that their salary covered the period between December 1 and March 31— they weren’t to be reimbursed for expenses incurred for training camp, which began in November, or to receive any additional pay for the extra games. Players also weren’t paid for their work in the playoffs, as the league distributed post-season profits to team owners and arena operators to cover business costs. The Tigers’ regular season ended with a loss on March 9, 1925, to the Montreal Canadiens. Business manager and part owner Percy Thompson was upset that the team had played hard during that game instead of saving its energy for the league championship series, in which it would face either the second-place Toronto St. Patricks (who became the Maple Leafs in 1927) or the third-place Canadiens. If the Tigers captured the league title, they’d go on to play the champion of the Western Canadian Hockey League for the Stanley Cup. Our journalism depends on you. You can count on TVO to cover the stories others don’t—to fill the gaps in the ever-changing media landscape. But we can’t do this without you. During the train ride back from Montreal on March 10, the players discussed their growing grievances against Tigers management. Team captain Wilfred “Shorty” Green then went to Thompson’s seat to deliver their ultimatum: unless each player received $200 for the extended schedule and playoffs, they would refuse to play in the championship series. Thompson rejected the offer — and the team went on strike. NHL president threatened to remove the team from the playoffs and contemplated allowing the fourth-place Ottawa Senators to play in the championship series. He contended that the players were fairly compensated and had nothing to complain about. Thompson and other team officials pleaded poverty, claiming they couldn’t afford to pay the players for the playoffs even if they wanted to, given that the league divided playoff profits equally among all teams. (Stanley Cup trustee and Ottawa Journal publisher P.D. Ross questioned the claim, estimating that the Tigers had made $25,000 in profit that year.) Players, team management, and Calder met frequently over the next few days. Local MPP Leeming Carr’s attempt to broker a compromise, which would have seen each player paid $100, failed. “If you can see fit to pay us half our demand,” Green told the Hamilton Spectator , “you surely must realize the justice of our case and can go the rest of the way.” Thompson denied that management had been behind Carr’s offer. The players remained united: centre Mickey Roach and defenceman Jess Spring refused the option to be exempted from the walkout even though they had settled in Hamilton with their families and had already lined up summer jobs in the city. Green explained his position to Hamilton Herald columnist P.J. Jones: “The players have played the game on the ice all year. They have given of their best … It isn’t a matter of sportsmanship at all. It’s money, and we feel that we have a perfect right to be paid for work done. Professional hockey is a money-making affair. The promoters are in the game for what they can make out of it and the players wouldn’t be in the game if they didn’t look at matters in the same light. If we weren’t producing the kind of hockey to draw the crowds we wouldn’t be paid accordingly. Why, then, should we be asked to play two games merely for the sake of sweetening the league’s finances?” But Calder was not swayed. “The Hamilton players tried to pull a very shabby trick on their club and the league,” he told the Toronto Daily Star on March 13. He believed that the Tigers were planning to turn up to the first game of the championship series and then refuse to take the ice until they were paid. As management would not want to have to refund tickets, it would have little choice but to pay up. “But fortunately for us,” Calder noted, “the plot leaked out and now we are in a position to deal with it.” On March 14, Calder handed the league championship to the Canadiens after they won their playoff series. The striking players were suspended from the league and fined $200 each. The players refused to pay. Sports columnists believed it would be impossible for Hamilton to ice a team the following season. Rumours grew that a franchise recently granted to New York wanted to buy the suspended players. Thompson declared later that day that the public would not blame ownership for the strike and justified denying playoff pay by noting that neither the Canadiens nor the St. Pats had asked for extra money. Management threatened legal action against the players for breach of contract. Still, on March 14, the Tigers paid the players the amount remaining under their current contracts. In an official statement released on March 16, Calder reiterated that the contracts covered a specific time period, not a specific number of games. Yielding to player demands set a bad precedent and, above all, the investments owners made in their teams and arenas must be protected. “The greatest patience was exercised with them in an effort to persuade them of the error of their ways,” Calder noted, “and some of them admitted they had done wrong. Because of an ill-advised compact, entered into with the ringleaders, however, they choose to remain out rather than fulfill their contracts.” There was a growing sense that NHL hockey was finished in Hamilton. The league demanded that a facility be built to replace the 4,500-seat Barton Street Arena — the Tigers estimated that doing so would cost $200,000. Other teams offered up to $110,000 for the suspended players. On March 17, the players issued a statement signed by Green. He expressed appreciation for the support that fans had shown during the season, which had “brought forth a concerted and great effort from each and every man to give at his best,” and noted that such support had been “sadly lacking from the executive end of our club.” After accusing Thompson of conspiring to fix a game with the Senators, Green declared that the players “do not intend to ever play again for the present management.” As for the Stanley Cup, the Canadiens were defeated by the Victoria Cougars, marking the last time a non-NHL team won the trophy. Tigers officials insisted