Recent Events in NHL History

A brief timeline of the modern National Hockey League. I posted some of these items on a long thread the other day, and I though I'd take the time to build on it some more . . .

1. In 1967, the NHL expands from the "Original Six" teams (which is really a misnomer because the league varied from 4 to 10 teams throughout the first 25 years of its existence from the 1917-18 to the 1942-43 seasons). The Original Six play in their own division, while the new expansion teams -- which include the California Seals, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and the St. Louis Blues -- are assigned to their own division. It will be several years before these expansion teams are truly competitive . . . the Stanley Cup is won by Original Six teams in 4-0 sweeps in the Finals every year from 1967-68 to 1969-70.

The 1967 expansion also marks the beginning of the National Hockey League Players' Association. Alan Eagleson is named the executive director of the NHLPA, a role he would fill for almost 25 years.

2. The Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks join the league for the 1970-71 season, and the divisions and playoff format are modified. The Original Six teams continue to dominate the league through the 1972-73 season.

3. The Atlanta Flames and the New York Islanders are added between 1972 and 1974. The Kansas City Scouts and Washington Capitals join in 1974-75, bringing the league to a total of 18 teams.

The World Hockey Association begins play in 1972, and becomes a credible competitor to the NHL when Chicago Blackhawks star Bobby Hull is signed to a $1 million WHA contract and NHL legend Gordie Howe comes out of retirement to join the league.

4. In 1973-74 the Philadelphia Flyers become the first team from the post-1967 expansion era to win the Stanley Cup. They win a second consecutive Cup in 1974-75 over the Buffalo Sabres -- the first time two post-1967 expansion teams meet in the Finals.

5. The first obvious signs of economic strain in the NHL appear in 1976-77, when the California Seals move to Cleveland and become the Barons and the Kansas City Scouts move to Colorado and become the Rockies. The Barons only last two years in Cleveland before they merge with the Minnesota North Stars.

1977 also marks the year John Ziegler is named commissioner of the National Hockey league, replacing NHL icon Clarence Campbell -- who had served in that position since 1946.

6. The World Hockey Association folds in 1979 under a mutual agreement with the National Hockey League, in which four WHA teams (Quebec Nordiques, Hartford Whalers, Winnipeg Jets, and Edmonton Oilers) are permitted to join the NHL.

The Edmonton Oilers become one of the top teams in the NHL almost immediately. Their best player is the legendary Wayne Gretzky, whose relationship with the team is based on a contract with Oilers owner Peter Pocklington that dated back to Pocklington's ownership of the Indianapolis Racers of the WHA (more on this later). The WHA was able to get first crack at the 17 year-old superstar from Brantford, Ontario because NHL rules prohibited teams from drafting junior players until they turned 18.

7. In 1980-81 the Flames move from Atlanta to Calgary, becoming the fourth team in western Canada. The Colorado Rockies move to the new arena in the New Jersey Meadowlands in 1982-83 and become the New Jersey Devils. The 21-team configuration is the most stable in recent decades, lasting from this point until the addition of the San Jose Sharks in 1991-92.

During this period, the league's conferences and divisions are named after legendary figures from the game's storied history in North America. The Prince of Wales Conference (the eastern teams) includes the Patrick and Adams Divisions, while the Clarence Campbell Conference (the western teams) includes the Norris and Smythe Divisions.

8. The 1983-84 season ends in some controversy, as the Pittsburgh Penguins are accused of of deliberately losing games late in the season to secure the #1 selection in the 1984 draft. A young phenom named Mario Lemieux was in the process of tallying 133 goals and 282 points while playing for Laval of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League that year. Lemieux is drafted by the Penguins in 1984 and immediately makes his mark as "the next Wayne Gretzky."

