Messier taking a dead player's retired number in Vancouver - what's the story?

[vadim sharifijanov]

I'm still not sure why the Canucks didn't just have it retired if they wanted to honor the guy who tragically died before his time. If it was actually retired and Messier tried to get it unretired (this is how I've always heard it mentioned) then yes, he looks worse for it. I wouldn't use contract negotiation notes as evidence of anything, as you have to make some wild leaps to get there. That was obviously his number so he wanted it, I don't know what responsibility he bears for a player that died many years prior when Messier was still a kid (it's not like the guy had died a year or two prior and this was a fresh thing). Any mishandling of the situation seems to fall on Vancouver for either not being aware or just thinking enough time had passed that it didn't matter (and again, I still don't know why if a number is supposed to be retired they didn't just retire it.. do other teams have "unofficial" retired numbers out there?)

the red wings have vladimir konstantinov

 

[alko]

Something I just realized

In that leaked 1997 hand written contract Messier signed, one of his demands is simply stated as

9. #11

But why? I mean surely the Messier camp looked at the Canucks roster many a time while figuring out where they wanted to sign. I'm sure they noticed no Canuck wore #11 during the 96/97 season.

So why would Messier need to make an easily available number a demand in his contract?

They probably knew about the Maki stuff and this was a way to tell the Canucks to quietly get something done behind the scenes and get him 11. And when it was handled poorly they pleaded ignorance

Just curious: Whats the Nr. 2?

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Just curious: Whats the Nr. 2?

Moving allowance? Pretty common.

 

[NyQuil]

Moving allowance? Pretty common.

It's funny in that it says "post-career" in fine print which I assume means paying his expenses for moving away from Vancouver after his tenure is over.

Is that common?

Obviously paying his moving expenses for his move to Vancouver is pretty standard.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

That's a good point - I initially missed the fine print. Makes me wonder if Messier was contemplating that Vancouver had a real chance of being his final port of call.

 

[Theokritos]

Yes, but it clearly states that she called the newspaper first, right after the press conference. I mean, maybe she's not telling a detailed or accurate account, but if it were me, I would spend a few days (at least) trying to get in touch with the organization before I ran to the media, which is obviously going to blow it up.

The wording is a bit confusing, but I think the order of events is different:

Stunned to see a No. 11 on the Canucks jersey that Messier donned for Monday afternoon's introductory press conference, Beverly Maki called the Vancouver Sun to express her outrage. "I was watching the 12 o'clock news (Monday afternoon) and I was really shocked when Mark Messier turned around and was wearing Wayne's number," Mrs. Maki told the Sun. She said she repeatedly telephoned the Canucks following the press conference and finally received a return call from GM Pat Quinn. "He said I should be honored and I told him I'm not honored," Mrs. Maki said.

1. Introductory press conference (which she watches on the news)
2. She repeatedly phones the Canucks and finally gets a call from Pat Quinn, but is upset by what he tells her
3. She calls the Vancouver Sun to express her outrage

 

[DaveG]

I'm still not sure why the Canucks didn't just have it retired if they wanted to honor the guy who tragically died before his time. If it was actually retired and Messier tried to get it unretired (this is how I've always heard it mentioned) then yes, he looks worse for it. I wouldn't use contract negotiation notes as evidence of anything, as you have to make some wild leaps to get there. That was obviously his number so he wanted it, I don't know what responsibility he bears for a player that died many years prior when Messier was still a kid (it's not like the guy had died a year or two prior and this was a fresh thing). Any mishandling of the situation seems to fall on Vancouver for either not being aware or just thinking enough time had passed that it didn't matter (and again, I still don't know why if a number is supposed to be retired they didn't just retire it.. do other teams have "unofficial" retired numbers out there?)

Yes. In the case of Carolina #3 is retired unofficially due to the circumstances around Chiasson's death. Similar with Vasicek's #63 though imo that one should be officially retired. But basically a situation where even if someone wanted to wear either number the organization would never allow it. The only exception would be if the kids of either player made it to the show and wanted to do so.

