by Ron MacLean
We moved from St. Andrews over to Killarney Park Hotel. What a place! My room had a fireplace and a great view, but I spent most my time in the bar. It was late into the night, around 4 a.m. A few of us were still sitting around trading war stories when Cliff Fletcher walked in and ordered a tequila. The next day, you would never have guessed. He was in his mid-sixties, but he was made of granite.
I remember Bob Gainey walking with me back to my room. Bob’s an incredible human being. I got to the door and I said, “Aw, Bob, I forgot my sweater.”
And he said, “Ron, there are plenty of sweaters in this world.”
I said, “Bob, you don’t understand. Cari gave me that sweater, and if I don’t return home in that sweater, I might as well just stay here.” So back we went to the bar to retrieve it.
I hung with a lot of the western guys while I was there, including Lyle Odelein, the Columbus defenceman from Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, and Kings winger Kelly Buchberger. I liked Chris Dingman, who played left wing for the Hurricanes but was traded to Tampa that year. He ended up helping Tampa win a Cup. He was a fun guy, born and raised in Edmonton. Spending time with those guys was a real highlight of the trip.
Meehan paid for the golf fees, hotels, flights, the whole package for everyone. You have to figure that 120 guys eating and drinking at the most exclusive golf courses in the world was a big ticket. I felt like a freeloader. The only request Meehan made was that Harry Neale and I emcee his big birthday bash in Killarney, Ireland. That was it. I thought, “I can pay him back by having him negotiate my next contract, and I’ll give him a commission or pay him a set fee.”
There was an article in Toronto Life in May 2008 by Gare Joyce that said Meehan’s company “represents more NHL players than any other two agencies combined, enough to fill the rosters of six teams. It has 17 full-time employees and offices in the US, Russia, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic … Meehan won’t discuss salaries, but even if his players make the league average, all told, they’re earning upwards of $300 million a season (a number that increases substantially when you factor in endorsements).” With that kind of operation behind him, I’m not sure Don Meehan was counting on my negotiation to feed his family.
In any case, all hell broke loose.
24
CONTRACT 2002
Don Meehan had to negotiate some big contracts that summer, including deals for José Théodore, who’d won the Hart Trophy, and Jarome Iginla, the runner-up. Meehan told me he figured my “marginal revenue product”—salary—should be $900,000. I was making $475,000. I laughed and said, “You’re dreaming.’” I’d known Meehan’s work for years through all the research I’d done on players. I liked that one of his clients, Michael Peca, had sat out a whole year to get what he felt he was worth. It reminded me of my mom walking off the job on principle. I admired that kind of spine. I was willing to do that, too. I was even willing to switch jobs, but only after things became adversarial.
On September 25, 2002, Meehan met Nancy Lee, the executive director of CBC Sports, at a little Italian restaurant close to the CBC building to negotiate my deal. What they arrived at wasn’t anywhere near Meehan’s projected entry point, but I was happy with it. Nancy had to kick it upstairs to Harold Redekopp, the executive vice-president, for final approval, and we would be done.
The next day, Nancy came back, saying Redekopp had approved most of the terms, but not the money. She offered $80,000 less than what she had been willing to commit to over dinner. When Meehan called to tell me this, I was in Ottawa hosting an hour-long special called When the Circus Is in Town, a behind-the-scenes look at Hockey Night in Canada, part of the CBC’s fiftieth-anniversary celebration. When I heard the news, I thought, “Well, why did she negotiate in the first place if she didn’t have the power to finalize the deal?”
Meehan and Lee were back and forth in the press. In a Canadian Press article, Lee said “there was a gap in the expectations,” and Meehan said “the difference was marginal.”
Meehan sat down with Redekopp. Meehan said that Harold told him, “We really don’t need Ron because Ron has eighteen producers telling him what to say.” When Meehan told me that, I said to myself, “Bullshit.” I felt Redekopp had no clue about how people felt about the show or what went on in the studio. I shouldn’t have been so defensive, but I was upset with that remark. The money was not what drove me. But I had worked for the CBC for seventeen years, and I thought I was being treated with disrespect. The CBC had the audacity to run stories favourable to the CBC, and yet it worried about what we said on air, and then accused me of being a talking head?
