Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Can Donald Fehr toy with Gary Bettman like he toyed with baseball bosses?

The NHLPA loves Donald Fehr but can he unite the troops if they go to war over their next contract?

Even the National Hockey League Players' Association can't miss the net on this one.

The decision to open their arms to Donald Fehr, who spent Thursday in Toronto, front and centre at the Players' Association annual agents' meetings, is "a no-brainer," admits New York Rangers union rep Aaron Voros.

Fehr built the strongest union in professional sports over more than 20 years as leader of the Major League Baseball Players' Association. He knew when to take MLB to court and never lost inside the oak panels. He inserted the term "collusion" into the sporting vernacular in the mid-'80s when he routed the owners in arbitration, finally exacting a $280-million payout for affected players.

Having a man with Fehr's war record descend into their midst at this rudderless time in the NHLPA's history is like, well, like the second coming of Bob Goodenow.

"We hope that he will be (the executive director). That's an easy decision," Voros told the New York Daily News on Wednesday. "He's definitely built the strongest union in pro sports. I think if we were able to have him represent us and solidify us, it would be a no-brainer. There's no question that there's so much going on in our union ... I think at this point it's basically a question of whether he wants a new challenge or not."

But what does the arrival of the heavyweight champ of union leaders mean to the other interests in the game? The league, and of course, you, the hockey fan?

Well, with the breadth of experience Fehr brings to the table, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman must be shaking in his brogues. Let's face it: the former union head Goodenow shoved Bettman around the ring so effectively, he had Bettman extending an unfavourable collective bargaining agreement (CBA) before the players would agree to attend the Olympics.

Years later we learn they'd been dying to go all along. Alas, Goodenow dominated the NHL in most matters of importance, until he was undermined by his own players in the lockout of 2004-05.

It is already rumoured that the NHLPA will exercise its option to extend the CBA through the 2011-12 season before a new one would need to be negotiated. That would allow Fehr, known for never fighting a fight he doesn't know he will win, to spend some time diagnosing why the NHLPA never had the solidarity that the MLBPA has.

We're betting his mere presence will go a long way to solving that problem.

So what does that mean for the fans? Well, there are two ways to look at Fehr.

He presided over a two-day baseball strike in 1985, a 32-day lockout in 1990 and a 7-and-a-half-month strike in 1994-95 that wiped out the World Series for the first time in 90 years. (Remember that one, Expos fans?)

But Fehr also negotiated the only two renewals of baseball's CBA since 1970 - in 2002 and 2006 - that did not result in a work stoppage.

He made the mistake of addressing the drug issue in baseball as a civil liberties issue, and ended up protecting his players' rights to create the drug problem that has severely tainted the game.

Would he do the same in hockey, merely extending a toothless drug testing program that will, we predict, inevitably go where it has in every other sport? Or given a second chance to do the right thing, would Fehr steer his players down a better path this time?

You can debate that one, but this much we know for sure: any new NHLPA leader's mandate will be to get out from under the salary cap that was accepted by the union during its weakest moments in 2005. That would take a protracted fight, however, which is where we would learn the most about Fehr.

After losing the entire 2004-05 season to labour strife, all of us agree that another lengthy work stoppage would be suicidal for a league with as many weak markets as the NHL.

This isn't baseball; a way of life in the United States, where the game slots in ahead of mom and apple pie.

We're talking about hockey, the No. 4, 5 or 6 game in many of its 24 U.S. markets.

If Fehr takes over the NHLPA, and plays the game as masterfully and ruthlessly as he did against the overmatched MLB commissioner Bud Selig, Gary Bettman will go to bed at night pining for the days of Bob Goodenow. And it will be great for the players.

But sadly, hockey fans will be collateral damage.