When Crosby speaks, NHLPA listens

From the Toronto Star’s Damien Cox: When Sidney Crosby spoke up, the world changed for the embattled NHL Players’ Association. It was the 22-year-old Crosby, arguably the highest-profile player in the sport today, who raised his voice last Sunday on a union conference call and firmly told interim executive director Ian Penny to hang up the phone because union members wanted to have a players-only discussion. Penny, who had first been rebuffed in his efforts to have baseball union leader Donald Fehr speak to the NHLPA team representatives, finally had to relent and get off the line. It was a bad moment for Penny, whose future with the association after leading a coup that dethroned former executive director Paul Kelly in late summer now seems to be hanging by a thread. More important, it was one of several signals that the players appear intent on regaining control of their own union nearly two months after Kelly’s dismissal plunged the organization into disarray. Continue Reading: