Marty Walsh Takes The Reins Of The NHL Players’ Association

As the newly installed executive director of the NHL Players’ Association, Marty Walsh made it clear that he will be acting on behalf of his constituents at his introductory press conference.

“I look forward to working with the players in the league to gain an even stronger understanding of what is important to them and their families,” he said in Toronto on Thursday. “We don’t just represent the players; we represent the families as well.

“I have always felt that listening to the people you represent is absolutely critical to being an effective leader and a good, strong leader.”

The NHLPA was established in 1967. Walsh is the first non-lawyer to take the reins as leader. He comes from a strong union background — his father and uncle were both in the building trades, and he followed in their footsteps before moving on to become the mayor of Boston, then the secretary of labor for the Biden administration.

Walsh resigned that position earlier this year in order to oversee the NHLPA. He was identified as the preferred candidate after a lengthy process which was overseen by a 10-member NHLPA search committee in conjunction with executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates.

“Leadership was definitely paramount,” said Buffalo Sabres captain Kyle Okposo, who chaired the search committee, about the qualities his group prioritized. “Somebody who can bring our union together and bring our sport together, along with the NHL.

“It’s going to be a collaborative effort to bring this game – I think this game has so much potential to go in a different stratosphere than it is now. We wanted somebody who had experiences leading unions, working with both sides, working with businessmen, working with people. That process, once we found Marty, it was a pretty easy decision.”

On Thursday, Walsh affirmed his commitment to a collaborative process.

“Whether it’s being involved in labor disputes or negotiating contracts, that’s how I operate,” he said “I think that as long as you mutually respect each other, there’ll be a great opportunity here moving forward.”

The NHL’s current collective bargaining agreement runs through the end of the 2025-26 season, and Walsh made it clear that he’s not ready at this early stage to dive into the nuts and bolts of what the players’ priorities will be during the next negotiating cycle.

For now, he emphasized a desire to make best-on-best international hockey a priority, getting the World Cup of Hockey back on the schedule as soon as possible — likely in 2025 — and committing to a regular cycle.

“Let’s have a forward-looking schedule, so people can be consistent with it,” said Walsh. “Fans love it. Players love it. It’s important for us to do it.”

It’s also lucrative, for both the league and the players.

The World Cup was last held in 2016. An event had been on the books for February of 2024, but was deferred due to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Some other European nations made it clear that they were not willing to take part in a tournament at this time if Russia was a participant. On March 22, the International Ice Hockey Federation announced that it has extended its ban on Russia and Belarus in international hockey competition through the 2023-24 season.

“I think that, right now, commenting on what’s going on in the world — things can change and different things can happen,” Walsh said Thursday. “So I think it’s a little too early to talk about who’s involved in the tournament.

“But I think we should get the tournament on paper and get the concept — more than a concept, start the conversation, really get it going, moving forward and what this will look like,” he continued. “Then, we’ll obviously we have to deal with challenges that might come up as time goes on.”

Walsh was also crystal clear about his stand on the possibility of boosting the 2023-24 salary cap by more than the current projection of $1 million.

“We’re open to any conversation, but we’re not open to changing the escrow,” he stated succinctly.

Earlier this month at the general managers’ meetings in Florida, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman stated that any possible cap boost was “inextricably” tied to a raise in the escrow percentage — which is capped at 6% over the next three seasons under the terms of the current CBA.

The final cap number for next season won’t be announced until after the playoffs conclude in mid-June — and the final total for the year’s hockey-related revenue will be dependent on playoff revenues. Long postseason runs by high revenue teams — which include the new arrivals in Vegas and Seattle as well as traditional revenue powerhouses like the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs — could still boost total revenues beyond current projections and push the cap up by more than $1 million.

When Walsh’s name first surfaced as a potential candidate for the NHLPA position, some concerns arose that during his runs for mayor of Boston, he had accepted campaign donations from the Jacobs family — who own the Boston Bruins and whose head, Jeremy Jacobs, is the powerful chairman of the NHL’s board of governors.

Those concerns were addressed on Thursday.

“I know them pretty well,” Walsh said. “I was mayor for seven years in the city.

“I know all the sports teams in Boston,” he added, also mentioning a friendship with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and the Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox and purchased a controlling interest in the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins in 2021.

“The next question is, probably, ‘Did they support my campaign?’” Walsh acknowledged. “They did, but in my entire career as legislator or as a mayor, supporting my campaign is one thing and using that as a way to leverage me is never going to happen. It never has happened and won’t happen.”

While the players’ search committee was actively engaged in identifying its chosen successor to outgoing NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, players have often been characterized as being apathetic toward their union, especially outside of important negotiating periods.

Walsh hopes to use his extensive experience to address those concerns.

“I think it’s about conversation,” he said. “It’s about giving the players a reason to stay connected to us and, I think, in engaging them in lots of different conversations.

“Generally, the typical union membership, you get maybe less than a third of the membership engaged in their union. My goal here is to get more than a third of the players engaged in this union.

“I think that players have a lot — during the course of the season, the offseason — they have a lot going on their life. So we have to create those opportunities. How do we engage them better and moving forward?”