The NHL has put out the “Best of the Week” highlights for last week and, again, you can see that some teams are really pushing up their efforts in order to secure a spot in the playoffs.  One of my favorite goals was by Alex Tanguay (Montreal Canadiens) against the Atlanta Thrashers but then there were incredible shots by Ales Hemsky (Edmonton Oilers), TJ Oshie (St. Louis Blues) and the Sedin Sisters (Vancouver Canucks).

Honestly, with everyone playing the way they have been lately, it’s not only going to be tough to predict a playoff winner, it’s also going to be hard to pick which games I watch.  As much as I hate the admit it, the Canucks have been pretty exciting.

Check out the action from last week!

I have to admit that I am green-obsessed and was happy to hear that the NHL Players’ Association was getting on board to do their part in helping the environment.  They are getting a little help from David Suzuki, though.  I swear, that man’s voice is in my head all day every day so I think it’s a good partnership.

The players have agreed to become more eco-friendly at home and at work through the NHLPA Carbon Neutral Challenge.  The initiative "involves players purchasing clean-air credits to compensate for the extra carbon produced by their extensive travels — a concept known as carbon offsets.  All the money they raise will help fund three clean-air projects around the world through Montreal-based not-for-profit Planetair."

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Wow… to say that Trevor Linden and Chris Chelios don’t like each other is an understatement! All I know is that I never want to upset Chelios since he can really hold a grudge… Read this!

Eleven years ago, when the Vancouver Canucks beat the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1 in overtime, Trevor Linden got into Chris Chelios’s face after the winning goal and the pair tussled.

Chelios threw the first punch and, after the players were separated, accused Linden of covering up and refusing to fight. And that was the high point of their relationship. It has devolved the last two years as Chelios leads his crusade for justice within a National Hockey League Players’ Association that Linden, as the union’s former president, led through a labour war that scuttled the 2004-05 season.

Sunday, Linden seemed ready for the fight.

“It’s easy to pile on,” Linden said before facing Chelios and the Detroit Red Wings Sunday night at GM Place. “I will say this: I’m extremely proud of the decisions the [NHLPA] executive committee made. I think we made, in very difficult times, good decisions for the players.”

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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

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*sigh* More salary cap stuff… I’m going to be honest - I don’t completely understand this but here’s the story anyway:

Player paycheques will be 9.5 per cent smaller during the first quarter of the 2007-08 NHL season, but that money could find its way back later on depending on the league’s bottom line.

The money withheld goes to a fund established under the new collective bargaining agreement to ensure owners don’t give up more in player salaries than their allotted share of revenues.

The NHL and NHL Players’ Association signed off on the 9.5 per cent number for the first quarter of the season on Tuesday, sources told The Canadian Press, and will monitor revenues throughout the season to see if it needs to be adjusted.

Last season players had 10 per cent of their paycheques held back but the final calculations saw players only pay out 2.76 per cent to the league with the rest reimbursed. In the end, once interest was factored in, the players earned 97.51 per cent of their 2006-07 salaries and bonuses.

In 2005-06, the first year of the CBA, the owners were the ones that got dinged - having to pay players back 4.37 per cent.

The final tally for this season will be figured out next fall.

A percentage of player salaries is held back because it’s impossible to predict league revenues and total player compensation in advance.

The salary cap continues to go up, with the players’ going up to 55.6 per cent last season from 54 per cent of revenues in 2005-06.

Tags: NHL, NHLPA, salary cap

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Ugh. I know some of you may actually like Scotiabank but some of my worst memories come from my days of dealing with them. One time, they lost my student loan documents and wanted me to write a letter to the government saying that I lost them. Yeah, if you’d seen the fit I threw in that branch that day, you’d understand why I had my money by dinnertime. I closed the account immediately.

Moving on…

Yesterday, Gary Buttmunch Bettman grinned like the lizard he is when the NHL, NHLPA in Canada and Scotiabank came to a $50 milllion dollar sponsorship deal (isn’t that less than what Daniel Brière got from the Flyers? LOL).

The agreement also allows the bank to put its stamp on the National Hockey League Players’ Association with a full range of banking services and on CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada through its sponsorship of a new pre-game show called Scotiabank Hockey Tonight.

While financial terms were not disclosed by either Scotiabank or the NHL, one sports industry journal reported the deal was worth about $50 million over five years for both the rights fees and related advertising.

