Fehr step closer to becoming head of NHL players union

Donald Fehr was approved yesterday by the NHL Players Association's executive board, comprised of all 30 team player representatives, and now a full vote of the membership next month will install Fehr into the chaotic seat in charge of the union as it prepares to battle the NHL over the next collective bargaining agreement.

The CBA expires in September 2012, and Fehr, 62, is the man the PA wanted almost since he signed on as an unpaid advisor to the PA in their search for a fifth executive director since the 2004-05 lockout.

"There's a lot of work to be done, especially with players who came into the league after the lockout," Fehr said on a conference call yesterday. "It's a matter of getting back to basics."

Fehr advised the five-man search committee in its goal of finding a replacement for Paul Kelly, who was ousted last year. As the process went on, the committee - which included Devils captain Jamie Langenbrunner - decided that it wanted Fehr, who retired as head of the Major League Baseball players' union last June, after 26 years at the helm.

Fehr had no experience with hockey besides attending a few games before offering to advise the union. With the CBA coming up for negotiation in two years and - after the search committee focused on Fehr - the Ilya Kovalchuk contract mess over the last two months, the union decided it needed someone with a strong background.

"There's no one who knows this process better than him," Langenbrunner told Newsday in August. "He's been through it with baseball so many times before, that can only help us."

Fehr will be conducting individual team meetings throughout training camps. "The only way you can be successful in this type of thing is to make sure the players are educated, they understand the process, they understand the issues, they think, they participate and they evaluate," Fehr said.

Fehr successfully staved off a salary cap in baseball, and stood by his feeling that MLB still doesn't need a cap. The NHL already has a cap and there are rumblings that the league will seek to tighten the cap even further in the next CBA, with many small-market teams still struggling financially in spite of the lockout from six years ago.