Stanley Cup - no NHL required
Sept 8, 2004 13:12:58 GMT -5
Post by razor on Sept 8, 2004 13:12:58 GMT -5
Found this on another site - not sure of the source - but a very interesting read anyway.
Came across this today. Colby Cosh is a writer for the national Post and has a blog....colbycosh.com. Anyway, this is an intriguing idea.
Maybe we will see the North Battleford North Stars playing the Olds Grizzlies for the Stanley Cup in '05.....
It concerns a matter of surpassing importance in Canadian life -- namely, the labour squabble that is likely to doom the upcoming National Hockey League season. The Stanley Cup, it so happens, was originally the permanent gift to Canada of an outgoing governor-general. The means by which it came into the NHL's possession were extremely dubious. Lord Stanley's deed specified that the Cup "should be held from year to year by the champion hockey team in the Dominion," and two trustees were appointed to control it in perpetuity for this purpose. The trustees signed the cup over to the NHL in 1947, but they had no genuine authority to abandon their job or to alter Lord Stanley's will.
It is only right that the NHL's connection with the Cup should be recognized, under ordinary circumstances, and that its champion should retain possession of it, under ordinary circumstances. These ain't ordinary circumstances. A trophy which was originally to be played for by Canadian teams at least once a year has become hostage to an incompetent professional organization. I don't see that we have to tolerate that organization's failure to play for the Cup, if it should come to that.
The current Governor-General might use moral suasion -- and perhaps even constitutional power? -- to arrange a grand competition amongst Canadian amateur teams next May, with the real Stanley Cup as the ultimate prize, in the event that the owners and players of the NHL are still arguing and loafing.
Set aside, for a moment, the involvement of the Governor-General: that part of the idea is too brilliant to ever actually be adopted (although it will be interesting to see if Martin appoints one of the old hockey players sometimes touted for the job; Jean Beliveau's name comes up nearly every time it becomes vacant). The fact remains that the legal status of the Stanley Cup may be about to become a live issue.
The NHL owners have already floated a trial balloon (using the Ottawa Citizen as their medium) about dissolving the league and trying to resume play with the collective-bargaining clock reset to zero. The idea is frank nonsense--far and away the cheesiest labour-bullying tactic in the history of negotiation-by-ink in sport. The existing NHL brands are the only asset that is within the ultimate possession of the owners, and if they were to dissolve and renew the league, they would have to give up both their trademarks and any hope of signing current league stars. But the Citizen ploy reveals the apocalyptic nature of the current owner-player dispute. And in this dispute, the Stanley Cup is the wild card.
It would not surprise me if locked-out players, at some point in a very long hiatus, demanded the legal or moral right to play for the Cup under separate, non-NHL auspices. There is apparently no legal pretext which could be used to stop them, if Lord Stanley's testament is to be taken seriously at all, as a Canadian court would surely be obliged to. It would not surprise me, either, if fans deprived of league hockey for a full season took up the point I am raising mischievously now. I ask only that whatever full-time sportswriter annexes this developing story to the cause of his own reputation give me as much credit as possible.
And this related article, by Cosh as well:
Richard Foot wrote a piece about the questionable legal status of the Cup for the Montreal Gazette in September. In 1892, Lord Stanley bought the Stanley Cup and appointed two trustees who were to award it annually to the hockey champions of the Dominion. It was deeded, in written trust, under certain conditions: one of them was that "the trustees [were] to maintain absolute authority in all situations or disputes over the winner of the Cup." As Foot wrote,
In June 1947, those trustees signed a memorandum of agreement with Clarence Campbell, then president of the NHL.
They delegated to "the League full authority to determine and amend from time to time the conditions of competition for the Stanley Cup." They also required the league to take responsibility for the "care and safe custody" of the cup.
Foot asked two distinguished Canadian estate lawyers whether they felt this 1947 custody transfer was entirely proper under the law. Unsurprisingly, both found that it probably wasn't. The trustees had absolutely no real right to sign over the care and control of the Cup to anyone but their successors.
"The trustees were appointed to manage a charitable endeavour--a cup given for purposes beneficial to the community--and they gave the property away to a profit-making endeavour," [David Wingfield] said. "Trustees don't have the power to give away their duties. They delegated full authority to the league, and you can't do that."
Said [David] Stevens: "If there was a trust, the trustees probably didn't have the power to delegate their authority to the NHL.
"But if no formal trust existed in the first place, then this becomes a mostly moral, not a legal issue."
In light of the possibility that we will lose an NHL season to collective-bargaining troubles, the closing sentences of the piece are of increasing interest:
Whatever the true legal status of the hockey world's most important trophy, Wingfield and Stevens said no one is ever likely to question the issue in court.
"It's an interesting historical matter," Wingfield said. "But at the end of the day, what court would take this trophy away from the League?"
Who would question the issue in court? Well, if the NHLPA were feeling mischievous enough, it might develop half a mind to do so. What court would take the trophy away from the League? Any court, I think, that took a historically unprejudiced view of the situation: the League appears to have no legal right to hold the Cup hostage, and certainly has no moral right to do so under the will of Lord Stanley. A real court presented with the issue would probably be guided by the perceived desires of the intended beneficiaries of Stanley's gift--which is us, or us Canadians, anyway. I wonder what we'd want if, as might happen, there is a whole winter without NHL hockey and no prospect of it starting up anytime soon.
