The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [42]
“The Eagle” might have turned into a great criminal lawyer (he became a lawyer in 1959), but he got sidetracked while playing amateur lacrosse with his childhood friend Bob Pulford, a future star with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Pulford became a four-time Stanley Cup champion with the Maple Leafs in the 1960s, and it was Pulford who introduced Eagleson to his Toronto teammates. Eagleson would socialize with the players, provide legal services for them, recommended investments, and advise them on financial and legal matters.
He became especially close with Toronto defenseman Carl Brewer, which helped earn him some leverage with Toronto ownership. Maple Leafs owner Punch Imlach resisted negotiating with Eagleson, or any lawyer, for that matter. Brewer, a four-time All-Star, retired at the start of the 1965-66 season and enrolled at the University of Toronto. Eagleson helped Brewer regain his amateur status so he could continue to play for Canada’s National Team. (Brewer, after a year playing in Europe, would eventually return to the NHL).
At the players’ request, Eagleson formed the National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA) in 1967. “The Eagle” became a hero to the players after he took on Eddie Shore in 1966. Shore, a former great player, was the owner of the Springfield Indians from the American Hockey League. Shore treated his players like slaves, refusing to let them get X-rays or proper medical clearance. Several of the Indians called on Eagleson, who had established a reputation with Pulford and Brewer, and by negotiating the young Bobby Orr’s first NHL contract.
When Eagleson headed up the first NHLPA, anything he accomplished would have been considered a great improvement. The players had attempted to unionize ten years earlier and had failed miserably, but Eagleson had the support of the best players in the league, including Orr and Pulford.
According to William Houston and David Shoalts’ 1993 book Eagleson: The Fall of a Hockey Czar,
The attitude of the owners toward Eagleson and the proposed union seemed almost ambivalent. They did not want a union and would have jumped at the chance to crush it. But with Eagleson, they felt they could do business. He wasn’t a labor lawyer, had no experience in labor negotiations, and showed no signs of militancy. Better him, the owners felt, than Marvin Miller, the head of the baseball union and a man with sixteen years’ experience with the United Steelworkers of America. Or Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters, who in 1966 had announced plans to unionize all of professional sports.
Bobby Orr was a teen legend in Minor League hockey in the mid-1960s. He was coveted by NHL teams, and became the property of the Boston Bruins before he turned eighteen. Eagleson became Orr’s agent and negotiated a monumental deal for the era, basically a two-year contract worth $80,000. That may not seem like much by today’s standards, but it was more than the established superstars were making at the time. Orr became the lure that reeled in everyone else, as he went on to became one of the greatest players in hockey history. From 1968 to 1975, Orr captured eight consecutive Norris Trophies (awarded to the league’s top defenseman) and twice led the NHL in scoring, to this day the only defenseman in league history to accomplish this feat. Players flocked to Eagleson for representation, and by the early 1970s his firm represented more than 150 NHL players. I spoke with Helene Elliott, a columnist with the Los Angeles Times and the first female reporter elected into the Pro Hockey Hall of Fame, about Eagleson.
Helene Elliott: He would organize the 1972 Summit Series or the 1976 Canada Cup, and that’s great. But then he would set himself up with an incredible