Donald Fehr elected as NHLPA boss

Donald Fehr became the new executive director of the National Hockey League Players' Association on Saturday after union members voted overwhelmingly to accept the executive board's endorsement.

The 62-year-old Fehr is the former executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. He held that post from 1983 until 2009.

The collective bargaining agreement between the union and league is set to expire in September 2012.

Fehr takes over an organization that's been plagued by turmoil and uncertainty in recent years. The union has had four leaders since the end of the 2004-05 NHL lockout.

During his time in charge of the baseball union, Fehr developed a reputation of being a fierce negotiator and led the baseball players through the 1994-95 strike and subsequent cancellation of the World Series.

Fehr said he is unsure when negotiations with the league would begin, but guessed that it would be "probably sometime a year from this spring, maybe a little sooner than that but that's only a target date.