The Most Important Thing in the Room

 

40+ years ago, I started a personal collection of sports memorabilia. My focus was collecting one-of-a-kind, unique and interesting-to-look-at stuff.

Due to my interest in the sports collecting business, I was asked if I could source or create some sports-related items that could be used for sale at auction events to help finance the sports activities of the 29,000 athletes who make up Special Olympics Canada.

Note: At one such Special Olympic auction I created collectible items that were only for sale at the event. They were one-only, uber-unique and for that reason commanded top dollar with the bidders. 

In the year before he was drafted by the New York Islanders, OHA teenage superstar John Tavares attended our black-tie dinner auction as one of our celebrity hosts and his mother was his "date". John had his eyes on a very unusual Gretzky museum-framed presentation. He asked me what I thought the final price might be because he was interested in bidding. When I gave him my best guess, he said "OK, let me check with my mom". 

His appearance at the event kickstarted a long relationship that he, who's now the captain of the Maple Leafs, and his wife have built with the charity -- Frank Selke Jr. said it best ... "Special Olympics is contagious".

I was inspired by the committed people I met with the charity and found it easy to do what they wanted. I was also in the position to influence some Canadian corporations to become involved, namely Toyota Canada, Maclean's Magazine and the Globe and Mail. 

Over three decades association with Special Olympics, my efforts were responsible for attracting more than $7 million in cash and promotional value from corporate sponsors.

 

That's a lot of money but, like other people in the Special Olympic family, I always thought I got way more out of my involvement with the organization than I ever gave.

I have another boast (because it does look like I'm boasting) ... it's about name-dropping. I've become good at it. So good, that I was able to write 95 essays about my encounters with unique personalities and celebrity athletes and then move my stories onto a blog. Turns out, it's become a nice hobby and the readership counter on my site claims it's edging near 41,000 readers from around the world.

One celebrity who's received lots of ink in my scribblings is Original Six NHL superstar, Ted Lindsay.  

Funny how he also collided with the charity.

I just boasted about one and now I'll boast about the other.

No apologies.

In our house, I spent hours arranging, moving and looking for "just the right spot" for every item in my collection. It became so big, it took up my entire basement. I had a dozen jerseys including Lemieux and Gretzky and "Rocket" ... every official poster of the Summer Olympic Games starting in 1896 ... signed HoF baseballs and pucks and autographed photos galore. Also, I had the stick that Leaf captain Geo Armstrong used to score the winning goal in the 1967 Leaf Stanley Cup Championship.

In the 1980s, while working for the premier sports magazine company in Canada, an NHL friend who'd played for 14 years told me, "People will give you stuff, sports stuff, when they do, no matter what it is, take it and put it away. I didn't and 14 years later, I have nothing to show for my NHL career.

His advice was good. I collected lots of stuff.

When it came time to downsize our home to a condo, I asked my wife, what about my collection? She said, "Why not re-create your man cave in the master bedroom of the new condo and we'll sleep in the smaller bedroom". Following that announcement, some hockey buddies claim her name should be presented for "sainthood". 

I did downsize my collection and deleted some valuable pieces ... like a historical 91-piece collection of Maple Leaf memorabilia that was purchased by a US collector and other things went quickly by way of a collectible internet site.

One day, my grandson had a 10-year-old friend visit the reduced-sized collection which is now made up of only things that I have a personal connection to.

This kid was different ... he wanted to know the backstory of everything in the room. He didn't want to handle a Doug Gilmour stick, he wanted to know why Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron were so important to Major League Baseball. Remember, he's ten.

He seemed to be memorizing the information while I described the items. Nobody, adult or kid had ever quizzed me like this guy or showed the interest that he did. When I completed the tour, he stepped back and did one more 360-degree turn on the room and said, "What item is the one that you can't do without"?

Wait. 

What? 

How old are you again?

Nobody had ever asked anything like that and I'd had several hundred sports fans go for a tour of the room.

Was he referring to the 2002 Olympic hockey game puck?

Interesting fact about Olympic Games pucks

If you happen to score a goal at a Winter Olympics ...you're not allowed to fish the puck out of the net as a keepsake. This one secretly found its way to my collection.

Did he mean the 1976 Olympic Summer Games coins?

These are all $5 and $10 Canadian denominations.  They were issued before the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal ... the "Bruce" Jenner Decathalon Gold Medal games.

The coins are 99% pure silver.

Was it Cito's World Series jersey from 1992?

The inscription reads: To Michael
This is the jersey I wore when we won Canada's 1st World Series
from Cito

Was it the Canada - Russia 1972 tribute?

Canada vs Russia Hockey Tournament "The Summit".  The presentation contains tickets from the 4 games in Moscow and 2 tickets from the Toronto game plus all the stats and insider info and a team photo personally autographed by some of the stars.

I didn't have to think about it to give him the answer.

When I was a kid ... this kid's age, I visited Detroit with my family to meet up with other family members who'd settled in Michigan. Someway, somehow, I'm not sure, I became a fan of the Red Wings - particularly one player, Ted Lindsay. By the time I was 10, I knew everything about him - I knew what he had for lunch.

Long story short, Frank Selke Jr. introduced us at an event. We connected somehow -- me and my hockey hero. He accepted my invitation to attend the annual Sports Celebrities Festival for the benefit of Special Olympics Canada and joined us for 13 consecutive years as a host of the event.

Our friendship grew and I successfully nominated him for induction into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.

One day, I received a surprise call from the Hockey Hall of Fame. They were renaming the 2nd most important trophy in the Hall after Ted Lindsay. The newly named Ted Lindsay Trophy (for the league MVP as selected by the players) was to be introduced at a special session and Ted had asked for me and Lorraine to be on his guest list for this announcement and presentation.

 He made every moment I spent with him special.

  The Introduction of the Ted Lindsay Award

One day, I phoned him in Detroit just to say Hello and check on him. He told me his wife had just died. He cried -- he couldn't continue the conversation and hung up.

3 minutes later he called me back to apologize for crying and he thought he'd been impolite for hanging up. I was at a loss. I didn't know what to say.

But, back to the question that got me to this point ... "What's the most important item in the room"? 

Simply, it's a book titled "Net Worth".

It's the story of the battle to create the NHLPA by its architect, Lindsay. It was an important time in the history of the game.

If you know Lindsay's playing history (he's the only HHOF Original Six player to record 2,000 minutes in penalties - and, like Gretzky and a few others, he didn't have to wait the normal 3 years to be inducted into the HHOF). 

Lindsay would do anything legal or illegal to beat you in a game but he didn't want NHL team owners to take advantage of you and your family as players. The nerve and boldness of his challenge to ownership were so original the CBC created a movie in 1995 with the same title.

A must-read for every hockey fan that shows the 
struggle that was started by Lindsay and the creation of the NHLPA

Since Lindsay was the protagonist of the book, I asked him if he would sign my copy.

He didn't just sign it.

He gave me a lovely inscription - something I could never have imagined. I'd like to share it with you.

It's the reason, above all else,  it's the item I can't do without.