A Gary Bettman Smackdown

NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman, is set to begin his 15th year this Thursday, and as a tribute to his sporting prowess, Dan Wetzel of Yahoo sports, gives Bettman one of the greatest smackdowns I have ever read in my life.

Wetzel remembers a day not too long ago, the early 1990's, when the NHL was smoking hot. American's were flocking to the greatest game in the world in droves. Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Roy, Bourque, ruled the game. Hockey was bigger than basketball in New York, hockey was extremely popular. Then came along Gary Bettman:

There has never been a commissioner of a major North American sports league this inept, yet the league's board of governors keeps employing him, keeps giving him another chance to sink this once-proud, once-vibrant league to new depths.

Bettman is on a 14-year run of bad ideas. His latest was a classic, moving the league's all-star game, which featured attention-grabbing young megastars, to midweek on the Versus Network – as opposed to NBC on a weekend. He claimed it would allow Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin to own the sports landscape, unlike some crowded weekend.

The result was a catastrophic 0.7 rating. That's a meager 474,298 households in the States that bothered to watch, down 76 percent from the last all-star game.

It is par for a season which has seen TV numbers plummet in both the U.S. and Canada (down 20 percent by some reports), attendance drop and media coverage dwindle.

That's just the latest blunder in Bettman's portfolio, the man can't seem to do anything right:

He has shown no respect for the game, for its history, for its fans, for its unique qualities.

Bettman might consider himself an astute sports marketer, but in practice he is arguably the worst of all time. He has never figured out how to change his marketing plans to fit the product of hockey. Instead, he changed the product to fit his marketing plans.

The league is now overexpanded and overpriced, misplaced and misdirected. It is less exciting, less interesting, less traditional and more difficult to follow for the non-obsessive fan.

I use to watch every hockey game that was on the tube, I didn't care if it was St. Louis vs Vancouver, you couldn't pull me away from it. Now? I might watch 10 games a year. I find the NHL to be boring, it lacks talent and intensity. And as for the new rules, they're terrible.

The negatives are too numerous to list, but consider the league's current uneven schedule which serves no purpose other than cutting travel costs for a few cheapskate owners. Teams play eight games per season against division foes, or 32 a year against just four teams.

Bettman claimed it would spawn "new" rivalries. Of course, old rivalries such as Detroit-Toronto, two hockey-mad towns separated by a single highway that actually has an exit for Wayne Gretzky Blvd. no longer play a home-and-home series each season. It's like killing Red Sox-Yankees so Blue Jays-Diamondbacks might catch on.

And, since fighting has been curbed, the "new" rivalries haven't really taken because a hockey rivalry without fighting is like non-alcoholic beer.

Plus, not everyone gets to see young superstars such as Pittsburgh's Crosby or Washington's Ovechkin

. Detroit-Toronto was, next to Montreal-Toronto, the best rivalry I have ever witnessed. For decades this was a great rivalry, but not any more, now it's just a team we play twice a year. No intensity, no hatred, just a team we play.

How can Bettman's 15 years best be summed up?

four bankruptcies, three franchise moves, two lockouts, one lost season and no effective leadership. The business is so sick that the Pittsburgh Penguins, despite a loyal fan base and the most promising talent since Gretzky, are 50-50 to move to that noted hockey hotbed of Kansas City.

Bettman has his apologists who point out that he beat former NHLPA head Bob Goodenow during the last lockout and got a salary cap installed.

Which is true, except it cost the NHL an entire season and an incalculable number of fans. And the proposed cap for next season is already creeping close to the average pre-lockout team salary. Wasn't the new deal only needed because the old deal was so bad? And who negotiated that one for the NHL in 1994? Oh yes, Gary Bettman, who locked the players out and killed all momentum from the Rangers' Stanley Cup championship to get that ill-fated deal done.

I remember right around the time the board of governors were about anoint Bettman commissioner, Don Cherry predicted Bettman would be the death of the NHL. He said that Bettman nearly wrecked the NBA, and that a non-hockey guy running hockey was suspect. Like usual, Don Cherry was dead on right.

Bettman is a joke. A joke played on Canada's national sport and our insanely devoted fans. If hockey is to survive, Bettman must go. He is a menace, a disgrace, and he has tarnished the greatest game in the world.