DETROIT — For decades, part of the experience of going to Detroit Red Wings games included the man who was driving the Zamboni. His presence was so important that the team’s mascot was even named after him. So when he was dismissed in 2022, it didn’t go unnoticed.
However, a Wayne County jury did not side with that Zamboni driver, Al Sobotka, this week when it voted in favor of Olympia Entertainment, the Red Wings’ parent company, in a yearslong age discrimination case that Sobotka brought against the organization in April 2022 after he was dismissed following a urination incident in the Zamboni garage.
The lawsuit brought by Sobotka — whose work with the Red Wings spanned 51 years, including his time at the team’s former Olympia Stadium home — alleged that Olympia Entertainment violated the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act when it terminated him at the age of 68, under the stated reason of “bad judgment.”
“I’m devastated, distraught, just sad,” Sobotka said Thursday evening, on his 72nd birthday, about his reaction to the verdict.
Sobotka is a popular figure among Red Wings fans largely because of his lengthy tenure with the team, in which he handled day-to-day ice operations, including driving the Zamboni, and a tradition of recovering and swinging octopuses thrown onto the ice at Red Wings games. When the team created an octopus mascot in 1995, it named the mascot “Al.”
Sobotka’s lawsuit alleged he was diagnosed with benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), causing a frequent and uncontrollable need to urinate. According to the suit, on Feb. 2, 2022, Sobotka “suddenly experienced an uncontrollable urge to urinate” due to his condition after cleaning the ice and moving the Zamboni into the garage, which is not open to the public and is accessible only to the ice crew, which the lawsuit said was all male.
Rather than walk an estimated “60-70 feet” to a public restroom, Sobotka’s lawsuit said he instead urinated into the “pit,” where unloaded ice drains and runs into the sewer, while standing behind two Zambonis.
The lawsuit alleged that another male employee saw Sobotka urinating into the pit and reported the incident to management, and that after being told he was “under investigation,” Sobotka was ultimately terminated and told it was for his “bad judgment.”
“I feel horrible, but I couldn’t hold it,” Sobotka said Thursday.
“It’s the only place I could go at the time,” he said. “I didn’t want to pee my pants. I had to work there for the next 14 hours, you know? … No, it should not have led to my firing.”
The lawsuit also alleged that, in January 2022, vice president of venue operations Tim Padgett told Sobotka he was “getting old.” It further alleged that Sobotka’s termination “was not due to lack of seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, but rather, due to age.”
According to the suit, as a result of the violations alleged, Sobotka “has suffered loss of earnings and earning capacity, past and future lost earnings; and loss of the value of benefits.” The lawsuit sought compensatory and exemplary damages, as well as legal fees, reinstatement with back pay, court-ordered training for Olympia Entertainment managers and supervisors about age discrimination in the workplace, as well as other forms of relief.
Instead, the jury ruled against Sobotka. His lawyer, Deborah Gordon, called it a “young jury” and said deliberations lasted around 40 minutes, adding that comparable time in previous employment cases she’s been involved with has typically lasted about four hours.
“Age had to be not the sole reason or the only reason. It had to be one of the reasons that made a difference,” Gordon said. “That’s the law. So we were very surprised (by) the way the jury came out, and (Sobotka) was devastated all over again.”
Michael Mitchell, a lawyer who represented Olympia Entertainment in the case, said the jury was selected with input from counsel for both sides.
“(Sobotka) engaged in what the company found to be gross misconduct, especially as a manager, especially considering he was a 50-plus-year employee. And so based on that, we felt strongly that (the jury’s) determination was justified, it was appropriate,” Mitchell said.
He added: “The age discrimination was the last pending claim in the case. Again, the jury decided that issue, I believe, properly in favor of Olympia Entertainment. And so I do believe that this was a just and right result when it’s all said and done.”
Gordon said Thursday her team is considering potential next steps. Sobotka said he’s been working part-time at an ice rink, but “we’re struggling here.”
“I’m trying to pick up any kind of work,” he said.