HOCKEY 1977-78

Jerry Kirshenbaum

October 17, 1977

For the first time in 31 years the National Hockey League opens its season with a president whose name is not Clarence Campbell. The NHL's new boss is John Augustus Ziegler Jr., 43, a Detroit lawyer who inherits from the retired Campbell a host of critical problems, including empty seats, a flood of red ink, a schedule packed with mismatches, lack of a network television package, 18 owners who usually agree only to disagree and—because the NHL spurned a merger this summer—continued warfare with the World Hockey Association. Ziegler (right) was a vice-president of the Detroit Red Wings, a team which lost more than $2 million last season while compiling the worst record in hockey. He also was the chairman of the NHL's board of governors last year, selecting Ziegler as the league's first American-born president, NHL owners kept him on as board chairman, thus giving him a broad and unprecedented mandate to put their troubled house in order. Ziegler, though, has no more clout than that routinely wielded by Attorney Robert Alan Eagleson (left), the executive director of, the NHL Players Association as well as the game's leading players' agent. The ebullient Eagleson, 44, is largely responsible for the fact that the average player salary in the NHL is $85,000 (plus $11,000 in fringes), an obvious boon to the men he represents but a drain on club coffers. A Toronto resident and onetime member of the Ontario Parliament, Eagleson is also the prime mover in Hockey Canada, the quasi-governmental body that runs that country's ventures in international hockey. For better or worse, the future of hockey depends on what kind of leadership Ziegler and Eagleson provide—and on how they get along at the bargaining table. For clues to how they might deal with the sport's problems—and each other—SPORTS ILLUSTRATED brought them together in a New York hotel suite. Ziegler and Eagleson talked hockey for more than two hours, bantering on more than a few points but also sounding several encouragingly statesmanlike themes.