Rick Waugh, Scotiabank president and CEO, called the deal a “true hat trick,” noting the bank, the NHL and hockey fans all win with the agreement.

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The past few years have not been good ones for the National Hockey League Players Association. First, it lost a bitter battle against the owners over a new collective bargaining agreement, which saw the league shut down for a year before the players finally conceded defeat. Then, the NHLPA bungled the job of replacing executive director Bob Goodenow by anointing Ted Saskin as his successor despite flaws in the selection process. Then, Saskin gets turfed “for cause” after allegedly hacking into the e-mail accounts of the NHLPA members in an attempt to control the inmates.

These days, the NHLPA is looking for a fresh start. It needs a new executive director and, arguably, a new mandate to take care of its members other than trying to get them more money. For example, the NHLPA and the NHL need to look at ways to make the game safer. The institution of mandatory visors should be seriously explored. As well, the NHLPA and NHL need to take a serious look at the troubling issue of concussions, which are becoming increasingly common. Maybe the equipment needs to be modified. If you look at elbow and shoulder pads these days, it’s not equipment any more but dangerous armour. Look what Chris Pronger did to Tomas Holstrom during the playoffs.

This week, the NHLPA is hoping to launch itself in a new direction by holding three days of meetings. It has put together an advisory committee consisting Shawn Horcoff, Bryan Muir and Eric Lindros that will come back with a series of recommendations after extensive discussions with the union heads of other sports leagues and Fortune 500 executives. Hopefully, what the committee will suggest is a new beginning that will see the NHLPA and NHL create a real partnership with win-win propositions for both sides.

A bunch of interesting items from the hockey world - aside from the Anaheim Ducks holding a 3-1 edge over the Ottawa Senators in the Stanley Cup final.

1. The scandal-plagued NHLPA plans to meet with a couple of sports union heavyweights in Toronto this week: Major League Baseball Player Association’s Donald Fehr, MLBPA legal counsel Michael Weinberg and National Basketball Players Association director Charles Grantham. The trio is apparently going to help the NHLPA, which has been leadership since executive director Ted Saskin was fired “for cause”, map out its future.

2. The Buffalo Sabres have yet to start contract negotiations with free-agent stars Daniel Briere and Chris Drury. To me, Drury seems like a safer bets given the Montreal Canadiens are expected to aggressively pursue the Quebec-born Briere. The Canadiens did not do well during last year’s free-agent campaign, settling for Sergei Samsonov, who was a huge bust.

3. The Stanley Cup finals are doing well on CBC and French-language Reseau des Sports but ratings on NBC in the U.S are - surprise, surprise, down from last year. The NBC affiliate in Tampa Bay cancelled its coverage of the finals to telecast an annual charity telethon.

While Chris Chelios is getting awful of credit for his role in the demise of ex-NHLPA head Ted Saskin, it would be wrong to overlook the role played by Trent Klatt, who was among the first players to question the hiring process after Saskin was anointed Bob Goodenow’s successor two years ago. It was Klatt who was the lone voice in the woods while most of his peers just wanted to start playing hockey again after the lock-out. As it turns out, Klatt, who abruptly retired in 2005 despite having time left on his contract, was right - although he probably didn’t realize the extent of the rot within the NHLPA.

Ted Saskin’s short and story reign as head of the NHL Players Association finally came to an abrupt end yesterday when he was hired “for cause” after a 22-0 vote by player representatives. Since he was hired 10 months ago, Saskin has been engulfed in controversy that started with a flawed hiring process and ended with allegation he hacked into the e-mail accounts of players. His firing arguably is a big step back for the NHLPA, which is still reeling after being skewered by owners in the last collective-bargaining negotiations. You could argue that the NHLPA has been this ineffectual since Alan Eagleson left amid his own black cloud of controversy.

Fortunately, there was some good news from the hockey world (aside from a wonderful game last night between Ottawa and Buffalo). Peter Puck is making a comeback after being away from the game for nearly a decade. The animated character, who was a staple during TV telecasts in the 1970s and icon to many children, will return to life after Peter’s owner/”father”, Brian McFarlane, struck a deal with Segal Licensing to produce a line of Peter Puck clothing, a DVD and memorabilia. Personally, I’m looking forward to buying a Peter Puck hockey shirt.

For more takes on Saskin’s demise, check out The Fanhouse, who dismisses Saskin as someone who acted with his own interests first and foremost. Tom Benjamin’s NHL Weblog offers that Saskin was “toast” even before a stinging three-page report emerged recently.