 

[MS]

Mark Messier in Vancouver was an absolute sack of shit and deserves every bit of hate he gets from Canuck fans, and then some.

Except on this issue. The number thing wasn't his fault - it was the fault of weak Canuck management who were willing to throw team history in the trash to get their marquee signing.

 

[hacksaw7]

Mark Messier in Vancouver was an absolute sack of shit and deserves every bit of hate he gets from Canuck fans, and then some.

Except on this issue. The number thing wasn't his fault - it was the fault of weak Canuck management who were willing to throw team history in the trash to get their marquee signing.

It goes back to before that though, from his stick on Gradin, hitting an injured Linden as the seconds wound down during game 6, and winning the Cup against the Canucks in 1994. There was a lot of contempt underneath the surface from Canucks fans towards Messier...if it somehow worked out perfectly for Vancouver as it did for NYR then yea they would've embraced it, but it fell apart in the ugliest of fashions

 

[hacksaw7]

Those are covered by another contract already between the league, the players and the teams. But nice attempt at being facetious.

Is it a standard thing, available numbers that an incoming player wants...that player will have it written in the contract? I really have no idea one way or another. I mean they could just sign the contract...and then pick the number.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Is it a standard thing, available numbers that an incoming player wants...that player will have it written in the contract? I really have no idea one way or another. I mean they could just sign the contract...and then pick the number.

my guess is if you're messier or gretzky or mario and you have a multi-million dollar brand that is associated with your number, you want to make damn sure that no act of god can take away your number

just thinking out loud but let's say i'm sidney crosby's agent negotiating a twelve year deal with the penguins in, say, 2012. and for the sake of argument let's say mcdavid was a really really big crosby fan and wore that number too. crosby doesn't know this yet in 2012 but maybe in 2021 crosby slows down and they bring in mcdavid who at the time will be a bigger star than him. or maybe for whatever reason at the end of crosby's contract they trade him to mcdavid's team. in either event, there might very well be pressure for the current best player to keep his number, for branding reasons, or maybe just ego reasons. who knows right?

and under normal circumstances, a team has every right to assign whatever number it wants to whichever player.

but if it's in crosby's contract that he has to wear 87, assuming that that clause survives a trade, then he can still sell his warehouses of #87 sweatpants or whatever.

obviously all of these scenarios are made up, but it's agents, lawyers, and managers' jobs to think about these possibilities and proactively mitigate them.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Honestly if I'm Messier, I'm pretty ticked off that somehow my contract negotiation notes got leaked in a photo like that. Easy to paint someone as a villain for their "demands" when I'm sure players with that sort of status and clout negotiate things like that into their contracts all the time within the confines of the CBA.

 

[kaiser matias]

That's a good point - I initially missed the fine print. Makes me wonder if Messier was contemplating that Vancouver had a real chance of being his final port of call.

When did he buy his place at Hilton Head? I thought it was during his first tenure with the Rangers. He lives down there now I believe, though that may have been a decision that took time to finalize.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

on the topic of messier and moving expenses and real estate, which yes is going to be a derail, one interesting thing is every single player who played significant time in vancouver starting in the early 90s (and also many others who weren't necessarily here for very long) made a lot of money buying a house and then selling it when they left.

kesler and bieksa had a podcast before pandemic and bieksa was ribbing kesler because he was the only guy on the team who rented, so when the rest of them all left they all left with basically a million bucks for doing nothing and he missed out.

so in that laundry list of napkin demands, messier might have been better served not being leased that apartment free of charge by the team.

