Paul Kelly Takes Over NHLPA
October 24, 2007 by Jeanne Dupuis
Filed under NHLPA, News
Paul Kelly will be officially announced as the new executive director of the NHL Players’ Association at a press conference later today. The 30 player representatives (one from each team) elected him in a secret ballot. The former director, Ted Saskin was removed back in May after he was accused of monitoring players’ emails (along with the union’s head of business development, Ken Kim).
Kelly was nominated Oct. 15 to replace Saskin as executive director following an exhaustive search by a five-player committee consisting of Mike Cammalleri, Chris Chelios, Shawn Horcoff, Eric Lindros and Robyn Regehr, with the help of Reilly Partners, a Chicago headhunting firm.
Kelly is a partner at Kelly, Libby and Hoopes, a Boston law firm specializing in complex civil and administrative litigation.
He was the assistant district attorney involved in a grand jury investigation into Alan Eagleson, the NHLPA’s first executive director.
Eagleson was indicted by a Boston grand jury and, in 1998, pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud.
He was fined $700,000 US and, later that year, pleaded guilty in a Toronto court to three more counts of fraud and embezzling proceeds from the 1984, 1987 and 1991 Canada Cup tournaments.
Eagleson was sentenced to 18 months in prison and served six months at the Mimico Correctional Centre in Toronto before being released.
Tags: paul kelly, nhlpa, ken kim, ted saskin, hockey, players association
