"Well I won't back down, no I won't back down. You could stand me up at the gates of hell but I won't back down."
Tom Petty made that powerful proclamation in his classic 1989 tune, "I Won't Back Down".
Now, as the National Hockey League stands at the gates of hell, enduring a lockout that has iced the first two weeks of the regular season, there's someone else who won't back down.
His name is Donald Fehr.
As executive director of the NHLPA, he's someone who should be taken quite seriously by NHL owners and fans.
The reason? Past experience.
This is a man who has already shut down a professional sport for an extended period of time. Fehr is such a fierce negotiator that when he was union chief of the Major League Baseball Players Association, he had the players quit about two-thirds of the way into the 1994 season.
The World Series was cancelled. And now, the 2012-2013 NHL season could meet the same fate.
How long will the game be in the deep freeze? Nobody knows.
But these are the facts:
A business generating $3.3 billion in revenue has closed its doors. ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Ben Lippel
NHL Lockout: Why Donald Fehr Is Someone the Owners and Fans Should Fear
October 6th, 2012 by Ben Lippel Leave a reply »
Advertisement