After two days of meeting in Toronto, the National Hockey League Players' Association did not make a decision on who their next executive director will be, but if players like Calgary Flames forward Robyn Regehr and Buffalo Sabre Steve Mondator get their way, that man will be Donald Fehr.
Fehr, who recently retired as the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association is currently working with the NHLPA in an advisory role.
According to Regehr, the NHLPA wants a new executive director in place by training camp and that the PA is looking at different "structures" which is holding up the process.
"I know that originally talking to Don, I think he wasn't even interested in the position," Regehr said. "For whatever reason he's changed his stance now."
One of the proposed structures is reportedly a 1 and 1A situation, where Fehr works primarily towards the new collective agreement which expires in September 2012, while the other person would not only be learning but doing the day-to-day work, with the agreement that he/she would take over from Fehr once the next collective agreement was finished.
"If you just look at Don's credentials, it's hard to not want somebody with his expertise be involved," Montador said. "Having said that, the amount of time and expertise that he's giving to us already, we're extremely grateful for that as is."
For his part, Fehr remained non-committal when speaking to the media.
"Am I officially a candidate?" Fehr stated. "No, I'm officially not anything but an unpaid advisor to the search committee and that's all I can say about that."
While the leadership decision is still pending, the NHLPA executive committee, which is made up of all 30 player representatives, did adopt a new constitution which will need to be ratified by two-thirds of the NHL players.