Michael Jordan’s agent, David Falk, tells a great little story in his book The Bald Truth about a contract negotiation with the Bulls. Jordan told Falk, “If I ever hear you negotiating the deal before I hear [Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s] number, I’ll fire you.” He wanted to know what Reinsdorf thought of him. The money the Bulls offered him would reflect that. I felt the same way about what the CBC thought I was worth.
I had volunteered to emcee a charity golf tournament that week in Calgary for Dale Henwood, who was president of the Canadian Sport Centre, which provides support for high-performance athletes so they can succeed in international competition. Based in Calgary, it’s one of the top Olympic training environments in the world. I liked getting out to the west as often as I could, because Mom and Dad still lived there. Cari came with me. On September 30, 2002, we were at my folks’ when Don Meehan called me in the mid-morning. I thought, “Great, here’s the call firming things up.” I never in my wildest dreams thought there were going to be any further issues.
Harold had offered only a 3-per-cent raise.
I said, “Now what?”
Meehan said, “Are you ready to walk away?” I said, “Yes.”
Meehan was amazing. He said, “Good. Don’t fear the unknown when you’re doing the right thing.”
“Good,” I said. “We’re done, then. Great.”
Cari, who was beside me, thought I meant the deal was complete. She smiled and gave my arm a squeeze.
I hung up the phone and said, “CBC decided not to sign the contract.”
Cari said, “Oh, really?”
I said, “Yeah. We’re done.”
Cari looked at me and said, “We’ll be fine.” And then we both got up and walked quietly up the stairs to tell my folks.
25
AN INDEPENDENT CAT
Dad was like most pro hockey players’ parents. He looked stricken. He said, “God, Ronnie. You’re making almost half a million dollars on hockey and you had to ask for more?”
“It’s not about the money,” I said, then repeated Meehan’s mantra: “Don’t fear the unknown when you’re doing the right thing.”
Mom was full of her usual spit. She understood how I felt.
The next three days were like being in some sort of movie. The CBC announced that we had parted ways. The local CBC station picked up the press release first and contacted me. I drove over to the studio and did an interview for CBC Newsworld, which felt kind of funny, but I thought it was some sort of conciliatory gesture that the network was allowing me on the air. I may have been delusional, but that’s how I took it. I was asked if I was upset, and I said, “No, it’s totally their prerogative to pay the host what they think the host should make. I’m just saying for what I am selling, they are not buying.” But I was not talking about money. I was talking about what the CBC thought I was worth to them. It was very cordial, and I was totally comfortable.
I headed over to the Glencoe Golf and Country Club to emcee the charity tournament. Reports were flooding the airwaves. Being out west was nice, because I was away from the centre of it all. I was glad to be among old friends. Bruce Dowbiggin, a Calgary Herald reporter I know, came up to me to find out what was going on.
I told him the truth. “I have a firm belief in what my role on the show is worth, and I have decided to stick with that. It was a litmus test of respect, but you
know how it is in our vocation. There are a million people who’d love to have your job, and it’s easy to say how grateful you ought to be—just take what they offer. But that’s intimidation, and I couldn’t look you or Mike Peca or Bob Goodenow in the eye if I didn’t stand up for what I knew was right.”
Bruce wrote in the Herald, “I know it’s funny to say about a guy who is paid that way, but I don’t know a man who is less motivated by money than Ron. He’s a really different, independent cat.”
That evening, I stood at the microphone at the charity tournament. “If you haven’t heard, I just walked away from my job at Hockey Night in Canada. Anybody looking to buy a car?”
I honestly didn’t know much about what was reported, because I totally ignored the coverage. Until I started this book, I had never looked at any of the clippings or emails from the time. Cari’s sister, Cindi, was fantastic during that stretch. She kept Cari up to date. But I didn’t pay one bit of attention to it.