 

[Kranix]

on the topic of messier and moving expenses and real estate, which yes is going to be a derail, one interesting thing is every single player who played significant time in vancouver starting in the early 90s (and also many others who weren't necessarily here for very long) made a lot of money buying a house and then selling it when they left.

kesler and bieksa had a podcast before pandemic and bieksa was ribbing kesler because he was the only guy on the team who rented, so when the rest of them all left they all left with basically a million bucks for doing nothing and he missed out.

so in that laundry list of napkin demands, messier might have been better served not being leased that apartment free of charge by the team.

he needed a free apartment, he wasn't yet making Lays money

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

he needed a free apartment, he wasn't yet making Lays money

and he needed that jersey number to land thise lays commercials

 

[Sanf]

Bear in mind, all of this occurred in July 1997, two months before training camp even started. Notice Mrs. Maki says nothing bad about Messier himself (who possibly didn't even know about the issue at this point in time), and only about the Canucks' organization.

(I do wonder if Beverly Maki wasn't a bit too eager for media attention, though. She saw the press conference and called the Vancouver Sun?? Wouldn't you call the Canucks' organization first?)

This seems such a low blow to pump your favourite player that I need to comment. Theo already provided the correct order of the events, but here is how the actual Vancouver Sun article ended.

The Vancouver Sun 29 July 1997
"I spoke to Pat Quinn after the press conference and he apologized and told me he never lost respect for my father" said Wayne Maki Jr. 25. "They said they had tried to get hold of us but obviously they didn´t try hard enough to get our blessing, which they don´t have."

The junior Maki said he was told by Quinn that a clause in Messier´s contract included him receiving the No.11.

"Pat Quinn basically said there was nothing he could do about it now," concluded a bitter Maki.

Some would may react different, but I feel it´s natural to the family of Wayne Maki to be offended. And not attention seeking which seems really really weird to think of.

 

[sr edler]

What stands out to me a bit here is note number 7, a.k.a. single room on the road. Was this a common thing among elder statesman players at the time, to want a single room on the road? I know Linden roomed a lot with Öhlund, for instance. I get the practical aspect of it, wanting some privacy, et cetera, but doesn't it send a bit of a selfish me-first kind of message to the rest of the players? Especially from someone captaining a new team, who also wants to portray an image of himself as the greatest thing in leadership since the dawn of mankind?

Otherwise you have to blame a lot most of the stuff regarding the signing on the people running the organization at the time. Who, for instance, would think signing a 38-year old Duncan Keith for the 2021–22 season would seriously turn a team's Cup aspirations around?

Canucks organization had a bit of suspect track record with trying to acquire Gretzky, for instance.



I gained some mild respect for Messier when he was asked in some interview once about regretting the Mike Modano incident (where he knocked Modano unconscious with one of his patented elbows), and Messier just gave a big laugh as an answer, meaning he didn't regret it. To me, that felt a lot more genuine and honest than, say, the Scott Stevens approach where he would point and blink at players from the bench and say "you're next", meaning next to get hurt, but then in post career interviews he said he never wanted to hurt anyone. If you played a certain way, just own it. And I think Messier kind of did own it in a way.

 

[kaiser matias]

What stands out to me a bit here is note number 7, a.k.a. single room on the road. Was this a common thing among elder statesman players at the time, to want a single room on the road? I know Linden roomed a lot with Öhlund, for instance. I get the practical aspect of it, wanting some privacy, et cetera, but doesn't it send a bit of a selfish me-first kind of message to the rest of the players? Especially from someone captaining a new team, who also wants to portray an image of himself as the greatest thing in leadership since the dawn of mankind?

Regarding the rooms on roadtrips: I recall that it was a concession in the 2005 CBA, that players with something like 500 games or so were guaranteed their own room. I think the games-played threshold lowered in the 2013 CBA, so it does seem like it was a concern for the NHLPA up to then.

 

[hacksaw7]

What stands out to me a bit here is note number 7, a.k.a. single room on the road. Was this a common thing among elder statesman players at the time, to want a single room on the road? I know Linden roomed a lot with Öhlund, for instance. I get the practical aspect of it, wanting some privacy, et cetera, but doesn't it send a bit of a selfish me-first kind of message to the rest of the players? Especially from someone captaining a new team, who also wants to portray an image of himself as the greatest thing in leadership since the dawn of mankind?

