Font Size:

NHL Players Association general counsel and interim executive director Ian Penny has resigned—saying he can no longer work for the union.

Penny, 43, "informed the NHLPA staff and the NHLPA executive board earlier [on Friday] that it is his position he has been constructively dismissed as interim executive director of the NHLPA and can no longer work in the present circumstances," a press release from the NHLPA said on Friday.

"Effective today, Ian Penny is no longer employed by the NHLPA," the news release said.

In the press release, the union also denied several erroneous media reports that it had suspended all operations.

"The NHLPA staff continues to work very hard on behalf of the players in all areas of the association's business and will continue to do so going forward," the statement said.

NHLPA communications director Jonathan Weatherdon declined to comment on Penny's resignation other than to refer to the union's press release.

Penny's resignation came just two months after the union shockingly fired then-executive director Paul Kelly, a former assistant U.S. attorney, on August 31.

Kelly was hired in October 2007 to replace Ted Saskin, who was fired for hacking into the e-mail accounts of players and union employees.

Saskin had only been in the job since July 2005, when long-time NHLPA executive director and general counsel Bob Goodenow was forced out after stalled negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement forced the cancellation of the NHL's 2004-05 season, a first for a North American pro sports league.

Penny, whom Corporate Counsel profiled in February 2008 after he was promoted to GC, got the job driving the legal Zamboni on November 11, 2007, after the NHL players responded to the Saskin e-mail hacking flap by ratifying a new union constitution, which split the executive director and GC positions into two jobs for the first time in the Toronto-based NHLPA's 40-year history.

"It's kind of like having a clean sheet of ice," Penny told Corporate Counsel in the 2008 inerview. After 12 years in the New York office of the National Labor Relations Board, where he says he familiarized himself with sports law by working on Major League Baseball cases, Penny joined the NHLPA in April 2000 as associate counsel.

Saskin's tenure was the subject of two internal investigations by outside counsel. Penny confirmed in 2008 that Saskin and a subordinate routinely monitored NHLPA e-mail, including his own. Along with former union lawyer Ian Pulver, Penny's been credited with blowing the whistle on Saskin.

"I answered the questions of all players, whether they were [anti-Saskin] dissidents or not, so I was someone they trusted and could get information from," Penny said.

Also See: Ian Penny Profile: Shift Change (pdf)

Also See: Another Shift Change at the NHLPA (TAL sports blog post)

ESPN.com reported that it was "believed" that Penny was at odds with Kelly for much of his time as executive director—and was instrumental in Kelly's firing.

But, according to ESPN.com, player representatives and agents started to revolt against Penny not long after Kelly was fired.

Subscribe to Corporate Counsel