CBC insiders said some nice things. Harry Neale said, “We’re like any team, and in my opinion, we just lost our best player. MacLean and Cherry had a heck of an act going. People liked them and watched them, even though they didn’t agree with a single thing they said.”
Some guys were calling for my head, like John Doyle at the Globe and Mail. His television column was titled “Sidekicks Are Easier to Replace.” He started out, “Don Cherry is the clown prince. Foils like Ron MacLean are a dime a dozen.” He felt the “best bet for CBC” would be “a female sidekick for Mr. Cherry … Viewers would undoubtedly tune in to see sparks fly and watch Mr. Cherry try to get chummy with a female sports reporter.”
That was interesting, because anyone who knows Don knows he is a complete gentleman around women. There is no way he would ever yell at a woman. One time he did remark on female sports reporters by saying, “Now, I have to say to you ladies that you can’t have it both ways. If you want to be treated like men, then when you do get treated like men, you can’t whine. If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the dressing room.” To which I responded,” I would blush at this discussion, but luckily I’m wearing a pancake foundation—with white eye shadow.”
Everybody had the money wrong. The Vancouver Province had me asking for a million dollars. Most papers had the CBC and me $200,000 apart. It wasn’t until October 2 that Toronto Star reporters Chris Zelkovich and Michael Clarkson reported that we were $25,000 a year apart for a four-year deal, which was about right.
Grapes tried to help behind the scenes. He told the CBC brass to be cool, because he knew I would probably be quick to get my back up if they went overboard. And he told me, “Don’t put a gun to their head. Now that you have gone, be gracious so that you’re not getting them to the point where they’re looking so bad that they’ll never make a deal.”
Brian Burke called me and said the same thing. “Give them a chance to save face. Be careful what you say about them. If the tide turns, you have to give them an out.” I felt that way anyway. I told everyone who interviewed me that there were no hard feelings. Brian offered, “Let me know if there is anything I can do.”
Tie Domi called, too. He said, “Ron, Curtis Joseph took a stand, and now he is in Detroit. I think if he had it to do over, he’d still be wearing a Leafs jersey.” It was Tie’s way of saying, “You’ll be sorry if you go to another network. Stay where you belong.”
I did interviews on radio stations all over the place, and there were lots of callers phoning in, saying, “You could be back doing the weather in Red Deer next week.” And I’d answer, “You don’t understand. I’d be happy doing the weather in Red Deer.”
It was all a bit of a blur. I told myself it was a neat phase of my life. “Now maybe I’ll get a teaching certificate, or start working in broadcasting somewhere else.”
October 1, 2002, was day two of being jobless. Martin O’Malley reported on the CBC News Viewpoint website that when he started to write his column that morning, “emails protesting the dropping of MacLean were coming in at the rate of four or five a minute. At this point, they’re coming in at 19 a minute. This is the biggest email reaction to anything that has appeared on CBC News Online, bigger than Trudeau’s funeral, or Gzowski’s death, or the wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan.”
According to the Toronto Star, the whole affair “sparked more heated language around Parliament … Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe had nothing good to say about Cherry … He called Cherry’s salary a waste of taxpayers’ money.” I imagine Don loved that one.
Then CTV offered me a job. Ivan Fecan, the president of Bell Globemedia, which owned the network, had been director of television programming at the CBC from 1987 to 1994. He developed some of the CBC’s best programs, including Degrassi High, Road to Avonlea, The Kids in the Hall, Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. In 1994, CTV hired him as group vice-president of Baton Broadcasting.
Meehan told me Ivan and Rick Brace, who had just been appointed president of the CTV Television Network on October 2, would meet with me in Calgary to seal the deal. I figured Ivan would take anybody if it meant sticking it to the CBC. He’d have hired Rick Mercer to sweep floors and then televised it just to bug them. I certainly wasn’t dismissing the offer, but I’d had a few calls from Joel Darling, among others at the CBC, who told me the door had not been slammed shut, so I didn’t think it was right to play the CBC and CTV off against each other. There were other offers, too. Glen Sather, the president and general manager of the New York Rangers, talked to Meehan about a job for me at the Madison Square Garden Network.
