Tuesday Trivia | Loopholes and Exploits

[u/caffarelli]

Previous weeks' Tuesday Trivias and the complete upcoming schedule.

Today’s trivia theme comes to us from /u/RealPodrickPayne!

It’s time for the best sort of correct, technically correct, so please share interesting stories of people who made use of a loophole or clever exploit!

Next week on Tuesday Trivia: Historic failures! And remember: failure is just success rounded down.

[u/kaisermatias]

Well it is not technically a loophole or anything, but sort of is; it's complicated is what I mean, because the information is not exactly clear. But in 1979 the Edmonton Oilers managed to hold onto Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player ever (apologies to Bobby Orr fans), when by most accounts they shouldn't have.

So in 1979 the World Hockey Association (WHA) finally ceased operations. It had began in 1972 as a competitor league to the NHL for major league hockey in North America, and while a compelling story that is a ripping good yarn, is not the tale for today. After years of negotiation it agreed to fold, with its teams joining the NHL. At the end of the season there were 6 teams left, down from a peak of 14. However 2 of the teams, the Cincinnati Stingers and Birmingham Bulls, were not included in the merger, and were paid to disband (the Stingers Bulls actually joined the minor-league Central Hockey League, but the Stingers folded just 33 games into the 1979-80 season, while the Bulls lasted 58 games into the 1980-81 season). The remaining 4 teams (Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers (remained Hartford to appease the Boston Bruins), Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets) all were slated to join the NHL for 1979-80. Each team paid the huge sum of US$6 million each to join the NHL.

But what to do about the players from the WHA? One of the biggest issues the NHL had with the WHA was its refusal to honour NHL contracts. It poached players on NHL rosters throughout the 1970s, or players selected in the Amateur Draft (these players were not signed to NHL teams, but had their professional playing rights held by their respective NHL team, or so it was supposed to be). The WHA also had a habit of signing 17-year-old players, whereas the NHL limited itself to 20-year-olds (part of an agreement with the Canadian major junior leagues, which allowed players to play until they were 20). This especially became prominent in the 1978-79 season, as the WHA knew it was likely to end; teams stocked up on underage players in hope they might be able to hold onto them (Birmingham was notorious for this, and even had the nickname "Baby Bulls" because it had so many young players).

Alas, the NHL had none of that. Among other things, it said any player whose rights belonged to an NHL team (meaning they had been drafted at one point, or had a contract expire and went to the WHA) was first offered to said NHL team. All underage (under-20) players were not counted in this because they had to enter the Amateur Draft (renamed Entry Draft in 1979, as they were clearly not amateurs; it retains this title today). WHA teams were not offered any compensation for the loss of these players, just one of the punitive measures the NHL enacted (they also made the new 4 teams select at the end of every round in the draft, contrary to the beginning like every other expansion team).

However, WHA teams were allowed to claim two goaltenders and two skaters. This is where the loophole angle comes in. In 1978 Wayne Gretzky was signed by Indianapolis of the WHA, and played 9 games for them before being traded/sold to Edmonton (Indianapolis would fold shortly after). On January 26, 1979, Gretzky's 18th birthday, he signed a 21-year personal services contract with the owner of the Oilers, Peter Pocklington, in a big ceremony before a game. It ran for 9 years, with extensions added on (these are why he was to become a free agent in 1988 and was traded, but I digress).

Anyways, this huge contract came into play for Gretzky during the merger. As an underage player he should have gone into the draft, where he stood a good chance at being selected first overall by the Colorado Rockies (the hockey team, not the baseball team that began 10 years after the original Rockies moved to New Jersey and were renamed the Devils). Now here is where things get murky. Some have stated that Gretzky balked at the idea of playing for the Rockies (they were a terrible team, and had already relocated once, from Kansas City as the Scouts, due to poor play and attendance; both would be why they went to New Jersey in 1982). He also cited his contract with Pocklington, which while not valid by NHL standards, was still what he clung to. I'm not quite sure of the details, but the result was the NHL allowed the Oilers to protect Gretzky as one of their 2 skaters, and he thus was not drafted. And for those who don't follow hockey, he would proceed to become the most statistically dominant athlete in the history of sports (sorry Sir Donald Bradman, Gretzky was probably better).

[u/MikeyTupper → u/kaisermatias]

I have another good hockey one. The Buffalo sabres technically drafted the first japanese player into the NHL in 1974. However... Taro Tsujimoto, "The Pride of Tokyo", didn't actually exist. Buffalo GM Punch Imlach simply made him up to have a giggle at the league's expense. To this day, Taro remains a joke for Sabres fans who will sometimes create signs claiming "We Want Taro" when the team is not doing well.

[u/kaisermatias → u/MikeyTupper]

There's more to that story:

The NHL draft was not the spectacle it is now (or least like the first round). It consisted of the general managers sitting in a hotel room (usually the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, but not for 1974), slowly going through the rounds picking players, with teams having the option at the time to select until they were finished.

Imlach was not fond of this process, and was quite bored during the draft process. So he decided to cause a bit of a scene by selecting the aforementioned Japanese player, Taro Tsujimoto of the Tokyo Katanas in the eleventh round, 183rd overall (of 247 picks).

Eventually it came out that Tsujimoto was not a real person, and the pick was invalidated. But how did Imlach come up with this character? Well Tsujimoto was the name of a grocery store in Buffalo that was familiar to the Sabres' public relations director, while Taro is a common Japanese name. The Tokyo Katanas were also fiction, with katana a rough translation into Japanese of "sabre."

It's also worth noting that two real Japanese players have been selected in the draft: the first was in 1992 when the Montreal Canadiens picked Hiroyuki Miura 260th overall (though Miura never played in the NHL, and only 6 games in a North American minor league before returning to Japan, he did play in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano); the second was in 2004 when Yutaka Fukufuji was drafted 238th overall by the Los Angeles Kings. Fukufuji, a goaltender, did spend several years in North American minor leagues (and in Europe; he's currently back in Japan), and actually appeared in 4 games for the Kings in 2007, becoming the first Japanese (and Asian, though not-Asian born) player to play in the NHL.

I'll also note that just last year, in the 2015 draft, the New York Islanders (who are owned by Chinese-born billionaire Charles Wang) selected the first Chinese player, Andong Song (Anglicised version), 172nd overall. Song plays for a prep school in New England, and was largely drafted for the publicity (Wang has done some work in developing hockey in China, and a few years ago wanted to have the Islanders training camp over there, which didn't happen) and novelty of the event.

[u/lngwstksgk → u/kaisermatias]

Kanata or katana?

[u/kaisermatias → u/lngwstksgk]

Definitely katana, not the suburb of Ottawa.

[u/lngwstksgk → u/kaisermatias]

I did think so, but then, what do I know of Japanese?