GARY Bettman, who spent the lockout trying to break the NHLPA (and would have succeeded if not for the efforts of people such as Chris Chelios, Trent Klatt, Steve Larmer and Eric Lindros), recently went on the record insisting he believes in and welcomes a strong union across from him at the table.
Well, the commissioner is going to get what he wished for, because once Paul Kelly, the former assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, becomes NHLPA executive director, that’s exactly what the union will again become.
It will be strong, it will be independent, and it will be led by an individual of unquestioned integrity. At a time when the PA is still swimming through the sewage of the Ted Saskin fiasco – have you heard the one about how Bettman and Bill Daly’s partner used air miles belonging to the union to take his family on a summer vacation to Israel? – integrity and independence are the two most important attributes of the NHLPA’s next leader.
Kelly, a Boston attorney who helped build the U.S. case against felonious former NHLPA director Alan Eagleson, will be presented for approval by the union search committee to the board of player reps in a conference call within the next three days, Slap Shots has learned. A vote will be taken in accordance with the new constitution that has been distributed to every player in the league and is expected to be adopted prior to Kelly’s nomination.
In Eagleson and Saskin, NHL players have been betrayed by two of the three men they’ve hired to lead their union. That’s why it was – and is – imperative for these athletes to hire an individual who, a) understands hockey players and their psychology; b) knows chapter and verse of the history of the union and its relationship with the league; and c) will operate independently.
The leader of the NHLPA has partners, all right, only they’re the 750 players in the union, not the executives on Sixth Avenue. If Saskin couldn’t remember that, Kelly, who sought to have Eagleson extradited to the States to face charges of fraud and embezzlement, will never forget it.
The NHLPA is not charged with generating revenues for the league. The fact is, the NHLPA can’t even get the NHL to acknowledge its ideas for revenue-generating programs. This should be no surprise. The league is content with annual 5 percent revenue growth created by increased ticket prices and new uniform system sales. It has no interest in a dramatic growth in revenue that would in turn create a dramatically higher salary cap.
Indeed, as Slap Shots reported two weeks ago by virtue of having obtained Jim Dolan’s letter to the 29 other owners in which the Garden CEO explained his lawsuit against the league, the NHL office accounts for 7 percent of league revenue, with the 30 teams accounting for 93 percent. Prior to the lockout, NHL national deals accounted for 9 percent of the gross.
The league would have liked nothing more than for the NHLPA to have selected an individual with a marketing background to become its next leader, for he would have been easy to ignore while all the while mouthing platitudes about a partnership. There are even players who have been advised by agents with pie-in-the-sky visions who somehow still believe they have real input into the league’s business operation. They don’t.
The NHLPA’s first order of business is to restore integrity and independence to the union. It’s to hire a leader with a grasp of the limitations (and opportunities) within the triple-cap collective bargaining agreement. It’s to hire an executive director who will communicate with the rank-and-file, who will encourage an open forum, who will dedicate himself to educating the league’s young players.
The NHLPA’s first order of business is to hire an individual who will represent the players’ interests, not his own.
The NHLPA’s first order of business is to ratify the nomination of Kelly. Its second order of business can be to watch Bettman and the Board of Governors squirm, er, welcome the new, strong union leader.