Alan Eagleson

Eagleson was also active in promoting the sport, helping to organize the historic 1972 Summit Series—the first time Canadian and Soviet professionals had ever competed against each other on the ice. According to the Globe and Mail, his role as "manager and motivator, travel agent and godfather, firebrand and peacemaker" for the first squad ever to be known as Team Canada earned him wide recognition and the nickname "Uncle Al".[7] Eagleson travelled regularly to negotiations and ice hockey events in Europe with an entourage, and employed Aggie Kukulowicz as a Russian language interpreter.[8]

Notably, Eagleson was responsible for the decision to exclude many WHA stars from the Summit Series, including Bobby Hull, Gerry Cheevers and Derek Sanderson, as they had defected from NHL teams. Four years later, Eagleson organized the first Canada Cup, which included WHA players.

During the final game of the Summit Series games in Moscow, Eagleson garnered international attention by attempting to confront off-ice officials after the goal judge had failed to light the goal lamp when a Canadian player scored, at which point he was seized by soldiers of the Red Army. The Canadian players and the few Canadian fans rallied to his defence to prevent him from being arrested, providing one of the most memorable off-ice moments of the series. As they walked back across the ice, Eagleson allegedly extended his middle finger to the Soviet crowd.[9]

In 1990, Russ Conway, sports editor of The Eagle-Tribune, began an investigation of Eagleson's performance in office. Conway had heard rumours for some time that something was seriously amiss about the inner workings of the NHL—specifically, serious discrepancies in pension payments. Despite the devastating 1989 report by Winter and Salcer, most Canadian journalists did not look into the rumours. Over the course of a year, Conway interviewed many NHL personalities, including former and active players and NHL officials.[13]

In September 1991, he published the first of many instalments in a series called Cracking the Ice: Intrigue and Conflict in the World of Big-Time Hockey, a series that was intended to last six months, but which would run for most of the 1990s based on the information gleaned, and which earned Conway a Pulitzer nomination. The series revealed evidence that Eagleson had engaged in a staggering litany of unethical and criminal conduct over many years.

Conway's writings alleged that Eagleson had embezzled player pension funds for many years.[13] For example, after Orr's contract with Boston ran out, Eagleson said that the Blackhawks had a deal on the table that Orr could not refuse. It later emerged that the Bruins had offered Orr one of the most lucrative contracts in sports history, including an 18 per cent stake in the team; however, Eagleson claimed the Blackhawks had a better offer. Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz was never charged with wrongdoing, largely because the Bruins' offer was widely known in league circles, and even reported in the Toronto Star. No other NHL owner was ever charged in the affair. Orr was once one of Eagleson's strongest supporters, but broke with him after suspecting that he was being cheated. Orr, whose career ended in 1978 because of serious knee injuries, learned from an independent accountant that he was almost insolvent from tax liabilities, despite having supposedly earned high salaries while being represented by Eagleson. It took Orr several years to recover his fortune.[14]

However, the series' most shocking revelation concerned Eagleson's actions regarding disability claims by former players. Eagleson was accused of taking large payments from insurance claims before the players filing them received their share, telling the players that he earned the "fee" while fighting against the insurance companies to get the claims paid. In fact, many players later learned that the insurance companies had already agreed to pay the claims and there had been no "fight". In other cases in which a "fight" with the insurance companies was required, several players ran into bureaucratic dead ends and no support from Eagleson while they tried to move forward on insurance and pension claims to support their families. Conway was particularly moved by the ordeal of second-line defenceman Ed Kea, who suffered a devastating head injury that required major brain surgery and left him physically and mentally disabled.[15] This not only ended Kea's playing days but also jeopardized his post-hockey career and finances, as he was playing in a minor league game and NHL benefits for catastrophic injuries did not apply to his case. Unable to hold a job, Kea's family which included four children struggled for several years. Conway was appalled that Eagleson "didn't even have the common decency to go visit the family. He wouldn't aid them in the insurance process. He was gone. Crush up the cigarette pack, throw it out. Next!" Conway vowed never to forget Kea's story and later turned his series into the basis of a book, Game Misconduct: Alan Eagleson and the Corruption of Hockey.[13]

Tipped off by Conway's investigations, future Vancouver Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis successfully sued Eagleson in 1997 for $570,000 for stealing a portion of his disability insurance.[16][17]

Conway published several other stories over the next nine years about Eagleson's crimes. For instance, he had been reimbursed more than $62,000 for personal expenses from 1987 to 1989. He also revealed that the NHLPA had unknowingly footed the bill for expensive clothing, theatre tickets and a luxury apartment in London. Many players had been led to believe that they were playing in the Canada Cup for free because all the money was going to their pensions.

