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- Former Red Wings Zamboni driver Al Sobotka sued for age discrimination after being fired for urinating in an ice drain.
- Sobotka’s lawyer argued the firing was an excuse to replace him with a younger employee, while the company maintained it was due to misconduct.
- Sobotka sought $6 million in damages for humiliation, pain, and suffering.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with new details.
After one hour of deliberations, a jury ruled against fired Detroit Red Wings Zamboni driver Al Sobotka, concluding the longtime beloved octopus twirler and hurler was not discriminated against when he was axed for urinating in an ice drain at work after 50 seasons with the team.
The mostly young, Wayne County jury voted 5-2 against Sobotka, who alleged Olympia Entertainment fired him at the age of 69 because it thought he was too old, and used the peeing debacle as an excuse to get rid of him. In a civil case, the jury does not have to be unanimous.
“I’m shocked and disappointed, ” a visibly distraught Sobotka said after the verdict came down, stressing he told the truth about what happened to him — that a supervisor told him he was “getting old” just weeks before he was fired. “I didn’t make that stuff up. He said it.”
His attorney, Deborah Gordon, was equally taken aback by the verdict, saying “We’re extremely disappointed, and surprised.”
As multiple jurors explained, the facts weren’t there to support this firing had to do with age.
“There’s not a single person in here who would not feel bad for him. We had sympathy for him. But we had to base our decision on the facts of the case,” a 22-year-old male juror told the Free Press after the decision was announced. “What stood out most is he admitted to doing it.”
Lawyers for Olympia Entertainment, meanwhile, celebrated in the courtroom after the verdict came down, hugging one another and slapping each other on the back, saying “Awesome” and “Good job.”
The verdict came down at 4:20 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14, after the jury spent hours listening to closing arguments from both sides.
Gordon, who had asked for a $6 million verdict, went first and longest, detailing the high-profile case for more than two hours, during which she implored the jury to rule against Olympia Entertainment, maintaining they did a longtime and loyal employee wrong, and never gave him a second chance when it could have.
Sobotka drops bombshell: Mike Ilitch peed in drain, too
Gordon also addressed a bombshell that Sobotka dropped during his testimony, when he said that the late Wings owner Mike Ilitch had once peed in an ice drain, too, at Joe Louis Arena.
The point of his testimony, as argued by Sobotka’s lawyer, was to show that others have done what he was terminated for, and that men sometimes pee in places other than a restroom, particularly in sports. But the action should not be a criminal offense, much less a firing one.
“The point is this: the company (Olympia Entertainment) is critical of Al … when Mike himself used the drain,” Gordon said Tuesday during closing arguments in the wrongful termination trial of Detroit’s beloved Zamboni driver and octopus twirler. Sobotka is suing Olympia Entertainment for alleged age discrimination, maintaining the company unlawfully let him go in 2022 after an ice rink employee saw him peeing in an ice drain in the Zamboni room, and reported him to human resources.
Gordon asked the jury to award her client $6 million for the humiliation, pain and suffering he has endured since getting walked out of the ice rink and ultimately fired in 2022 because, as Sobotka has maintained, he couldn’t hold it due to a prostate issue.
During her 2-hour-long closing, Gordon hammered away at this theme: The company got rid of Sobotka because he was old, used the peeing incident as an excuse, replaced him with a younger employee and gave him Sobotka’s $80,000 salary that it took Sobotka decades to earn — and chose to fire a loyal employee with a solid record, when it could have given him a warning instead.
‘A warning would have resolved this … He would have gotten down on his knees if they told him to’
“We all know a warning would have resolved this,” said Gordon, whose voice rose as she pointed to Sobotka, who sat in a courtroom pew with his wife and daughters, wearing a suit with a red tie and pin attached that read: “Mr. I,” as in Ilitch.
“Here’s Al. This man’s heart and soul is with the Detroit Red Wings and Olympia Entertainment. He would have gotten down on his knees if they told him to and said, ‘I will never do this again,’ ” Gordon said.
But that never happened, said Gordon, who also reminded the jury of a key executive’s testimony during trial, when the executive said: “‘I have no reason to believe that Al would have disobeyed me if I told him to never do this again.'”
Sobotka also alleges that shortly before his firing, another executive told him “you’re getting old” during a meeting.
For Gordon, perhaps most notable is that the company has conceded that Sobotka peeing caused no harm to the company, and that nobody saw the incident that day except for an ice employee who said he saw “a stream” going into the ice drain.
“Everybody admits there was no harm in Al urinating. … There was no loss of money,” Gordon said. “This was a harmless offense.”
Olympia defends firing: ‘He pulled his penis out to urinate. It’s that simple.’
Olympia Entertainment, however, has long maintained that it had every right to fire Sobotka over his behavior, and that his age had nothing to do with it.
“There is no evidence at all showing any kind of age discrimination,” Olympia’s attorney, Michael Mitchell, told jurors during his closing, stressing this is a case about bad behavior and a company having the right to get rid of employees who misbehave.
Mitchell also disputed Sobotka’s claim that an executive told him he was “getting old” during a meeting, and that the company conspired to get rid of him over his age.
“Use your common sense,” Mitchell told the jury. “Did we plan for Al to go into the Zamboni room and pee? … It makes no sense at all.”
Mitchell also scoffed at Sobotka’s claims that he had a prostate issue that made it difficult for him to hold his pee, noting he did not tell the company about it until after the incident.
“There was no sting, no plan of getting rid of Al Sabotka. He’s this big icon. Why would they try to get rid of him?” Mitchell told the jury, stressing Sobotka alone is to blame for losing his job. “There was no reason until he made the choice to urinate in that Zamboni room, that’s the reason why he was fired.”
Mitchell continued: “This is what employers do … when they have bad behavior like this in the workplace, they fire them.”
As for Sobotka’s claim that Mike Ilitch once peed in an ice drain at the Joe, Mitchell had this to say:
“He pulled his penis out to urinate. It’s that simple.”
“To have Mr. Sobotka get on that stand and to say Mister Ilitch had done that … that’s what he come up with now, this family that he loves so much, ‘Oh Mister Ilitch did the same thing’ — a man who can’t defend himself, that’s how much he loved the Ilitch family,” Mitchell said.
For years, Sobotka had a close relationship with the Iltich family. In previous interviews with the Free Press, he recalled running errands for Mike and Marian Ilitch, driving their cars, delivering Christmas presents for them to other family members, and helping move their furniture. He has maintained that if h Mike Ilitch were alive during the urinating incident, he would not have lost his job.
Contact Tresa Baldas: [email protected]
