Robert Blake Theodore Lindsay
Hockey Biography
Lindsay a former professional ice hockey player, forward for the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Black Hawks of the National Hockey League. Lindsay scored over 800 points in his Hockey Hall of Fame career, won the Art Ross Trophy in 1950, and the Stanley Cup four times. Often referred to as “Terrible Ted”, Lindsay helped to organize the National Hockey League Players’ Association in the late 1950s, an action which led to his trade to Chicago.
Lindsay was born July 29, 1925 in Renfrew, Ontario. His father, Bert Lindsay, had been a professional player himself, playing goaltender for the Renfrew Millionaires, Victoria Aristocrats, and Toronto Arenas. Lindsay played amateur hockey in Kirkland Lake before joining the St. Michael’s Majors in Toronto. In 1944 Lindsay played for the Memorial Cup champion Oshawa Generals.
Lindsay’s performance in the Ontario Hockey Association, Junior A league, now the Ontario Hockey League earned him an invitation to try out with the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League making his big league debut in 1944 at the age of 19. Lindsay played only one game in the American Hockey League, with the Indianapolis Capitals, during the 1944–45 American Hockey League season. Having played amateur in Toronto, yet playing for the Detroit Red Wings, earned him the enmity of Toronto’s owner Conn Smythe with whom he would feud for the length of his career.
Playing left wing with centre Sid Abel and right winger Gordie Howe, on what the media and fans dubbed the “Production line,” Lindsay became one of the National Hockey League’s premier players. Although small in stature compared to most players in the league, Lindsay was a fierce competitor who earned the nickname “Terrible Ted” for his toughness. His rough play caused the National Hockey League to develop penalties for ‘elbowing’ and ‘kneeing’ to discourage hitting between players using the elbows and knees.
In the 1949-50 season, Lindsay won the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer with 78 points and his team won the Stanley Cup. Over the next five years, Lindsay helped the Detroit Red Wings win three more championships and appeared with Howe on the cover of a March 1957 Sports Illustrated issue. Lindsay was the first player to lift the Cup and skate around the rink which started an ongoing great tradition.
That same year, Lindsay attended the annual pension plan meeting as the representative of the Detroit Red Wings players, where he found the plans were kept secret. Later that year Lindsay attended a promotion with football and baseball players, he found out conditions in the other sports’ pro leagues were much better. Lindsay was introduced to the lawyers for the players of the other leagues and became convinced, only through an association could the players’ conditions be improved. At a time when teams literally owned their players for their entire careers, the players began demanding such basics as a minimum salary and a properly funded pension plan. While team owners were getting rich with sold out arenas, players were earning a pittance, many needed summer jobs to make a living. Most of these players had no more than a high school education and had been playing hockey as a profession all their working life. Superstars in the 1950s earned less than $25,000 a year and when their playing days were over, they had nothing to fall back on.
Lindsay and star defenceman Doug Harvey of the Montreal Canadiens led a small group in an effort to organize the first National Hockey League Players’ Association. In secret, all of the players at the time were contacted and asked for their support to form an “association”, not a “union”, which was considered going too far. Support was nearly unanimous.
Lindsay worked doggedly for the cause and many fellow players who supported the association were benched or sent to obscurity in the minor leagues. Lindsay and Harvey then became convinced, only a union could win the demands, and set up a schedule to get players’ support on record to be certified as a union. In a defiant gesture, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings were targeted for certification votes. While Montreal’s ownership was not opposing a union, Toronto’s Conn Smythe was adamantly against it. In the United States, the four teams were controlled or under obligations to the Norris syndicate. Despite Smythe’s efforts, the Toronto Maple Leafs players unanimously voted to organize.
Next was the Detroit Red Wings to organize, and the Norrises would fight back. When asked about the formation of the National Hockey League Players Association, Lindsay remarked, “Actually, we don’t have many grievances. We just felt we should have an organization of this kind.”
For his role in the establishing the original Players’ Association, the Lester B. Pearson Award was renamed to the Ted Lindsay Award in his honour. In 1995, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced the hockey movie, Net Worth that depicts, Lindsay’s battle to create the National Hockey League Player’s Association.