We’ve already covered quite a bit about the labor struggles going on amongst the owners and the players and about how all these actions will have an impact on how things play out when the Collective Bargaining Agreement runs out at the end of the 2011-2012 season. One disturbing part of all this is the internal strife going on amongst the players within the NHLPA. The NHL players have been courting former MLBPA head man Donald Fehr for some time to get him into position to deal with the owners during the next round of negotiations.
But just how did he get to be the prime candidate so fast, especially in the wake of Paul Kelly’s very public firing. Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe had one, brief statement on Twitter about what he thought happened.
Players get results of investigation into events that led to dismissal of PA ‘s Paul Kelly. Finding: Kelly shamefully railroaded.
Yikes. Craig Custance of The Sporting News looked into things a little bit more and tells us that Kelly may have indeed been given short shrift but we’ll be lucky if we ever get to actually find that out.
… An NHL source told Sporting News that details of the Kelly investigation remain sealed until there’s a new executive director. The new executive director will ultimately decide whether to make the full report available to the players. This week, the players heard a series of recommendations from the committee that did the lengthy investigation.
The decision to keep the results of the investigation into Kelly’s middle-of-the-night dismissal sealed might become questionable if Fehr gets the job, since some have accused Fehr of being behind Kelly’s dismissal.