On October 2, the Toronto Sun ran a story calling the situation “The MacLean Madness.” There was an Internet petition with 8,000 signatures, and the Sun had printed another petition that you could mail in. Robert Remington of the National Post reported, “Angry fans flooded the CBC with 10,000 emails and paraded in front of the network’s headquarters in Toronto with bullhorns to protest the deposing of Mr. MacLean after contract talks broke down.”
Cari and I received thousands of emails, great notes from people all over, and so did HNIC. Some were profane, several were angry, but most were funny. “Don’t let him go, you guys are MORANS!” “The mouth doesn’t function properly without the brain.” “No Ron and I’m gone.” Most people talked about how HNIC was part of their Canadian heritage and the CBC had no right to mess with it.
Not in a million years did I think there would be such an outpouring of support. I finally reached Meehan and told him, “I couldn’t get through to you. My phone would not stop ringing!” Meehan told me people were demonstrating in front of CBC headquarters in Toronto. His office was deluged. He said, “We are avalanched with interest! I imagine CBC is getting the message that people liked what you and Don Cherry were doing.”
Meehan laughed when he told me he had a call from his older sister, a retired housewife in Cambridge, Ontario. He said, “She watches Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night. She’s a hockey fan, but has never called me in relation to any of the negotiations of the players that I’m involved with. She told me, ‘I want to make one thing clear with you. I look forward to watching Ron every Saturday night. You’ve got to do something to rectify this situation. I’m counting on you.’”
“Ron,” he said, “I think the key point to consider is that there are forces at play. I mean, this thing has moved the throne speech off the front page. From my perspective, according to the reaction of the Canadian public, Hockey Night in Canada is an institution on Saturday nights, and people don’t want CBC fooling around with it. It’s a tradition.”
Meehan told me Nancy Lee had asked to meet again. He said, “We have them where we want them. They’re reacting to public pressure. I’ve never seen anything like it! We can throw the book at them.”
I replied, “Well, that’s not really what this was all about. I know that you positioned yourself well and you negotiated brilliantly. You know leverage better than anybody, but that wouldn’t be the right thing t
o do.”
We got into a bit of a wrestling match, with him trying to convince me to take advantage of what had happened. He said, “Ron, this has worked out perfectly for us. You took a huge risk. The country has responded the way they have, and this is going to be beneficial for you now.”
I said, “No, Donnie, really. Go with the 6 per cent we negotiated with Nancy. It’s fine.” It was the principle all along. “If I go up $25,000 per year, I’ll be happy.” It was never about the money. It was about the respect. I realize I was pretty defensive. I was in a constant, almost painful quest for respect from the people I worked with. The remark about me having eighteen producers telling me what to say burned deep.
Cari and I took Mom and Dad for dinner at Catch, a new eatery in downtown Calgary. I joked that I’d better order fish because I needed brain food. During dinner, I got a call from Bruce Elliot, who was president of Labatt and later was president of Second Cup until 2008. Labatt was the primary sponsor of Hockey Night in Canada. John Heinzl of the Globe and Mail had reported that the brewer had an estimated $5 million invested in HNIC, and its biggest worry was that fans would abandon its beer to protest my absence. Bruce said, “Because we have people picketing around our plant in Moncton, I’m going to let CBC know that their problem has become our problem.” He said Labatt was working on a six-point resolution that it would deliver to the CBC so that the matter could be resolved. I replied, “Thanks for all your help, Bruce, but I think it’s going to get resolved in the morning.”
Meehan told me later that, irrespective of my wishes, he made it very clear to the CBC who had the leverage. When he arrived at their meeting, Nancy made no indication that they were back at the table because the network had miscalculated the public’s wishes. Meehan said he was smiling when he asked, “So why did you ask to meet?”