The next few months will be a busy time for Paul Kelly, executive director of the NHL Players' Association, with players reconsidering their participation at the Winter Olympics, the growth of the game internationally and deciding whether to re-open the collective bargaining agreement.

View Large

Paul Kelly.

Photograph by : Getty Images

ARTICLE TOOLS

• Printer friendly
• E-mail

Font:

• *
• *
• *
• *

Kelly said the players will have meetings through the fall to discuss the pros and cons of the agreement that has seen pay levels rise despite the presence of a salary cap. The players have until May 18, 2009, to let the league know whether they want to re-open the CBA.

"We'll point out some areas where it has worked perhaps better than anticipated," said Kelly. "We'll point out some areas where we think it should be changed or improved. (But) we'll lay out for them issues we think the owners would raise if we were to terminate the CBA.

"We will lay out the facts. I'm not advocating for the guys. They're smart guys, it's their call."

Kelly said the league is facing challenges internationally, with the raiding of players under contract by rival leagues potentially being an issue that could disrupt NHL participation in Winter Olympics beyond 2010 in Vancouver.

The International Ice Hockey Federation is due to decide next week over the future of Alexander Radulov, who has a contract with the Nashville Predators but signed to play with Salavat Ufa in the Russian-based Kontintental Hockey League (KHL).

"If the ruling is the (NHL) contract is valid, and the KHL chooses not to recognize it, I'm sure you're going to see an icy relationship between the NHL and the KHL," said Kelly.

The possibility of boycotting the Victoria Cup - a new tournament pitting a NHL team against a European champion in training camp - was discussed and dismissed.

But he said the more relations deteriorate between the NHL and the KHL, the less likely the NHL would want to participate in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

That very matter is on the table, as is future World Cups and world championships. The Russians, meanwhile, believe some players recently drafted into the NHL have valid Russian contracts, including Columbus's top pick, Nikita Filatov.

"They're trying to rebuild the game in Russia," said Kelly. "They do not want to lose their better players, particularly leading in to the Olympics.

"It's our position that if a young player wants to play in the NHL, they should have the right to do so."

METRO RETURNS: Flyers forward Glen Metropolit, who grew up in Regent Park, became emotional yesterday talking to kids from the same troubled neighbourhood.

Metropolit was part of a NHLPA initiative that donated 110 sets of hockey equipment, valued at $45,000, to the Regent Park North & South Hockey Program and the Wallace Emerson Rink Shinny Hockey Program.

"I was one of these kids," said Metropolit. "I was the one that didn't have skates. I was the one that people would hand me down stuff. To be able to be a part of this, everything sunk into my heart.

"It was special to be here to donate stuff to the kids who are growing up the way I grew up."