The Amazing Rise and Fall of Bob Goodenow and the NHL Players Association (Revised and Updated), Key Porter Books, Toronto, 2006, Pp
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Reviews 117 Bruce Dowbiggin, Money Players: The Amazing Rise and Fall of Bob Goodenow and the NHL Players Association (Revised and Updated), Key Porter Books, Toronto, 2006, pp. 310, pb, US$15.95. In 2003, Bruce Dowbiggin published Money Players: How Hockey’s Greatest Stars Beat the NHL at its Own Game (Macfarlane Walter and Ross, Toronto). It provided an historical account of major issues and developments in the National Hockey League (NHL). It predicted that there would be a major battle between owners and players in forthcoming negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement. This prediction proved to be correct. The 2004-2005 season was disrupted by a 301 day lockout as the owners sought to impose a salary cap on players. It exceeded the previous longest dispute of 234 days which had occurred in Major League Baseball in 1994-95. Amongst other things, the lockout resulted in a cancellation of the Stanley Cup. This 2006 publication, as its subtitle suggests, provides information on the various events associated with the unfolding of this dispute and the subsequent capitulation of the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) and the abandonment of its leader Bob Goodenow. The major strength of this book is that it provides a lively account of economic and industrial relations developments in hockey (or what Australians call ice hockey). Dowbiggin is a leading sporting journalist and commentator based in Calgary. His stock-in-trade is in reporting on interviews he has had with major protagonists in the hockey world. Money Players does not contain a bibliography. Historical information that he provides draws on the works of David Cruise and Alison Griffiths, Net Worth: Exploding the Myths of Pro Hockey (Viking, Toronto, 1991); Russ Conway, Game Misconduct: Alan Eagleson and the Corruption of Hockey (Macfarlane Walter and Ross, Toronto, 1995); and Gil Stein, Power Plays: An Inside Look at the Big Business of the National Hockey League (Birch Lane Press, Secaucus, NJ, 1997). For reviews of these books see Sporting Traditions May 1993, May 1997 and May 1999 respectively. Dowbiggin’s tone is one of cynical despair as he describes the various machinations that have occurred in hockey over the years. His work is reminiscent of John Heylar’s splendid Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball (Ballantine Books, New York, 1994; reviewed in Sporting Traditions, May 1996) Like Heylar, Dowbiggin’s major criticisms are directed at the selfishness and incompetence of the owners of clubs. While he does not use such terminology, hockey operates as an imperfect cartel. Its members, other than for occasionally been unified in their opposition to the NHLPA, and players more generally, have been unable to co-ordinate their activities to enhance the growth and prosperity of the sport. Dowbiggin says that ‘The NHL remains essentially a collection of city states that will serve their own interests first’ (p. 246). He also maintains: 118 VOLUME 25 no 2 NOVEMBER 2008 It’s no exaggeration to say that … the NHL has squandered almost every opportunity for growth that came its way. Failure to adopt its business model to changing conditions; an obdurate resistance to change from within; a fast-buck expansion process: a player-distribution system that has never worked the way it was supposed to; crushing debt from new buildings; contempt for its workforce — you name the challenge, the NHL has found a way to turn against its own interests (p. 283). Possibly the best indicators of such problems is that hockey has the lowest level of shared income of major North American team sports. For the 2003–04 season, hockey shared twelve per cent of its revenue. This can be compared with 25 per cent in baseball, 35 per cent in basketball and 74 per cent in football (p. 226). Rather than confront the problems of the disparities in income of clubs and solve the problems of cartel discipline, especially that of clubs maintaining fiscal restraint in their spending on players, the NHL decided to impose a lockout and force the NHLPA to agree to a ‘low’ salary cap. Dowbiggin provides an account of the major events associated with this dispute. The NHLPA blinked first. Bob Goodenow, who had successfully led the NHLPA for over a decade, in two previous rounds of collective bargaining, was unable to maintain a unified position of either his executive or membership. While Dowbiggin, with hindsight, offers some criticisms of Goodenow’s tactics and style, he portrays him and the NFLPA as being a sideshow in unravelling the various problems that have beset the NHL. He maintains: It can safely be said that if the league hadn’t had Goodenow, it would have had to invent him. Through hubris and bad timing, the NHLPA and its director provided a convenient rallying point for an ownership group that needed to deflect attention from their abysmal handling of their business the previous fifteen years (p. 300). Since the conclusion of the dispute there has not been a turn around in the fortunes of the NHL. Its broadcasting ratings have been in decline, as well as attendances at games. The problem for a league that employs a model of cost minimisation is that it will experience difficulties in enhancing the popularity of the sport and maximising revenues. Dowbiggin is in despair that the owners of the NHL will ever be able to control their selfishness and work together to devise solutions to grow the sport. It is this despair that provides Money Players, and his narrative of the NHL and the 2004–05 lockout, with its particular edge. Braham Dabscheck, University of Melbourne.