Park levels some blasts at NHLPA

Ex-Bruin chides Ference in criticism of Kelly firing

September 24, 2009|Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff

Some three weeks after National Hockey League Players Association executive director Paul Kelly was fired - his fate sealed by 22 players who voted him out of office in the predawn hours of Aug. 31 - Bruins great Brad Park yesterday joined a growing chorus of NHL players, past and present, who believe the former federal prosecutor was suspiciously, if not wrongfully, terminated.

Park, 61, boldly responded to comments made by Boston defenseman Andrew Ference, who contended in yesterday’s Globe and on boston.com that Kelly, among other things, was the wrong man for the job.

“Let me tell Andrew Ference, one defenseman to another, he should spend more time worrying about going back to get the puck than to worry about Paul Kelly’s ability to do the job as head of the PA,’’ said Park, the Hall of Fame defenseman who spent 12 of his 15 NHL seasons as a vice president of the NHLPA. “When [Ference] was in junior, I assume he wasn’t going to college, so I ask, what makes him so [expletive] smart?

“They had a guy like Chris Chelios in that room who disagreed, told them to wait and think. Maybe guys like Ference should take time to listen to guys who are older and smarter.’’

Hours after the Bruins’ Wilmington workout concluded last night, veteran winger Mark Recchi sternly criticized the process that led to Kelly’s dismissal and noted growing unrest in the Boston dressing room over how it was handled.

“Look, I’m not the smartest guy in the world,’’ said the 41-year-old Recchi, long respected as one of the rank-and-file’s character individuals, “but the second I learned what happened in Chicago, I knew the process was wrong. It stunk. This should not have happened and we have to fix it. We can’t let this happen again.’’

According to Recchi, none of the league’s 740 players, other than the 27 who voted that morning in Chicago, knew that Kelly’s ouster was at hand. He said that was among the points made yesterday in a team meeting at Wilmington that was attended by everyone other than captain Zdeno Chara, who was given the day off by coach Claude Julien. Recchi said a number of Boston players emphatically expressed to Ference their displeasure with how it was handled.

“That’s 720 players who didn’t know what was going on,’’ said Recchi, noting that the latest developments have many believing the union is a laughingstock. “Why not tell guys in advance what’s going on? I don’t get it. A lot of guys don’t get it.

“I think Andrew understands now that the process is not right and something has to change. The process has to be looked at, how it went down. We want an internal investigation of how this was handled.’’