Biden Cabinet Secretary Leaving to Run NHL Players Union – Report

FAP Photo/Susan Walsh, File

President Joe Biden‘s Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh, is reportedly leaving his post to become the new Executive Director of the NHL’s Players Association.

According to The Daily Faceoff‘s Frank Seravalli, Walsh will reportedly leave his job in President Biden’s cabinet and become the NHL Players’ union leader, replacing long-time executive director Donald Fehr. Fehr has been the leader of the union since 2010. Walsh’s hiring will finalize the union’s ten-month search for Fehr’s replacement. Walsh needs 18 ‘yes’ votes out of 32 team representatives.

Seravalli wrote:

Walsh emerged as a candidate for the position only within the last three weeks. Sources indicated Russell Reynolds was rebuffed by Walsh over multiple attempts to include him earlier in the process, but Walsh had a change of circumstances once he was not selected as Biden’s next chief of staff, one of the most powerful positions in Washington.

Walsh will become the first Executive Director of the NHLPA without a legal background. The Dorchester, Mass., native dropped out of college and complete his Bachelor of Arts in social science from Boston College in 2009 at the age of 42 by taking night classes. He joined the Laborers’ Union in Boston at age 21, served as the union’s president, was elected the Massachusetts state legislature while also being head of the Boston Building Construction and Trades Council.

Walsh was Boston’s two-term Mayor from 2014-2021. He had season tickets to the Boston Bruins. Jeremy Jacobs, the Bruins owner, made various donations to Walsh’s political campaigns throughout the years.

“I’m honored that the Jacobs family is supporting me,” Walsh said to the Boston Globe in 2017. “They’ve done incredible work in the city.”

When The Daily Faceoff reached out to the NHL Players’ Association for comment on Tuesday, the union responded with, “the process is getting closer to completion.”

The NHL had three work stoppages in the last 29 years after the owners locked out the players on all three occasions. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement between the owners and players in the NHL does not run out until September 2026.