Today is the (two games in London, England don’t count) start of the 2007-2008 NHL season. And surprise, surprise, it will not begin without any kind of controversy surrounding the league and our favorite commissioner Gary Bettman.

First off, the NHL decided to start off this season with two games between Anaheim and Los Angeles in the hockey capital of the world… yep, you guessed it… London, England. If you do not get Versus or NHL Center Ice (which we have previously documented that MANY do not), or were not part of the 17,500 crowd at the O2 Arena (owned by Philip Anschutz, owner of the Kings), then I’m sure you missed it. But don’t worry, it wasn’t a huge success and you weren’t the only one who had no idea it was happening. No need to fear though, the NHL and Mr. Bettman may continue to push the NHL overseas. Never mind that the NHL is failing in many markets in the United States, and that the league could not start the season in a city (Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, Ottawa, Calgary, Chicago, New York, etc) that would fully appreciate and engulf itself in a season opening game. The NHL just might abandon all NHL fans of the past, present, and future, and create for itself new and few “summer teeth” (some are here, some are there) fans! wooooohooooooooo!

And to continue with the great success of Gary Bettman’s quest…
we have been keeping you up to date on the sale of the Nashville Predators to a local investment group, and it looks like there has been a turn for the worse for the banjo pluckin’, bar frequentin’, and ice cravin’ fans in Tennessee. Apparently, it looks like the investors who were looking to buy the team are not very hopeful that the deal will go through. The city has rejected the requests that the investors made in order to keep the team in Nashville. Remember, Gary Bettman was the one with the strong hand in trying to keep the Predators in Nashville with the help of his friend William “Boots” Del Biaggio, and out of Hamilton, ON and the hands of would-be-successful owner Jim Balsillie, who had offered current owner Craig Leipold $50 million more for the team than the Nashville investment group.

What a wonderful way to start off a new NHL season, eh? Well, it doesn’t stop there…

Madison Square Garden, which is the company that owns the New York Rangers, has sued the NHL, saying that the league has violated anti-trust regulations, and is monopolizing teams’ promotions. If you haven’t noticed, all of the NHL team Web sites have a very similar look as of this year… that is because the NHL has tried to take over operations of each team’s Web site and promotional activities, and the Rangers and MSG weren’t having any of it. Based on our coverage of the NHL’s marketing and the way their promotions and operations have carried themselves in the recent past, why in the heck would you allow them to take control of your (privately owned) team’s Web site and promotions? It seems to us here at FB that each team knows their market a TON better than Gary Bettman and his other power hungry pricks at NHL corporate, and deserve the right to control their promotional media.

We have had official NHL Web masters email us after fans of ours have posted messages on their public forums about FireBettman. They have explained to us that they had to take the posts down because they would be fined by the league if they were to leave them up. This monopolizing of Web sites and promotions is just another step in the wrong direction of censorship and complete mismanagement by Gary Bettman and the lunies that surround him.

We really can’t believe that the NHL is starting off such an exciting season on so many bad notes… but really, we aren’t surprised… what we’ve reported could have only made us all see what was coming. Let’s just hope that all of this ends up in letting us see that bright light at the end of the tunnel… the firing of Gary Bettman!