Conway worked very closely with Carl Brewer, one of Eagleson's early clients. Brewer had by this time become the leader of a group of former players who felt Eagleson had lied to them. Brewer's longtime companion, Susan Foster, provided a large amount of material to Conway.

Although Eagleson had been based in Toronto, most Canadian media organizations had avoided detailed investigation of his dealings until Conway's material was published. That changed when The Globe and Mail began its own examination of Eagleson's career in early 1993, and published a series of stories with further revelations. Two Globe sports writers, William Houston and David Shoalts, expanded that material, Conway's work, and the latest developments into their own book, entitled Eagleson: The Fall of a Hockey Czar, which was published later in 1993.

Eagleson was charged by the FBI with 34 counts of racketeering, obstruction of justice, embezzlement and fraud in the United States in 1994. However, he still had enough political clout from his days as an MPP and a power broker with the Progressive Conservatives. After a three-year investigation, the RCMP charged Eagleson with eight counts of fraud and theft. He was able to stave off extradition to the United States until 1997. Some of Eagleson's former clients, including Orr, remarked that had it not been for the United States justice system, he would never have been charged. After being arrested, one FBI agent remarked that Eagleson "just didn't get it", as the former sports agent was tinkering with police equipment while being booked.[13]

On January 6, 1998, Eagleson pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud in Boston, and was fined $700,000. Later that year, he pleaded guilty in Toronto to three more counts of fraud and embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars of Canada Cup proceeds in 1984, 1987 and 1991. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, of which he served six months at the Mimico Correctional Centre in Toronto.

The conviction resulted in his automatic disbarment from the practice of law by the Law Society of Upper Canada, which regulates the profession in Ontario.

Eagleson was reportedly unrepentant about his crimes, and to this day several former Team Canada players have refused to reconcile with him.[7]

On January 6, 1998, the day of Eagleson's guilty plea, Hockey Hall of Fame member Brad Park made a public statement, saying, "I challenge the Hall of Fame to remove Alan Eagleson. If they do not, I will request to be removed. I do not want to be on the same wall as that man."[18] Over the next six weeks, 18 other Hall of Fame players (including Bobby Orr, Andy Bathgate, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Jean Beliveau, Mike Bossy, Johnny Bucyk, Ted Lindsay, Henri Richard, Johnny Bower, Darryl Sittler and Dickie Moore) followed Park's lead and threatened to resign from the Hall if Eagleson was allowed to remain.

The Hall initially tried to stay out of the controversy, but with the growing player revolt, a formal vote of board members was scheduled to decide the matter. Knowing that he faced all-but certain expulsion (an informal vote to expel him had already passed), Eagleson resigned in April 1998, six days before the board's final vote was scheduled.[19] His resignation was accepted immediately, and Eagleson became the first member of a sports hall of fame in North America to resign.

Soon after his guilty plea, Eagleson was removed from the Order of Canada. Though he was not entitled to do so, he continued to wear his Order of Canada lapel pin during the court proceedings before his sentence.[20]

Defenders of Eagleson pointed out that during his tenure as executive director of the NHLPA, both salaries and pension benefits increased exponentially, offering real security to players that had not existed until that time. The earlier NHLPA only lasted a year, as owners broke the union in 1957 by demoting to the minors or trading the involved players, which led out-of-court settlement over several players' issues in return for the disbanding of the union. There was some controversy that Eagleson's directives (aside from instances in which he colluded with favoured owners to hold down wages) contributed, as well as the formation of the rival WHA, to rapidly increasing player salaries, something especially advocated by his successor Bob Goodenow.

During the criminal proceedings against him, several players whom he had defrauded were amongst his biggest supporters. Many of his most ardent supporters during and after his trial were famous and prominent clients who had benefited from his activities, including high-profile hockey personalities such as Bobby Clarke, Bob Gainey, and Marcel Dionne, and former Prime Minister John Turner.

Moreover, before Eagleson's involvement, North American professional players had never participated in international hockey, an involvement that later grew into involvement in the World Hockey Championship, the World Cup of Hockey, and the Winter Olympic Games.

Eagleson's maximum official salary as executive director of NHLPA was one-tenth of that of his successor, Bob Goodenow. While Eagleson's close relationship with Ziegler and Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz led to them forming a cooperative triumvirate, this ended immediately with Goodenow's accession to the NHLPA. Just two months after being appointed head of the union, Goodenow led the players out on a 10-day strike on the eve of the Stanley Cup playoffs, which fundamentally altered the relationship between the league and its players.[21] Goodenow called the strike a "major moment", stating "I don't think the owners took the players seriously and it wasn't until the strike that they understood the players were serious."[22] Ziegler was ousted as NHL president following the season, and Gil Stein was named to succeed him on an interim basis until Gary Bettman was chosen as the league's first commissioner.[23]