archromat

"Quasi GM"

Moncton, NB • Canada • 37 Years Old • Male

Cherry checkmates Fehr

Don Cherry is making headlines these days by saying that the NHLPA should be put to a vote on the latest offer that the NHL submitted to the PA. Of course, Fehr is not likely to do it, but when we see why, the reasons are suspect.

The reasons not to put things to a vote are as follows:
1. Lose respectability from other players and get chastised for opposition.
2. Undermines the solidarity of the NHLPA to not follow Donald Fehr.

Both, however, are countered by Cherry's proposal of putting it to a secret vote. Targeting the first point, the secret vote would allow players to freely express their opinion towards the CBA without the fear of getting chastised by the other players. Targeting the second point, the NHLPA truly wouldn't have any solidarity if Fehr only represents a minority of the players rather than the majority of them. Fehr would no longer be relevant to represent the NHLPA if they outvoted the NHL's initial proposal on the contract limits.

Cherry knows that the players would vote against it and so would Fehr. Their union is something of 700 strong and only 80 or so of them have terms for longer than 5 years. And they wouldn't care about the variability. In my opinion, they could probably bring that number up to 10%.

Fehr won't put it to a vote because if he gets outvoted, he's no longer relevant. Do you really think he's going to put the proposal to a vote? Of course not, a) he knows he'd lose, b) he'll also lose credibility. There's no reason not to have the vote, but he won't do it.

Checkmate.

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