best chance to get a better deal was right then and there. I knew our owner would not want to be embarrassed against his brother’s team in the home opener. My strategy was simple: Norris’s desire to win would take precedence over trying to save more money, and eventually the message would get back to Abel to sign me before the season started. It was all a matter of timing, as far as I was concerned.
The negotiating went on and on, and the raise even got up to $4,000. I have to admit, Eleanor was petrified, telling me to sign the deal. It was a lot of money back then. But I hada feeling that my strategy was sound, and I was playing well in the exhibition games. I truly believed Norris would give in.
Well, our talks went on, right up until the morning of that first game. I had no idea if I’d be playing, as I still hadn’t signed, and neither I nor Abel were budging. But finally I was called in by Abel on game day.
He was madder than a you-know-what. But guess what – I got that $5,000! He literally threw a contract at me to sign and said, “Don’t tell anybody what you are making!” Well, I didn’t, and I also played with gusto to make sure I earned every penny of that contract. Looking back on it, I wished that I had asked Sid if I was right in thinking that Bruce Norris would cave in to my demands in order to win. It would have been interesting to know.
It worked out pretty well for me, and I didn’t disappoint. Early that season I scored four goals and made sure they realized they didn’t make a mistake in signing me to that kind of a deal.
Hockey sure has changed since then. Players have a lot more say, and with agents and high-priced contracts, well, let’s just say that nobody argues over a lousy five grand anymore! You still have holdouts, of course, but the dollar figures are a lot higher. And with all the multi-year contracts in today’s game, most players don’t have to constantly haggle about their deals like we had to do just about every season.
But that was the way things were done back then. Abel was no different than a lot of other general managers at that time, including the GM I would play for later on, Punch Imlach. Imlach even had a chair in front of his desk with legs he had shortened by several inches. He would ask you to sit in the chair, which was so low to the ground that you’dbe looking up at him, a power-play technique he would use during talks. I remember more than once getting up out of that seat, telling him I didn’t want to look up at him while we talked. It just felt ridiculous.
I would have a lot of difficult contract talks in future years (like just about every year), so this was a sign of things to come. Players just didn’t have the clout back in those days, and you had to look out for yourself because nobody else was going to look after you.
With that negotiation behind me, it was time for the 1966–67 season, which was not a good one for me healthwise, or for the Red Wings, unfortunately. I was hurt for a lot of the season, and it limited me to just forty-six games. I did score twenty-one goals, so I was very productive when I did play, but I had torn chest muscles and groin and knee problems that really held me back, including some breathing problems that required me to go to Arizona for a few weeks.
We missed the playoffs that year, and we had one issue after another, it seemed. Doug Barkley’s career came to an end when he took a stick to the eye, and that was devastating to him and the team, as he had a chance to be one of the best defencemen in hockey. Marcel Pronovost was dealt to Toronto and Bill Gadsby retired, so that really hurt our defence. We seemed to be on the downside in a hurry, after making it to the finals just the year prior.
I was healthier at the start of the 1967–68 season, but our defence was in shambles in the first year of the expanded, twelve-team NHL . We allowed a league-high 257 goals, more even than the six expansion teams.
So
The negotiating went on and on, and the raise even got up to $4,000. I have to admit, Eleanor was petrified, telling me to sign the deal. It was a lot of money back then. But I hada feeling that my strategy was sound, and I was playing well in the exhibition games. I truly believed Norris would give in.
Well, our talks went on, right up until the morning of that first game. I had no idea if I’d be playing, as I still hadn’t signed, and neither I nor Abel were budging. But finally I was called in by Abel on game day.
He was madder than a you-know-what. But guess what – I got that $5,000! He literally threw a contract at me to sign and said, “Don’t tell anybody what you are making!” Well, I didn’t, and I also played with gusto to make sure I earned every penny of that contract. Looking back on it, I wished that I had asked Sid if I was right in thinking that Bruce Norris would cave in to my demands in order to win. It would have been interesting to know.
It worked out pretty well for me, and I didn’t disappoint. Early that season I scored four goals and made sure they realized they didn’t make a mistake in signing me to that kind of a deal.
Hockey sure has changed since then. Players have a lot more say, and with agents and high-priced contracts, well, let’s just say that nobody argues over a lousy five grand anymore! You still have holdouts, of course, but the dollar figures are a lot higher. And with all the multi-year contracts in today’s game, most players don’t have to constantly haggle about their deals like we had to do just about every season.
But that was the way things were done back then. Abel was no different than a lot of other general managers at that time, including the GM I would play for later on, Punch Imlach. Imlach even had a chair in front of his desk with legs he had shortened by several inches. He would ask you to sit in the chair, which was so low to the ground that you’dbe looking up at him, a power-play technique he would use during talks. I remember more than once getting up out of that seat, telling him I didn’t want to look up at him while we talked. It just felt ridiculous.
I would have a lot of difficult contract talks in future years (like just about every year), so this was a sign of things to come. Players just didn’t have the clout back in those days, and you had to look out for yourself because nobody else was going to look after you.
With that negotiation behind me, it was time for the 1966–67 season, which was not a good one for me healthwise, or for the Red Wings, unfortunately. I was hurt for a lot of the season, and it limited me to just forty-six games. I did score twenty-one goals, so I was very productive when I did play, but I had torn chest muscles and groin and knee problems that really held me back, including some breathing problems that required me to go to Arizona for a few weeks.
We missed the playoffs that year, and we had one issue after another, it seemed. Doug Barkley’s career came to an end when he took a stick to the eye, and that was devastating to him and the team, as he had a chance to be one of the best defencemen in hockey. Marcel Pronovost was dealt to Toronto and Bill Gadsby retired, so that really hurt our defence. We seemed to be on the downside in a hurry, after making it to the finals just the year prior.
I was healthier at the start of the 1967–68 season, but our defence was in shambles in the first year of the expanded, twelve-team NHL . We allowed a league-high 257 goals, more even than the six expansion teams.
So
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