Head of NHL Players’ Union to Face Challenge at Membership Meeting

Alan Eagleson, executive director of the National Hockey League Players Assn. since it was formed in 1967, faces a challenge this weekend in West Palm Beach, Fla., at the union’s annual meeting.

Questions that have been raised concern the handling of union funds, the apparent conflicts involved in having a leader who also represents individual players and who works as a promoter of tournaments, and the possibly too-friendly relationship Eagleson enjoys with NHL President John Ziegler.

In questioning Eagleson’s effectiveness as a union leader, the challengers--a faction headed by player agents Ron Salcer and Rich Winter, and Ed Garvey, former head of the National Football League players’ union--point out that hockey salaries run far behind those in other major sports, that free agency as it exists in the NHL “with compensation” is really not free agency, and that, right or wrong, Bob Probert of the Detroit Red Wings should have had some union support when he was expelled from the league without so much as a hearing after his arrest for a drug violation.

Salcer, who lives in Southern California, contends that the players interested in challenging Eagleson number at least 225. “That is strong support,” Salcer said. “I think there is a very strong possibility that they would vote to buy him out.”

Eagleson’s contract continues through 1993.