The NHL Players' Association will formally introduce Paul Kelly as its executive director at a media conference on Wednesday.
Kelly was selected to succeed Ted Saskin in a secret ballot vote by the 30 player representatives, one from each NHL team, on Tuesday.
Ted Saskin was dismissed May 10 as executive director of the NHLPA.
(Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Saskin was removed May 10 amid allegations that he and Ken Kim, the union's head of business development, monitored players' e-mails.
Kelly was nominated Oct. 15 to replace Saskin as executive director following an exhaustive search by a five-player committee consisting of Mike Cammalleri, Chris Chelios, Shawn Horcoff, Eric Lindros and Robyn Regehr, with the help of Reilly Partners, a Chicago headhunting firm.
Kelly is a partner at Kelly, Libby and Hoopes, a Boston law firm specializing in complex civil and administrative litigation.
He was the assistant district attorney involved in a grand jury investigation into Alan Eagleson, the NHLPA's first executive director.
Eagleson was indicted by a Boston grand jury and, in 1998, pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud.
He was fined $700,000 US and, later that year, pleaded guilty in a Toronto court to three more counts of fraud and embezzling proceeds from the 1984, 1987 and 1991 Canada Cup tournaments.
Eagleson was sentenced to 18 months in prison and served six months at the Mimico Correctional Centre in Toronto before being released.
With files from the Canadian Press
