Boston lawyer picked to lead hockey players union

A Boston lawyer who once helped prosecute the former head of the National Hockey League's players union will soon be offered the job leading the union.

Paul V. Kelly, a principal at the Boston law firm of Kelly, Libby & Hoopes, was nominated yesterday to become executive director of the National Hockey League Players Association after a four-month national search. The union's board will hold a final secret-ballot vote on his hiring by Oct. 23. Kelly is a former assistant US attorney who led the case against Alan Eagleson, the players association's founder who in 1998 pleaded guilty to fraud and accepted an 18-month jail term in his native Canada and agreed to pay $1 million Canadian in restitution to players.

That conviction, player agents said, marked the start of years of troubled leadership at the union amid fractious disputes about its direction. That ultimately led to the current search for an executive, with Kelly emerging as the winner. If he takes the job, he faces the challenge of restoring effectiveness and integrity to an association observers have described as wayward at best.

"I think it's important that we have somebody running the NHLPA that knows the difference between right and wrong. I really questioned whether some people at the union knew the difference," said Neil Sheehy, an agent with Sheehy Hockey LLC in Minneapolis.

A spokesman for Kelly declined to comment yesterday. The union has been tight-lipped about the its search, but some involved in the process said about 300 applicants were considered before five finalists were interviewed by a five-member search panel.

The job could be extremely lucrative for the winner. Negotiations over a salary are ongoing, but player union heads for other major league sports make between $1.1 million and $2.89 million annually, according to published data.

It would be handsome compensation for a tough job. The union's next chief will take charge following a series of leadership changes and scandals, most recently the firing of the last executive director, Ted Saskin, who had a reported five-year, $10 million contract with the union. He was fired in May after accusations he read players' private e-mails. Saskin succeeded Bob Goodenow in 2005, though no others were considered for the job.

That angered many in the union's membership, kicking off a period of infighting.

"I think more than anything right now that the players association needs to get the union unified again. He needs to get everybody on board," said Robert Murray, a principal at Pro Athletes Management Inc., a Boston firm that represents several NHL athletes.

Some in Boston's legal community described Kelly as a tough litigator and negotiator with a strong sense of ethics. His accepting the players union job would give visibility to Kelly Libby & Hoopes LLP, the Boston trial law practice he cofounded, even as the new job would likely take him away from the firm.

"If somebody picks someone from that firm for the toughest job in professional sports right now, when something like that happens, people stand up and take notice," said Thomas F. Reilly, the former Massachusetts attorney general and currently a partner at Greenberg Traurig LLP.

Keith Reed can be reached at reed@globe.com.