The Goal of My Life by Paul Henderson Read Free Book Online Page B

practising hard and being disciplined, we spent more time in bars and at the racetrack than we should have. The Canadiens were far more focused than we were, and our coach, Sid Abel, couldn’t control the team. Abel was a decent guy, but he had a lot on his plate being both GM and coach and he had difficulty relating to a lot of our players.
    Henri Richard scored the Cup-winning goal in game six of the series on a controversial goal that looked like it might have gone in off his hand (it sure did to me because I was on the ice at the time!). But the goal stood and we lost the Cup right on Olympia ice, a moment in my career that still bothers me to this day. We were so close, and a little more discipline might have made the difference.
    It was a great lifestyle, the life of an NHL player, but it took a bit of getting used to, especially for a kid from Lucknow. I didn’t drink until I turned pro, for instance, but, boy, you had to learn to drink if you were going to hang out with NHL players. The biggest surprise of my life was seeing first-handhow much these guys could drink! We’d go out for a team lunch after practice when we were on the road and have a few beers. Then we’d be out for dinner later on and we’d have a few more beers. Some guys knew when to stop, but many didn’t and developed problems later on, unfortunately.
    NHL salaries back then weren’t nearly what they are today – to say the least! – but you could make a very good living playing hockey compared to most other sports, and that certainly made it easy to enjoy life on the road, if that’s what you really wanted to do. I was just interested in carving out a good career for myself and my family for as long as I could.
    And it was a decent living back then, when you considered the prices of things. There was little negotiating; you just took what they offered you. My first-year contract was for $7,000, which was the NHL minimum, plus a $1,500 signing bonus. When we made the Stanley Cup finals I picked up another $6,500 in bonuses, so that made for a great year financially – $15,000 total. That is a pittance compared to what players are getting today, obviously. But remember what I paid for my car, and I bought my first house for $10,300, so it certainly was a different world economically.
    As the years went by, agents became very helpful in contract talks. But when I went back in to negotiate my second deal prior to the 1964–65 season, I really didn’t know what to ask for, so I wound up getting what they told me I’d be getting, which was a $1,500 raise. I got the same raise the following season.
    By the start of the 1966–67 season, I was looking for more. Sid Abel was the Red Wings’ general manager and coach at the time, and he wasn’t an easy guy to try to hammer a dealout with. He told me he thought I had done a good job and he was prepared to offer me a $2,500 raise. The thing was, he acted like he was doing me some huge favour by offering me any kind of a raise. I figured I’d played three years in the league and was coming off a twenty-two-goal season – a year when only nineteen guys had scored twenty or more – so I should be up for a lot more than that.
    “Well, Sid,” I said. “I was thinking of a lot more than that, actually. I was thinking about a $5,000 raise.”
    I have no idea where I came up with that figure, but I’ll never forget his reaction.
    “Are you out of your mind, Henderson?!” he bellowed. “You can forget that. You’ll take this deal or I’ll bury you so far in the minors they won’t find you with a shovel!”
    So much for stress-free negotiating, I guess! But I figured I had some leverage. The team’s owner, Bruce Norris, really wanted to beat Chicago more than any other team, as his brother Jim owned the Hawks. Bruce was an intense competitor, and we were opening up at home against Chicago that season. There was no way he wanted to go into that game without his best lineup, so I thought my