Inside the ‘Secretive’ Talks That Led to Labor Sec. Marty Walsh Leading the NHL Players Association
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh will leave his Cabinet post following President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address and become head of the NHL Players Association.
That news was reported on Tuesday afternoon by politicsbut The Daily Beast can report that Walsh has been involved in secret deliberations for a while — and the move isn’t without surprise from some players and NHL agents.
One active professional hockey player described the move to The Daily Beast as “a bit funny”. Another league insider said the deal was understood to have ended on Monday night, although the players remained in the dark in an “extremely secretive” process by league standards.
When The Daily Beast contacted Walsh’s representatives at the Department of Labor on Monday, they stated that they were unaware of the move. But sources have indicated that new work has been done at least a little.
The biggest sticking point, according to people familiar with the discussions, is Walsh’s relationship with the owner of the Boston Bruins, Jeremy Jacobs.
Jacobs, a great sponsor during Walsh’s tenure as mayor of Boston, who also served as chairman of the NHL’s Board of Directors, the only group that the players union didn’t trust more than the owners themselves.
“I don’t know how that’s going to happen to people,” the player told The Daily Beast, requesting anonymity to speak frankly about the developments. “If he had a close relationship with the Bruins owner, you would have to assume he was related to the other owners.”
The seasoned expert also questioned whether NHL . Commissioner Gary Bettman have been involved in this process.
The player said: “It’s definitely a bit of fun to say the least. “I don’t know if it’s Bettman working his magic, but it looks a bit out of the ordinary.”
A senior NHL executive who’s been in the league for more than four decades told The Daily Beast, “I don’t even know who Marty Walsh is,” a sign of his relatively unfamiliar status. of the outgoing minister of labor in the hockey world.
Biden chose Walsh as his labor secretary because prestige in labor unions while also being seen as a sound negotiator in the business community, with Walsh assuming the leadership position of Boston’s Building and Construction Trade Council.
Walsh went public about pushed out of a Bruins game got too drunk at the old Boston Garden in the mid-1990s, prompting him to seek treatment for his alcoholism.
The former mayor described the incident as his “rock bottom”.
Walsh will now take the helm of a federation that has numerous grievances against the federation and a collective bargaining agreement that expires at the end of the 2025-2026 season.
Representatives for Walsh and the NHLPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
