The Puck Stops Here

On Friday, Ted Saskin and the NHLPA executive released a press release to announce that the majority of their members back Saskin as NHLPA head. In fact, this was not even news at all. This was something well known to the NHLPA and Trent Klatt and the players who are rebelling against the non-democratic way Saskin was brought in and the NHLPA accepted defeat in the lockout.

In fact, this was not even news to TSN. Bob McKenzie reported this as far back as November 1st. So why then does the the November 24th TSN article not even mention that this was not a new development? It was a press release designed to sway uninformed players who are on the fence about the current NHLPA problems and influence the media and the general public's opinion.

Klatt et al are complaining about the process where the NHLPA removed Bob Goodenow as their leader and installed Ted Saskin as the new NHLPA head under the understanding that he would give into the owners demands to end the lockout. This was all done by various NHLPA executive members (who likely believed that they were acting in the best interest of the players and did win support of the CBA in a vote) in violation of the NHLPA's own rules.

Since then, Ted Saskin has "circled the wagons" trying to maintain his leadership. Another vote was called to confirm him as NHLPA head - hopefully this time following NHLPA rules. Some teams quickly returned their votes for Saskin. Other teams refused to even consider these votes. The majority of votes returned by the 37 member executive committee (which has one player from each team plus seven executive members) confirm Saskin. The remainder of the votes may never be returned at all.

Trent Klatt claims that votes were to be returned by December 16th to the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCooper and the release of partial results before that date calls the whole process into question.

This voting process to confirm Saskin never really addressed Klatt et als complaints. Their complaints are about the process that brought in the new CBA and the new NHLPA head. They wont be satisfied until a new NHLPA head democratically elected from a group of a few candidates.

These are further problems in the history of the NHLPA.

Here is Al Strachan's view on the Saskin press release.