Small But Mighty, Hockey Crusader Susan Foster Belongs In The HHOF

Susan Foster April 26, 1944 - May 7, 2023

The first time I saw Susan Foster’s wonderful smile was in 1991, just after I’d seen Carl Brewer’s legendary scowl. I’d come to their home on Mt. Pleasant Avenue in midtown Toronto to follow a story I was researching about the meagre pensions for retired NHL greats and the corruption of the NHL Players Association under Alan Eagleson.

When I announced my plan, Carl had said— in his measured, sarcastic tone— that he’d had reporters up to here (he pointed to his bald dome). He wasn’t cooperating anymore with media guys who were spies for the owners. I swallowed hard. That’s when Sue (everyone called her Sue) emerged from the back kitchen, beaming her smile.

“Oh Carl,” she chided. “He’s come all the way up here, at least ask him in.” Carl did what he always did when Sue gave his a suggestion. He obliged. When I left their place two hours later I had embarked on a journey that would take almost eight years to complete, a story of intrigue, deceit and discovery to assist my boyhood heroes. Through Carl/ Sue it won me two Gemini Awards.

Of far greater importance, it brought me and my family two enduring friendships. Carl, the imposing rebel of hockey whose heart was always troubled, died in 2001. And Sue, who left us last Sunday, the teacher-turned-social-catalyst who won over even enemies with her sweetness and determination. Small but mighty, she even charmed Gary Bettman, the cold-fish NHL commissioner.

In league with the indomitable Russ Conway of the Lawrence Eagle Tribune we took down a man and a system many thought invincible. It was gratifying and frustrating all the same but, oh, the trails we travelled. In a snowstorm up to our waist in Boston for the announcement of the charges against Eagleton. In Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, to plan more strategy with Russ. In Sue’s backyard where her cats— always she had cats around— walking the fence around her deck while I read the galleys of her book The Power Of Two about her life with the mercurial Mr. Brewer.

By the time I met them, Carl and Sue had been chasing the NHL over Carl’s pension since 1980, when he finally stopped playing in the NHL at age 41. When the league refused his personal grievance over a single year’s pension, they declared war on behalf of everyone. They went though, by their own estimation, 22 lawyers who told them to give up before Mark Zigler of Koskie Minsky took on the file that would end with Carl, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Ted Lindsay, Andy Bathgate and hundreds of others winning their pension lawsuit to retire millions of dollars to their Fund. 

It took another four years before Eagleson answered for his scoundrel turn, being convicted in Canada and the U.S. for fraud and other crimes. Carl stood up in Boston court to declare that it was only the United States Justice Department who’d saved hockey players. Typically, Eagleson’s pals like ex-PM John Turner and Supreme Court justice John Sopinka made sure he only served a sliver of what he deserved in a Canadian jail. (He’d have done five years in the jar if he’d been sentenced in the U.S. which had forced Canada to due its duty.)

Through it all, Sue was the discoverer of documents, the one who remembered a letter sent, the recruiter to the cause. With tea and caramel cake she brought us more allies every week while keeping Carl’s head from exploding in outrage at the ill-treatment. Her normalcy charmed media people into finally doing their duty to come aboard. No one could refuse her calls. Only fools underestimated the gentle grandmother.

She taught me how to use the corporations act to explore boards of directors, and land transfers that slowly unveiled the manner in which players had been defrauded by Eagleson and the NHL. Her late-night calls announcing legal hearings and extradition requests kept me and CBC TV Toronto a step ahead of the competition. 

A loving mother to Dan and Melanie, she soon adopted my own three kids to her brood. They’d arrive home for lunch to see Carl’s gleaming skull next to Sue pouring tea at our dining table. The gentle giant and the den mother. When the news came of her death from dementia Evan, Rhys and Clare were crestfallen, recalling those simple childhood days on Manor Road East.

I remembered driving in the limousine to Carl’s funeral at St. Michael’s Cathedral on St. Clair. I told her I was nervous, because there’d be about 50 former NHL greats in the pews for my eulogy. A hundred other hockey people were coming too. I’d had about four hours sleep coming in from Calgary on the red-eye. Sue grabbed my arm, smiled and said, “You’ll be fine. That’s why I picked you.” My worries disappeared.

After Carl’s passing— and the Pension issue subsided-- Sue turned into advocate for the Original Six survivors, going to charity fundraiser games. And when the retired NHL guys grew too old to play, she attended luncheons where they exchanged notes with Sue on their predicaments. She reviewed lawyers’ letters and pension arcana for them, listening to their weathered stories as if it were her first listening. 

One by one, they’ve disappeared, succumbing to age and the inevitable. When their funerals were within driving distance Sue was there to send them off properly. Now it’s her turn, and it breaks my heart I won’t be able to join Melanie (Will) and Dan (Sarah) and their kids Angeline, Marshal, Foster and Hannah this week on Bayview, the scene of so many great days. We will have Dowbiggins there to make she’s remembered properly. Still.

The last time I saw her she was beginning to show the signs of PCA, a rare and debilitating dementia. An inability to use the phone or computer. Difficulty reading. But we still walked a couple of blocks down Mt. Pleasant over to The Homeway for brunch. It was spring, and she noted how the trees were blossoming in tribute. She was still full of chat, maybe a little apprehensive about her memory. But oh, that smile when I kissed her goodbye at the door. It elevated you.

They need to put her in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Now.

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx