Robert W. "Bob" Goodenow (born October 29, 1952, in

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring Metro Detroit, suburb of Detroit, Dearborn borders Detroit to the south and west, roughly west of downtown Detroit. In the 2020 United States ...

) is an American lawyer who served as the second executive director of the

NHL Players Association The National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA, ) is the labour union for the group of professional hockey players who are under Standard Player Contracts to the 32 member clubs in the National Hockey League (NHL) located in the Unite ...

from 1992 until his resignation on July 28, 2005. He graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1974 and from the

University of Detroit The University of Detroit Mercy is a private Catholic university in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is sponsored by both the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Sisters of Mercy. The university was founded in 1877 and is the largest Catho ...

Law School in 1979. Goodenow succeeded

Alan Eagleson Robert Alan Eagleson (born April 24, 1933) is a disbarred Canadian lawyer, hockey agent and promoter. Clients that he represented included superstars Bobby Orr and Darryl Sittler. He was the first executive director of the NHL Players Assoc ...

as the head of the NHLPA in 1992 upon Eagleson's resignation. In his first couple months on the job, he led the players out on a 10-day strike on the eve of the

Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup () is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, and the International Ic ...

playoffs. Two years later, Goodenow and NHL Commissioner

Gary Bettman Gary Bruce Bettman (born June 2, 1952) is an American sports executive who serves as the NHL commissioner, commissioner of the National Hockey League (NHL), a post he has held since February 1, 1993. Previously, Bettman was a senior vice preside ...

oversaw a 103-day lockout that lasted from October 1, 1994, to January 11, 1995. Goodenow was also the NHLPA's Executive Director during the 2004–05 labor dispute, which resulted in the cancellation of the

2004–05 NHL season The 2004–05 NHL season would have been the National Hockey League's 88th season of play. The entire 1,230-game schedule, that was set to begin in October, was officially canceled on February 16, 2005, due to an unresolved lockout that began ...

. A tentative agreement was reached on July 13, 2005. On July 28, 2005, Goodenow was asked to step down as NHLPA chief and was replaced by

Ted Saskin Ted Saskin (born ) served as the third executive director of the NHL Players Association from 2005 to 2007. He assumed the title after Bob Goodenow resigned on July 28, 2005, but was unanimously fired by the NHLPA on May 10, 2007, after a union-com ...

, NHLPA Senior Director of Business Affairs and Licensing and the head negotiator during the CBA contract talks. This resignation came less than two weeks after the NHL and the NHLPA came to the new CBA. On December 15, 2007, TSN reported that Goodenow had been hired by Russian businessman

Alexander Medvedev Alexander Ivanovich Medvedev (, ; born 14 August 1955) is the current Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee of Russian energy company Gazprom and since February 2019 he is the director general and president of the football club FC Zenit Sa ...

to help in the creation of a European hockey league to rival the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

. The

Kontinental Hockey League The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL; ) is an international professional ice hockey league founded in 2008. It comprises member clubs based in Russia (20), Belarus (1), Kazakhstan (1), and China (1) for a total of 23 clubs. It was considered in ...

was eventually formed a year later.

Awards and honors

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodenow, Bob 1952 births Living people Harvard University alumni University of Detroit Mercy alumni National Hockey League Players' Association executive directors Sportspeople from Dearborn, Michigan Harvard Crimson men's ice hockey players