DOPE
STRAIGHT
NHL HISTORY LESSON:
LEAFS GHOST JERSEYS
BY JENNIFER CONWAY
NHLHistorygirl.com
In 1977, the NHL Board of Governors made a simple rule change. Or so they thought.
Proposed by Flyers owner Ed Snider and approved by the Board 13-5, it was declared that for the upcoming season, team uniforms must include a nameplate on the back of all jerseys.
This angered Leafs owner Harold Ballard, who immediately imagined all the money he was going to lose from the sale of game programs.
For a while, he simply refused to comply. When prodded by president Ziegler, he exploded, calling Ziegler a “dictator on an ego trip.” “Who does this man think he is? He's a rookie president. We should send him to the minors...Technically speaking, names on sweaters are a property right.”
“Mr. Ziegler is going to have to keep his little nose out of my business,” Ballard chuckled as he devised a way around the rule: he had the team nameplates made up in the exact same shade as the jersey.
For two games, (Feb. 26 and 28, 1978) the Leafs skated away games with blue-on-blue nameplates, rendering them useless for player identification.
“Can't you see those names? You'd better get your eyes checked. They're regulation all the way,” Ballard said after the first game. He continued to argue that it was property right, and his contract with the people who printed Leafs programs prevented him from complying.
He couldn't seem to stop himself from continually mocking the rule to reporters, claiming he had thought about adding the nameplates, then making players switch jerseys, or using first names instead of last.
President Ziegler, believing this was a “private league matter,” kept a low profile on the topic, but brought the only pressure to bear that Ballard might understand: money. If Ballard failed to comply and use contrasting colors on the nameplates, he'd be fined $2,000. The game after that, $3,000, and so on until the fine reached $5,000 per game. At this news, Ballard relented, and the Leafs took the ice wearing the proper white on blue nameplates.
There's no comment on what the players or other team owners thought of Ballard's actions.