The Hockey News’s Connor Eargood discusses the legacy of Ted Lindsay, who essentially sacrificed his NHL career’s fortunes in order to establish what would become the NHL Players’ Association:
Through a network of captains, Lindsay and [Montreal’s Doug] Harvey enrolled every player in the league save for Toronto’s Ted Kennedy to their union. In February of the 1956-57 season, they announced the formation of a player’s union. The NHL’s front offices had no idea the movement had taken place until the announcement. Their workers had collectively organized themselves.
“I was doing it because I believed in it,” Lindsay said. “I was doing it not to irritate owners, I was doing it to help out (other players). All of us needed help, we needed a voice as a group, not as an individual.”
For this movement, managers took exception. Detroit’s own general manager Jack Adams stripped Lindsay of his captaincy in 1957, and he slandered his character with fake contract figures and ad hominem attacks through the press. Then, Adams shipped Lindsay off to the much worse Chicago Black Hawks organization in what amounted to exile. On the heels of an 85-point season where he and Gordie Howe led the league in scoring, Lindsay’s career was all but derailed as punishment. In today’s NHL, this move would be like Edmonton trading off Leon Draisaitl, or Boston trading Brad Marchand.
Continued; “Terrible Ted” was a legend on the ice, he was a legendary figure for the NHL’s player labor movement, and his foundation continues to support autism research and treatment.
He left a hell of a legacy.
