Walsh, 55, left U.S. President Joe Biden’s cabinet as Labor Secretary to join the NHLPA.
TORONTO – As he put affectionally put it, two lifelong passions merged for former U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh Thursday as he held his first press conference since being named executive director of the NHL Players’ Association in February.
Walsh’s second passion: hockey, of course. He grew up a diehard Boston Bruins fan, cheering for the likes of Gerry Cheevers and Terry O’Reilly. One of his most meaningful childhood memories, as he reminded media Thursday, came in 1975 when he was battling Burkitt’s lymphoma, a form of cancer, at seven years old. Bobby Orr, on crutches after having knee surgery, visited Walsh at the Boston Children’s Hospital.
Walsh was the first secretary to leave Biden’s cabinet. In the PA job, he replaces Don Fehr, who had held the position since 2010, steering the player union through a 2012-13 lockout and additional collective bargaining negotiations coming out of the pandemic stoppage in 2019-20, an accomplishment for which Walsh went out of his way to praise Fehr on Thursday. The search committee was formed in April 2022 to find Fehr’s successor.
“Would I be interested in seeing the cap go up: yes, but the players are not interested in raising the escrow right now,” Walsh said. As for his general thoughts on an NHL economic system that is foreign to him, including the hard cap, he indicated he “needed to take some time” to consider the next CBA negotiation which is still two and a half years away.
“I’m personally supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, I always will be, and the more I get an opportunity to talk to people about this and learn more about it I will,” he said. “But I think it’s people’s individual right if they want to wear a jersey… it’s a warmup jersey before the games. I don’t believe the LGBTQ community should feel NHL players are turning their back on them. The majority of players have worn the jersey. The super majority of the players have worn the jersey.
Earlier this week, the IIHF announced a ban on all players from the 2018 World Junior team from future international events until the investigation on their potential involvement in a group sexual assault is concluded.
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