Otherwise you have to blame a lot most of the stuff regarding the signing on the people running the organization at the time. Who, for instance, would think signing a 38-year old Duncan Keith for the 2021–22 season would seriously turn a team's Cup aspirations around?

Canucks organization had a bit of suspect track record with trying to acquire Gretzky, for instance.



I gained some mild respect for Messier when he was asked in some interview once about regretting the Mike Modano incident (where he knocked Modano unconscious with one of his patented elbows), and Messier just gave a big laugh as an answer, meaning he didn't regret it. To me, that felt a lot more genuine and honest than, say, the Scott Stevens approach where he would point and blink at players from the bench and say "you're next", meaning next to get hurt, but then in post career interviews he said he never wanted to hurt anyone. If you played a certain way, just own it. And I think Messier kind of did own it in a way.

One thing I remember (different sport) was that when Mike Piazza resigned with the Mets he had that single room on the road in his contract too. And I think we can all infer that while many players indulge in this sort of stuff...it's a lot easier to get your kicks on the road in your own room than if you have to share it with a teammate. It may be something star players get across all sports

 

[The Panther]

This seems such a low blow to pump your favourite player that I need to comment. Theo already provided the correct order of the events, but here is how the actual Vancouver Sun article ended.

The Vancouver Sun 29 July 1997
"I spoke to Pat Quinn after the press conference and he apologized and told me he never lost respect for my father" said Wayne Maki Jr. 25. "They said they had tried to get hold of us but obviously they didn´t try hard enough to get our blessing, which they don´t have."

The junior Maki said he was told by Quinn that a clause in Messier´s contract included him receiving the No.11.

"Pat Quinn basically said there was nothing he could do about it now," concluded a bitter Maki.

Some would may react different, but I feel it´s natural to the family of Wayne Maki to be offended. And not attention seeking which seems really really weird to think of.

Yes, I may be misinterpreting the Beverly Maki recollection of events. The Sun's description is sort of ambiguous.

The incident has nothing whatsoever to do with Messier himself, either way.

 

[hacksaw7]

What was it down to for Messier, I think Washington or Vancouver. Curious how much different things would've been if Messier was a Washington Capital in 97-98 (they did end up going to the finals without him)

 

[WarriorofTime]

Regarding the rooms on roadtrips: I recall that it was a concession in the 2005 CBA, that players with something like 500 games or so were guaranteed their own room. I think the games-played threshold lowered in the 2013 CBA, so it does seem like it was a concern for the NHLPA up to then.

One way to look at it, it was a big enough deal to players (probably older in particular) that it was central enough to make its way into the cba. I would bet a lot of veterans with clout negotiated this into their contracts at a time when franchises might otherwise try to limit the number of rooms they book to save money.

 

[The Macho Man]

One way to look at it, it was a big enough deal to players (probably older in particular) that it was central enough to make its way into the cba. I would bet a lot of veterans with clout negotiated this into their contracts at a time when franchises might otherwise try to limit the number of rooms they book to save money.

I do wonder if there was a concern that single rooms (in the hard cap era, pre-new CBA), are limited in what they can include in the SPC for stuff like that, because it could easily be construed as non-salary compensation and cap circumvention. For instance, with the exception of call-ups or trades, I imagine teams are limited in providing housing/hotel rooms to players as part of their contracts anymore, otherwise the Rangers would include a penthouse on 42nd street as part of every FA offer.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I do wonder if there was a concern that single rooms (in the hard cap era, pre-new CBA), are limited in what they can include in the SPC for stuff like that, because it could easily be construed as non-salary compensation and cap circumvention. For instance, with the exception of call-ups or trades, I imagine teams are limited in providing housing/hotel rooms to players as part of their contracts anymore, otherwise the Rangers would include a penthouse on 42nd street as part of every FA offer.

Yeah could be, salary cap makes everything a lot more complicated from a CBA standpoint. A lot of things that could probably be individually negotiated previously likely become off the table and subject to the CBA so that teams aren't circumventing.