The entire NHLPA mess won't go away soon and certainly, won't go away quietly.
I've gotten some emails from readers here and at my Comcast address suggesting that perhaps outspoken Jeremy Roenick should be involved in the union.
I spoke to a couple of fairly-informed agent last week about the NHLPA. And people who knew Paul Kelly as the U.S. Attorney for Mass., BEFORE he ever came onto the NHL scene.
Training camps open this week and next around the league. Ask yourself this question: what are players most concerned about right now? Going into camp, getting in shape, making the roster or ... picking a new union boss?
Obviously, their primary focus will be camp. The players will let someone else worry about finding another union head. Afterall, that's what the executive board is for, correct?
The point is, the dissidents that overthrew Kelly in the middle of the night timed this to collide with the start of the hockey season so they can railroad their own people into place at a time when hockey players will be most concerned about themselves in training camp and not who's going to protect their long-term interests in the union.
The dissidents will take care of it.
I wrote my longest NHL notebook of the summer this morning on CSNPhilly.com, with a large chunk of it surrounding the the chaos within the union.
JR was on radio with Darren Dregger and Bill Watters last week in Toronto.
“The education of those players is going to be very low,” Roenick said. “I would say that most of them have high school educations, not college educations, and – not to put athletes down – but they are not the brightest bulbs in the box.
“That being said, they are really influenced by the smarter people – the lawyers, and the guys who seem to have gone to college and wear the suits and ties and represent themselves as being the smart people. The players look at these guys and put their faith in them, and sometimes they shouldn't do that.”
Which is why Kelly was canned now and not earlier this summer. The players will be distracted and a small, but powerful segment within the union, will complete their coup with a handpicked successor they will "offer" to the 30 player reps, who can then "sell it" to every club as the season gets underway.
For more on this subject and some great insight from a couple agents and Board of Governors, click onto my story at CSNPhilly.com:
click here 
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger • 
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