that Hamilton would participate in the 1925/26 season even if the suspended players were sold off. The league prepared a schedule that included the Tigers and new franchises in New York and Pittsburgh. Behind the scenes, negotiations were underway between Hamilton and New York, but Thompson wasn’t satisfied with the offers he received. Eventually, the league had had enough. On September 26, 1925, it took over the franchise. The rights to the players were sold to New York for $75,000, and the Tigers were declared “inactive.” The new team contemplated calling itself the New York Hamilton Tigers but quickly dropped all references to the players’ old team, instead calling itself the . Calder agreed to lift the suspensions if the players paid their fines and wrote him apology letters. But if he expected grovelling, he was destined for disappointment. “Most of these young players,” he said, “want to give me an argument.” To ensure that there would be no further trouble, Calder ordered Americans general manager Tommy Gorman to hold back $300 of each player’s salary as a good-conduct bond. Although the New York Americans roster was nearly identical to that of the 1924-25 Tigers, the team finished the next season in fifth place — a result blamed on the boozy lifestyle of New York and the bad influence of bootlegging owner “Big Bill” Dwyer’s criminal cronies. Over their 17- year history, the Americans never reached the Stanley Cup finals. The demise of the Hamilton Tigers signalled the beginning of the end for small-market Canadian teams in major-league hockey. The last league in Western Canada folded in 1926, freeing up players to join new NHL teams in Chicago, Detroit, and New York. The original Ottawa Senators took a leave of absence in 1931, returned for two more seasons, then moved to St. Louis in 1934. Hamilton has never returned to the NHL — although that hasn’t been for lack of trying. Built in 1985, Copps Coliseum (now FirstOntario Centre) was designed to draw a team. Businessman Jim Balsillie attempted to move three different franchises to the city between 2006 and 2009 but was blocked by the league, which worried that fans might be drawn away from the Buffalo Sabres and the Toronto Maple Leafs. It may be a long time before Hamilton ever gets to challenge for the trophy it was denied in 1925. Sources: The NHL: A Centennial History by D’Arcy Jenish (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2013); Deceptions and Doublecross by Morey Holzman and Joseph Nieforth (Toronto: Dundurn, 2002); Joining the Clubs by J. Andrew Ross (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015); Hamilton’s Hockey Tigers by Sam Wesley with David Wesley (Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 2005); the March 16, 1925, edition of the Globe ; the March 13, 1925, March 14, 1925, March 17, 1925, and March 18, 1925, editions of the Hamilton Herald ; the March 16, 1925, and March 17, 1925, editions of the Hamilton Spectator ; and the March 13, 1925, edition of the Toronto Daily Star. ​ NFL abandons tax-exempt status. 1 of 5 FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2014, file photo, NFL football commissioner Roger Goodell speaks during a news conference following a meeting of NFL owners and executives in New York. Two members of Congress have asked Goodell to clarify whether teams can lose draft picks if they do not properly address domestic violence. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) John Minchillo/Associated Press Show More Show Less. 2 of 5 NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell participates in a news conference for NFL Super Bowl XLIX football game Friday, Jan. 30, 2015, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) David J. Phillip/Associated Press Show More Show Less. 4 of 5 NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell participates in a news conference for NFL Super Bowl XLIX football game Friday, Jan. 30, 2015, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) David J. Phillip/Associated Press Show More Show Less. The National Football League has decided to give up its tax-exempt status, a move designed to score points with fans and Congress without having much economic impact on team owners. The owners wanted to “eliminate the distraction associated with misunderstanding of the league office’s status,” Robert McNair, owner of the Houston Texans and chair of the NFL’s financial committee, said in a statement. The NFL enjoyed tax-exempt status under section 501(c)6 of the Internal Revenue code. This section “provides for the exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.” Unlike 501(c)3 charities, these organizations cannot accept tax-deductible donations. The NFL “perfectly fits the description of a 501(c)6 organization,” said Alan Cole, an economist with the Tax Foundation. But some members of Congress, unhappy with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s compensation ($44.2 million in 2013), the name of the Washington, D.C. team and a number of domestic violence incidents last season, had been threatening to yank the league’s tax-exempt status, Cole said. A bill sponsored by former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., would have revoked the tax-exempt status for the NFL and other sports leagues including the National Hockey League, Professional Golf Association Tour, United States Tennis Association, and the National Hot Rod Association. The National Basketball Association never had tax-exempt status and Major League Baseball gave it up in 2007. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the tax exemption was saving major pro sports leagues $109 million over a decade. As a taxable entity starting with its 2015 tax return, the league will no longer have to file IRS Form 990 and publicly disclose financial information, such as Goddell’s salary. But it won’t cost the league much because it doesn’t make much money. Residual profits flow through to the teams, which pay taxes. “The NFL’s primary area of spending is on the salaries of people who do administrative things to keep the league running,” Cole said. NFL employees pay income and payroll taxes on their salary, whether or not the league is tax-exempt.