Forced to quit school at the age of 14 to work at a Kitchener shoe factory for 18 cents an hour during the Great Depression, Milt Schmidt knows something about hard times.

Somewhere between hard times and broken promises lives uncertainty, the kind of uncertainty in which the 94-year-old Schmidt, the second oldest former NHLer still living, finds himself as the current NHL lockout rages between the billionaires and millionaires.

It’s an outrage, one that could be remedied by the stroke of a pen. Instead, players like Schmidt, Jean Beliveau, Johnny Bower and Gordie Howe who built the league and were already horribly shortchanged on their pensions are now being held hostage by the ongoing NHL labour squabble.

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Seven years ago, the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association finally eased that embarrassing pension burden by establishing a supplemental Senior Benefit Plan for players 65 years of age and older.

But when the current collective bargaining agreement with the league expired Sept. 15, so too did the Senior Benefit. Now, with the next payment due in January and no end in sight to the current lockout, more than 300 vulnerable former NHLers or their surviving widows have been left in limbo.

“There’s not a helluva lot we can do about it,” said former Leaf and Ranger Bob Nevin, 74. “There’s no avenue for us at our age.”

Schmidt, just six weeks younger than former Montreal star Elmer Lach, the oldest former NHL player, lives in a Boston-area seniors home and receives a pension of $357 a month. On top of that, for the past seven years he has received $12,000 annually through the Senior Benefit Plan.

“I can use it, although I’m doing OK,” said Schmidt. “But I also know there are players who can use it a lot more.”

Neither the NHL nor the NHLPA, when contacted by the Star, would commit to continuing the Senior Benefit Plan. When the NHLPA submitted a “comprehensive” new collective bargaining proposal to the league on Wednesday, there was no mention of it.

“The longer this goes, the more worried I get,” said Mark Napier, executive director of the NHL Alumni Association.

Wally Stanowski, 93, played 10 years in the NHL, seven for the Leafs. Several weeks ago, he lost his wife of 70 years, Joyce, to cancer.

He figures he needs $32,000 a year to continue to live in his modest two-story brick home in Etobicoke and cover his expenses, including a housekeeper who comes three times a week to help him. He struggles to get around and climb stairs.

His monthly pension is $459. He was due two payments of $5,343 as a Senior Benefit this year, one in January and one in August, but realized on Wednesday he only received one. That was two months late.

“I wouldn’t like it if they stopped it,” said Stanowski, rubbing his gnarled, arthritic hands. “I can get by, I guess. But it sure helps.”

For every season played, former players over the age of 65 receive $1,380 annually. The plan was conceived in 2004 by former players Pat Flatley, Ted Lindsay, Brian Conacher and Glenn Healy, and the league and players union agreed to each contribute $1 million per year.

“I didn’t know about the situation of many of these former players until I retired, and I’m quite disappointed in myself for not knowing,” said Flatley. “The equity of every team in the league was built on their backs.”

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In 2008, then NHLPA boss Paul Kelly convinced both sides to increase their annual contributions to $2 million each.

“Many of the older players and widows are reliant upon these monies as their sole source of support,” said Kelly. “These were the trailblazers in our game who were paid very modest sums for their efforts.”

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the Senior Player Benefit “has to be sorted out.”

“We intend to do the right thing,” Bettman told the Star.

NHLPA spokesman Jonathan Weatherdon said in an email “no one on either side has suggested changing this provision, nor has it been discussed.”

Those vague words resolve nothing. So hundreds of former players and widows wait, not knowing when the next cheque might arrive.

Former Leaf forward Danny Lewicki, 81, gets $3,400 twice a year in addition to his monthly pension of about $380.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “It would be a hardship if it stopped.”

Dallas Smith came out of Hamiota, Man., in 1959 to join the Boston Bruins and played 890 NHL games. He lives in Phoenix and uses $18,000 in Senior Benefit payments to cover his $15,000 annual medical insurance costs.

“If it doesn’t come, I guess I’ve just got to scratch around a little bit more,” said the 71-year-old former defenceman.

NHL owners and players don’t have to wait for a new CBA to address this issue. They could call a temporary halt to hostilities, commit to these retired players and write a cheque.

Right now, however, both sides seem focused on other issues. Making sure those who built the game are treated fairly isn’t on the agenda.