9. The 1987-88 Stanley Cup playoffs descend into chaos when New Jersey Devils coach Jim Schoenfeld is suspended by the NHL for an incident in which he (allegedly) tells a referee Don Koharski to "go have another donut, you fat pig!" after Koharski ejected him from a playoff game between the Devils and the Boston Bruins. The Devils get an injuction against the suspension in Federal court, and Schoenfeld coaches the next game. The NHL referees walk out in protest, and the game is officiated by college and high school officials called in at the last minute. Through it all, John Ziegler -- the commissioner of the NHL -- cannot be reached while he is on vacation in Europe . . . DURING THE STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS.

10. In the late 1980s, Pocklington decides to sell off part of the Edmonton Oilers through a sale that would make them a publicly-traded company (similar to a move the Boston Celtics had attempted around that time). His biggest problem is Wayne Gretzky . . . even though Gretzky is playing under a unheard-of 21-year contract, this contract is not with the Edmonton Oilers -- it's a personal-services contract with Peter Pocklington. To get Gretzky on the Oilers' balance sheet, Pocklington must tear up his old contract and sign Gretzky to a new one with the Oilers. But Gretzky indicates that he may only play another 2-3 years, so Pocklilngton is effectively forced to trade him to the Los Angeles Kings for an enormous pile of cash just to prop up the team's balance sheet in advance of the IPO.

11. Bruce McNall, the owner of the Kings, immediately becomes a celebrity among NHL owners and one of the most famous team owners in all of sports as a result of this trade. He is appointed the head of the NHL Board of Governors, and is later instrumental in hiring Gary Bettman as commissioner in 1993.

The hiring of Bettman is questioned by many long-time hockey fans, since he is a New York lawyer who spent the previous 12 years as a senior executive of the NBA. Well-founded stories persist to this day that Bettman had never even watched a hockey game until he was hired by the NHL. He is tasked by the NHL with growing the league into a "big-time" sport in North America, and one of his first orders of business as commissioner is to discard the traditional conference and division names and replace them with bland geographic names similar to every other major sport.

12. The establishment of the San Jose franchise is another key milestone of economic instability in the post-1967 era, for this marks the first time the league "re-expands" into a market that it had abandoned fairly recently (when the Seals left for Cleveland).

13. The "Wayne Gretzky era" reaches its peak in 1992-93 when the Kings advance to the Stanley Cup Finals with a stirring victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Campbell Conference finals. But a relatively obscure Montreal Canadiens team ends the Kings' playoff run in the Finals and wins the legendary franchise's 24th Stanley Cup. As of 2005, the 1992-93 Canadiens are the last team from Canada to win the Cup.

14. Alan Eagleson, the head of the NHL Players' Association from 1967-1991, is indicted for fraud and embezzlement in 1994 for his dealings with the NHLPA and is later convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prision.

15. In what will probably be remembered as the start of the NHL’s current misfortune, the New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup in 1994 -- their first Cup victory in 54 years. The popularity of the NHL seems to be at its height, due to the extensive media exposure and great story lines in the playoffs. The Rangers win the Finals in seven games against Vancouver, after beating their cross-river rivals in New Jersey in a seven-game Eastern Conference Finals that is still remembered by many as the greatest NHL playoff series of all time.

With the Stanley Cup in New York and former NBA executive Gary Bettman at the helm as commissioner, the NHL seems poised to take its place among the other major North American professional sports leagues. Nobody would have known it at the time, but big-time NBA-like status would come with a serious downside for many hockey fans -- it will be ten years before another team from Canada appears in the Stanley Cup Finals.

16. The 1993-94 season also marks the first of many franchise moves that seem to be completely at odds with the notion of hockey as a winter sport. Only a few years after they made the Stanley Cup Finals, the Minnesota North Stars are sold to an owner who promptly moves the team to Dallas. Over the next few years the Hartford Whalers will move to North Carolina, the Winnipeg Jets move to Phoenix, and the Quebec Nordiques move to Denver. By this time, Edmonton is the only WHA franchise left in its original city.

