Hockeyfan.org - By a Hockey Fan for Hockey Fans

Bettman has been a fantastic commissioner.

No really. He has.

Confused?

Well, if you’re an owner, there’s been no better commisioner than Gary “I don’t know from Hockey” Bettman. From a fans perspective, he stinks more than week old unwashed hockey equipment rotting in a bag.

I really hope that Gary Bettman is gone soon and that whoever is his replacement is knows more about the game of hockey than he does. When Bettman came into the league from the NBA, he knew what hockey was but didn’t know the players, the history or what the game means to the fans. And that’s a shame. Under Bettmans stewardship, we’ve seen two lockouts, a crappy TV deal in the US and declining interest from US fans.

We have teams (like Florida) where nobody shows up, teams that were once hockey markets not longer supporting their teams (hello Chicago) and teams moved from hockey markets to non-hockey markets (sorry Winnipeg). He and his staff have done a horrible job of marketing the game, especially in the US (remember those stupid gladiator commercials from a year ago). And every time there’s a problem, he first denies it and then goes on about how the game has never been better, attendance has never been higher blah blah blah blah blah.

Face it Gary, you’re ruining the league. When Poker, NASCAR and Bowling(!) out draw in terms of viewers you have to think there’s a problem no?

And lets talk about the Versus deal for a moment. I’m not saying this is exactly how things went down because I honestly don’t know. But let me point out a few things and you be the judge.

Versus (formally OLN) is owned by Comcast.

Comcast is owned by Ed Snyder.

Ed Snyder owns the Flyers.

It’s kind of interesting no?

And all this talk about how the NHL likes the deal with Versus, and Versus is good for the league… how many people actually have the channel? Or know where it is on their station lineup? The dedicated hockey fan will know because they’re interested in being able to watch a game (or better yet will be like me and have NHL Center Ice). But for the casual fan, they’re not going to find it much less pay extra for it if it’s not already included in their cable line up. And how is this good for the league?

Had I been commissioner post lockout, I would have begged and pleaded for ESPN to show my product. Give them the rights free for one year. Then revisit it the next. Many of the rule changes have been good (and we have Brendan Shannahan and his study group to really thank that as opposed to Bettman and co.) and apparently designed to help draw in new fans but it does no good if it’s on a channel nobody watches. They may as well have signed a deal with C-Span.

Now, Bettman is talking re-alignment. This wouldn’t be a bad thing to visit really. Some of the divisions and conferences don’t make sense to me (or anyone else really). It’s admittedly hard to draw it much differently and he’s going to have to make some hard decisions. But the timing of this strikes me as odd as well.

First off, let me say I’m now _hoping_ the Penguins move to Kansas City because they’d _have_ to be in the Western Conference. I’d love to see the Canucks take on Crosby, Malken and Fleury on a regular basis. Then we can move Detroit, Columbus or Nashville to the East. But you know what will happen? We’ll go back to the old schedule. Those same 11 teams that voted no to the schedule change for next season will quickly sing a different tune once those guys are no longer mainstays in the East. And I hope the other 19 teams vote against it just to even things out.