In the days leading up to May Day, one of the most important days in organized labour, the NHLPA decided to make a change at the top:
From Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff:
For the first time in the 55-year history of the NHL Players’ Association, it appears a peaceful transition of power will be in order for hockey’s player union.
The NHLPA announced on Friday night that the union’s executive board voted this week to appoint a search committee to begin finding a successor to executive director Don Fehr.
To say the NHLPA is a mess is a bit of an understatement. The past few years have seen a frozen salary cap, few developments to benefit player safety, two missed Olympics, and numerous ignored cases of sexual and racial abuse. Little was done to benefit struggling alumni and their families. In fact, it’s hard to see what if anything was gained by the NHLPA. Donald Fehr was just quicker to compromise with ownership to keep the lights on and I guess with short careers, missing as few games as possible to a lockout seems like the right decision at the time.
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Donald Fehr’s time as the Executive Director of the NHLPA was simply about achieving the best possible deal when it comes to escrow payments. The players hate escrow. Rightfully so, but the fight for escrow cost the players in so many other areas, and honestly for the little return players receive from the owners in their collective agreement, for over half the league it probably would have been more beneficial to disband the NHLPA and negotiate directly with the teams without the restrictions imposed on them in their binding contract.
When it gets to the point where the union is hurting its members it’s time for a change, and to be fair to Donald Fehr, the NHLPA seemed to be there before his arrival and him being bad at achieving meaningful results might still be regarded as an upgrade over some of the hucksters who have occupied his office previously.
The problem with the change is it seems to be an exercise in maintaining the status quo, not improving. The search committee is going to be made up largely of players, and that is important as it is their interests at stake here. It just might be asking a lot of players to know the finer points of …

Read More

Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation