John Ziegler

This article is about sports official John Ziegler. For the politician see John van Nes Ziegler , for the physician John L. Ziegler .

John A. Ziegler junior (born February 9, 1934 in Grosse Pointe , Michigan ; † October 25, 2018 ) was an American sports official. He was the fourth president of the National Hockey League from 1977 to 1992 .

Career

Ziegler comes from a suburb of Detroit and studied law at the University of Michigan . After a few years in a law firm, he founded his own company in 1970. As early as 1959 he worked for the owner of the Detroit Red Wings , Bruce Norris and the Detroit Olympia . For the NHL he worked from 1966. In 1976 he was elected chairman of the NHL Board of Governors .

From 1977 he took over the presidency of the NHL from Clarence Campbell . At that time, the World Hockey Association was still a great competition for the NHL. Ziegler managed to reach an agreement with the WHA on a takeover. As a result, four former WHA teams played in the NHL from the 1979/80 season with the Edmonton Oilers , Hartford Whalers , Québec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets . During his tenure, he succeeded in strengthening the status of ice hockey in North America, which was reflected both in increasing audience numbers and, above all, in a significantly better media presence.

However, Ziegler was wrong when he said in the mid-1980s that Russian players would never play in the NHL and that players from the NHL would never take part in the Olympic Games.

He had a very good relationship with the NHLPA players' union . This enabled him to end a strike at the end of the 1991/92 season. However, many owners of NHL teams were not satisfied with the results of the negotiations and urged Ziegler to resign after the end of the season.

In 1987 he was honored with the induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame . In 1984 he received the Lester Patrick Trophy .

Web links

• John Ziegler in the database of the Hockey Hall of Fame (English)