All of these moves are based on the misguided notion that hockey is a big-time television sport, and these teams are worth more money in southern U.S. cities with large potential television audiences than in northern U.S. and Canadian cities with great fan support but small television markets. In a twist of irony, the NHL effectively determines that a city with 500 hockey fans among 3 million people is a stronger market than a city with 200,000 hockey fans among 500,000 people.

17. The 1994-95 season is delayed by a lockout when the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement expires, and is shortened to 48 games. The Stanley Cup stays in the New York City area as the New Jersey Devils win their first championship after an improbable run through the playoffs as the #5 team in the Eastern Conference.

In a bizarre turn of events, the playoffs are marked by a series of media stories about an ongoing dispute between the Devils and the owner of the Continental Airlines Arena, the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority. In the midst of the playoffs, rumors whirl about a potential lawsuit against the NJSEA for breach of contract, under which the team -- which would go on to win the Stanley Cup, mind you -- would immediately vacate the arena and move to Nashville. During the course of the dispute Gary Bettman makes a number of public comments in support of the team’s potential move. He is interviewed on the Fox network at the Continental Airlines Arena between periods in the last game of the Finals, and must shout his responses to the Fox announcers to be heard over the cries of "Bettman sucks!" emanating from the crowd in the arena behind him.

18. The Devils settle their dispute with the arena landlord and go on to become one of the most successful franchises in the NHL over the next decade, winning the Stanley Cup in 1999-2000 and 2002-03 and losing in the Finals in 2000-01. But their on-ice success is tarnished by an abysmal off-ice performance that is symbolic of the "big-time" NHL. Despite winning three Stanley Cups in nine years, the team can’t even sell out many of its playoff games in that period.

19. Los Angeles Kings owner and former conquering hero Bruce McNall is indicted and convicted on multiple counts of bank fraud in 1996, and is forced to sell off many of the Kings' assets. It turns out that his financial empire was all smoke and mirrors, and he effectively had a net worth of ZERO while he owned the team.

Over the next few years in the 1990s, the NHL goes through a series of embarrassing episodes with the New York Islanders in which successive prospective owners come forward to buy the team, only to have their financial plans fall apart under close inspection by the league (a close inspection that the NHL implemented only in the aftermath of the McNall debacle). In at least one of the cases, the buyer's plan is predicated on utterly fraudulent financial arrangements.

20. Mario Lemieux retires in 1997 after a career marred by injuries and a battle with Hodgkins Disease. The Hockey Hall of Fame grants a special waiver of its normal three-year requirement for retired players before they are eligible for induction, and Lemieux is immediately elected to the Hall.

21. The Pittsburgh Penguins teeter on the brink of financial collapse on a number of occasions in the late 1990s. Mario Lemieux is forced to take a partial ownership of the team in lieu of his deferred payments on his original contract with the team. He really has no choice in the matter -- if the team were to go bankrupt, his "guaranteed" contract would be worthless.

In 2000, Lemieux -- who is already a fixture in the Hockey Hall of Fame -- returns to the ice in a desperate attempt to boost sagging attendance for the Penguins and restore some value to the franchise. When the NHL players are locked out by the owners in 2004-05, Lemieux finds himself in the peculiar position of being on both sides of the labor dispute.

22. The addition of the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Bluejackets franchises for the 2000-01 season bring the league to its current total of 30 teams.

Peter Puck clip here.

I grew up with the Boston Bruins during the 1970s and I was obsessed with hockey. I invented for myself a form of "Rotisserie Hockey" decades before it became reality! I would collect hockey cards and then shuffle them and deal them into "teams" that I would then "play" against the Bruins, using statistics from hockey box scores. Of course I would pick my "Bruins" team out of the deck first!

By the time Peter Puck came onto the scene, I was already about 12 years old and an hockey "expert." So I thought it was rather goofy.

The difference is the Red Wings has a solid shot at the Cup and weren't the over the hill gang. The Rangers paid players based on how many years ago they should have retired.

Big market teams are the ones that make absurd OFFERS which drive up the price of players both through the agents and arbitration.

The Rangers might be able to make money with a $75 mil payroll, but they can't win games with it.