__________________
happy happy joy joy
Maybe we will see the North Battleford North Stars playing the Olds Grizzlies for the Stanley Cup in '05.....
It concerns a matter of surpassing importance in Canadian life -- namely, the labour squabble that is likely to doom the upcoming National Hockey League season. The Stanley Cup, it so happens, was originally the permanent gift to Canada of an outgoing governor-general. The means by which it came into the NHL's possession were extremely dubious. Lord Stanley's deed specified that the Cup "should be held from year to year by the champion hockey team in the Dominion," and two trustees were appointed to control it in perpetuity for this purpose. The trustees signed the cup over to the NHL in 1947, but they had no genuine authority to abandon their job or to alter Lord Stanley's will.
It is only right that the NHL's connection with the Cup should be recognized, under ordinary circumstances, and that its champion should retain possession of it, under ordinary circumstances. These ain't ordinary circumstances. A trophy which was originally to be played for by Canadian teams at least once a year has become hostage to an incompetent professional organization. I don't see that we have to tolerate that organization's failure to play for the Cup, if it should come to that.
The current Governor-General might use moral suasion -- and perhaps even constitutional power? -- to arrange a grand competition amongst Canadian amateur teams next May, with the real Stanley Cup as the ultimate prize, in the event that the owners and players of the NHL are still arguing and loafing.
Set aside, for a moment, the involvement of the Governor-General: that part of the idea is too brilliant to ever actually be adopted (although it will be interesting to see if Martin appoints one of the old hockey players sometimes touted for the job; Jean Beliveau's name comes up nearly every time it becomes vacant). The fact remains that the legal status of the Stanley Cup may be about to become a live issue.
The NHL owners have already floated a trial balloon (using the Ottawa Citizen as their medium) about dissolving the league and trying to resume play with the collective-bargaining clock reset to zero. The idea is frank nonsense--far and away the cheesiest labour-bullying tactic in the history of negotiation-by-ink in sport. The existing NHL brands are the only asset that is within the ultimate possession of the owners, and if they were to dissolve and renew the league, they would have to give up both their trademarks and any hope of signing current league stars. But the Citizen ploy reveals the apocalyptic nature of the current owner-player dispute. And in this dispute, the Stanley Cup is the wild card.
It would not surprise me if locked-out players, at some point in a very long hiatus, demanded the legal or moral right to play for the Cup under separate, non-NHL auspices. There is apparently no legal pretext which could be used to stop them, if Lord Stanley's testament is to be taken seriously at all, as a Canadian court would surely be obliged to. It would not surprise me, either, if fans deprived of league hockey for a full season took up the point I am raising mischievously now. I ask only that whatever full-time sportswriter annexes this developing story to the cause of his own reputation give me as much credit as possible.
And this related article, by Cosh as well:
Richard Foot wrote a piece about the questionable legal status of the Cup for the Montreal Gazette in September. In 1892, Lord Stanley bought the Stanley Cup and appointed two trustees who were to award it annually to the hockey champions of the Dominion. It was deeded, in written trust, under certain conditions: one of them was that "the trustees [were] to maintain absolute authority in all situations or disputes over the winner of the Cup." As Foot wrote,
In June 1947, those trustees signed a memorandum of agreement with Clarence Campbell, then president of the NHL.
They delegated to "the League full authority to determine and amend from time to time the conditions of competition for the Stanley Cup." They also required the league to take responsibility for the "care and safe custody" of the cup.
Foot asked two distinguished Canadian estate lawyers whether they felt this 1947 custody transfer was entirely proper under the law. Unsurprisingly, both found that it probably wasn't. The trustees had absolutely no real right to sign over the care and control of the Cup to anyone but their successors.
"The trustees were appointed to manage a charitable endeavour--a cup given for purposes beneficial to the community--and they gave the property away to a profit-making endeavour," [David Wingfield] said. "Trustees don't have the power to give away their duties. They delegated full authority to the league, and you can't do that."
Said [David] Stevens: "If there was a trust, the trustees probably didn't have the power to delegate their authority to the NHL.
"But if no formal trust existed in the first place, then this becomes a mostly moral, not a legal issue."
In light of the possibility that we will lose an NHL season to collective-bargaining troubles, the closing sentences of the piece are of increasing interest:
Whatever the true legal status of the hockey world's most important trophy, Wingfield and Stevens said no one is ever likely to question the issue in court.
"It's an interesting historical matter," Wingfield said. "But at the end of the day, what court would take this trophy away from the League?"
Who would question the issue in court? Well, if the NHLPA were feeling mischievous enough, it might develop half a mind to do so. What court would take the trophy away from the League? Any court, I think, that took a historically unprejudiced view of the situation: the League appears to have no legal right to hold the Cup hostage, and certainly has no moral right to do so under the will of Lord Stanley. A real court presented with the issue would probably be guided by the perceived desires of the intended beneficiaries of Stanley's gift--which is us, or us Canadians, anyway. I wonder what we'd want if, as might happen, there is a whole winter without NHL hockey and no prospect of it starting up anytime soon.
__________________
happy happy joy joy
