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NHL players eager to get union help from Donald Fehr

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This probably isn’t the kind of story hockey fans are excited to read about, especially considering the potential implications it could have, but hey, we have to give you all the news here whether you like it or not. The Globe and Mail’s Chris Johnston breaks the fan-angst-filled update on what the NHLPA thinks of getting former MLBPA head man Donald Fehr involved as an adviser and possibly more.

A number of NHL players threw their support behind Fehr on the eve of meetings for the NHLPA’s executive board. Speaking at the union’s charity golf tournament on Monday afternoon, Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Mike Komisarek said he was “crossing his fingers” that Fehr would accept a leadership position with the union.

“He’d be a huge asset for the NHLPA,” said Komisarek. “To have him come in and lead this union, to round up and gather 700 guys and get them on the same page would be great.”

We talked about Fehr working with the NHLPA as an unpaid adviser a few weeks ago here and the NHLPA gave us their statement on the process, through a spokesman, that “their search for a new Executive Director is ongoing and when the process has concluded, a report will be presented to the players for their consideration.”

As for more of what the players will do to try and convince Fehr to jump on board, Pittsburgh’s Max Talbot shared his thoughts.

“He’s obviously really experienced, what he’s done with baseball is great,” said Pittsburgh Penguins winger Max Talbot. “It’s tough to find someone with that kind of experience, but we don’t know what’s going to happen.

“We’re going to talk about it tomorrow and Wednesday.”

A little brown-nosing goes a long way and given what a huge mess the NHLPA has been for the better part of 20 years, getting the man who got the Major League Baseball Players Association everything they ever wanted and more certainly looks attractive.

The Hockey News’ Ken Campbell runs down a list of the things the NHL players will be looking to do at their summer meeting to amend their constitution. To sum it up best for you, these amendments essentially give more power to the executive director of the players union to lead more efficiently and with hopes for less mutiny. In other words, they’re setting it up so Donald Fehr (or whomever they decide on to lead them) can rule with less interference from within.

I’m not going to be Chicken Little here and yell about the sky falling, but the eventual 2012 battle to renegotiate the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players and owners is going to be contentious, heated and probably ugly. Let’s just hope these guys all learned a lesson from what happened with the lost season.