Nobody is jerking your chain. THe players and owners decided that their paid representatives screwed up and decided to negotiate without them. The closest you're going to get to an apology is Bettman and Goodenow fired, but it probably won't be immediately, they probably will simply quietly not renew their contract.

The difference is the Red Wings has a solid shot at the Cup and weren't the over the hill gang. The Rangers paid players based on how many years ago they should have retired. Big market teams are the ones that make absurd OFFERS which drive up the price of players both through the agents and arbitration. The Rangers might be able to make money with a $75 mil payroll, but they can't win games with it.

Yeah...I guess it was the big market Islanders that threw $10+ mill to Yashin, the big market Caps who threw $11+ mill at Jagr, and the ultra-large market Carolina Hurricanes that offerred a ridiculous contract to then FA Federov frocing the Red Wings to pay him $12 mill. There's plenty of blame to go around.

And, if the Rangers can't win with a $75 mill payroll, and the owners refuse to revenue share in any meaningful way, why do they care?

Arbitration has led to the salary escalation, because the NHL restricts FA until 31.

I never said the Rangers were alone in throwing too much money at players. But they threw the most too much money at more players than anybody else. They were the first NHL team to get their salary over the NFL cap, which with half the players and 1/3 the revenue is nothing but dumb, and they haven't made the playoffs since they got their salary higher than their neighbors the Giants either, which is funny in my book.

Arbitration can't blow salaries out of whack unless you have some teams already paying too much. All arbitrators do is say "well given how these other players with similar stats are getting paid this guy should get paid more", if those other players aren't getting over paid by teams like the Rangers and Wing arbitrators don't have examples to use to drive up everybody's salaries.

But they threw the most too much money at more players than anybody else.

Agreed, and the most egregious example of that was the signing of Bobby Holik for $9M/per over five years. Now, Holik's a good two-way player and a great agitator, but in reality, is nothing more than an exceptional third line center. The Rangers had been financially irresponsible before, but the Holik deal was unprecedented, even by their standards.

I think the latest Messier signing was probably the worst. I love Mess, great player, 6 rings, but he's almost as old as Gordie Howe and they signed him for like 12 mil for 2 years or something absurd like that. Some sort of sick "thanks for bringing us the Cup 10 years ago" deal that was just odd.

The Rangers had been financially irresponsible before, but the Holik deal was unprecedented, even by their standards.

The Rangers always seem to be "fighting the last war" when it comes to building a roster, and the Holik signing was a good example of this. Signing Holik to a big contract (maybe not $9M, but a big contract) 2-3 years earlier would have made a lot of sense, because one of the defining characteristics of the top teams in the Eastern Conference back then (New Jersey and Philadelphia) was the oversized, dominant center (Holik-Arnott in New Jersey, and Lindros-Primeau-Otto in Philadelphia). The Rangers tried to replicate this (with a Lindros-Holik-Messier combination) after it had effectively ceased to be the dominant style of play in the East. After Holik left, the Devils went on to win the Cup in 2003 with centers like Gomez, Madden, and Nieuwendyk.

And that's exactly why I support this project, it's being largely funded by private interests.

$100M out of a $300M price tag isn't "largely funded by private interests." The proposed Jets stadium is largely funded by private interests -- they're putting up $800M of the estimated $1.2B price tag.

Do you work for the NJSEA?

No.

>>Then the lawyers got back in the discussion and screwed everything up.

Figures. What burns me is that they get so close in the space of a week, but because they sat around for so long, they couldn't save the season. If they had done these kinds of talks in September, I bet they could have saved 1/2 to 3/4 of the season. Frustrating as a fan.

I just hope they don't go back to their pre-Februray stances.

It's been poorly managed by everybody. Bettman and Goodenow are idiots. Canceling the season should never have been an option. They should have had a hard date to start the season with replacement players if they couldn't get a deal. The good news is that after these two clowns are done destroying the NHL they'll never work in hockey again.

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