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In his article on ESPN.com today, Scott Burnside has confirmed our belief all along… that Gary Bettman was behind getting Nashville Predators owner Craig Leipold to break off negotiations in the sale of the team to Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie.
Balsillie’s legal adviser Richard Rodier has made statements confirming this, and ESPN has also obtained emails between Leipold and Rodier, which contain discussions about Bettman’s involvement.
It appears as though Bettman has been and acted alone in this movement to keep a new team out of Canada, in following his vision of making the NHL exclusively a USA league. The only other name we’ve seen discussed in this matter is the Toronto Maple Leafs, because of a fear that a Hamilton team would steal their fan base. However, we have not seen any official comments released from the Maple Leafs on this issue.
Burnside brings up a great point how Bettman may have overstepped his bounds and made himself highly unpopular among the board of governors, and throughout the league… duh!! What is it going to take for them all to realize how bad Bettman is for the NHL? Hopefully not much more… it looks like we might find out in September, after the next board of governors meeting. Fire Bettman!!!!!
OMFG this is outrageous! If I was on the board of governors, I’d wear a FireBettman.com shirt into every single meeting, even after he gets fired. How dare he pull $238 million potential dollars out of the NHL (and my fellow governors) pockets without consulting all of us…
Anyways, I’m not on the board unfortunately. I’ve always suspected Bettman hates Canada, but I always gave him the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to his prickly, patronizing, stuck-up, greedy persona. Maybe I’m just taking him the wrong way, I thought. Nope, turns out it’s pretty much true, it’s all there in the emails. Or, he hates Jim B anyways, who represents Canada in these dealings, whether he wants to or not.
I just hope there’s enough here to convict Bettman of some criminal act, lock him up nice n tight. Or, if he wants to come clean and resign, that would be quite acceptable as well.
Guys like him just loathe being proven wrong about things, and he’s redefined ‘wrong’ in his actions the past 10 years, at least. Sigh. Let the booing continue.
I’m so angry there’s not words for it…
Heil Herr Bettman!
The dude’s gotta be gettin’ somethin’ on the side for quashing what would be a successful franchise in our wonderful neighbor to the north. Must be some stock or futures involved…oh, wait, I forgot it’s Bettman’s ego. One of his dream’s of layin’ by the pool in his extra small speedo before he goes to see the Preds play is goin’ down the drain. Wake up nutball! They like banjos, not hockey. Take hockey back to where it belongs, where people dwell on every game, where, yes, the team can make money for the NHL. The few teams left in Canada provide 30% of the total revenue? What kind of idiot would put another team in the US over Canada? Nothin’ like stupid lawyer gone mad with ego. Thanks for taking OUR league back to the stone age you jerk!
Bettman will lose his head over this one, other NHL teams were happy about Balsillie’s bid as it raised the value of their own franchises. The fact that Bettman destroyed it will now hurt their franchise values. This will not go over well with the other owners not to mention players. CEO’s are removed for declines in market capitalization when they’re at the helm, the same should apply to Bettman as he’s inflicted yet another p.r. and economic disaster upon the league. The NHL has suffered enough under the watch of this idiot.
Bettman is a snake salesman, What is Jackass Bettman gonna do when Balsillie tries to buy the Phoenix Coyotes (another dead team and another place with no ice and snow) and decides that he wants to move them to Hamilton? Block the sale and relocation of the Coyotes in another market where they don’t care about hockey? 4 the love of god Gary, please for gawd sake resign.
HEY GARY, WHAT PART OF RESIGN DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?
Unbelievable…
How can one man continue to be allowed to ruin what once was a major sport? This guy will not admit he has been dead wrong about everything he has done in the NHL. And he continues to build on his mistakes with other mistakes. Maybe this will do him in…but Ive thought this before.
As a Southern Ontario native (fwiw I now live in Michigan), I know that a team in Hamilton is a sure fire winner. How much longer can this idiot live off of ‘winning’ the battle with the NHLPA in the lockout? Surely NOW the owners will realise he isn’t doing anything good for them. Since Bettman is commissioner of the NHL, maybe Bettman should 1 day be required to show us his hockey skates (like he even knows what brands of skates are available).
1) OK, sorry again folks, Bettman is NOT going to be replaced/fired by the Board over this. He is doing as he’s told with regard to this. He’s playing the rols of lightning rod for the other owners.
2) We’re currently doing some digging and plan a post on what is actually going on just under the radar with regard to this issue. We hope to publish our findings later this week. Stay tuned.
As much as I hate Bettman and blame him for what is going on right now, it’s the owners that are ultimately to blame. They have to wake-up and realize this guy is steering the ship into the rocks. Hopefully, Gary won’t surivive the next governor’s meeting, but my gut tells me he will “weasel” his way out of this one too. He has aligned his forces over the years and there’s not much anyone can do about it.
Balsillie is a Canadian hero for what he is doing, and at the very least, by shining a spotlight on the corruption that is the NHL, he is convincing more and more of us Canadians that we have to stop supporting this league as long as it continues to take us for granted.
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title ttman .com : Improving the NHL and hockey by removing Gary Bettman.. Thanks for informative article
I honestly think Bettman is filling the owners heads with BS. As long as he keeps making them short term money, what do they care if a few hockey fans are upset? They probably don’t even know or care. Like I’ve heard before, some of the owners just own NHL teams for tax purposes. It is time that this little troll is tossed out on his ass. He is a cancer to the game.
There was a time that the NHL was bigger than the NBA. The rumour I heard was Bettman was the VP behind David Stern at the time. Apparently Stern had something to do with Bettman getting the job with the NHL. I don’t know if there is any truth behind this story, but it is hard to ignore the fact that he has definitely taken the game down more than a few notches.
It pisses me off when you hear people in the American media talking about the NHL like some bush league. Hockey is a great game. It isn’t difficult to follow. The players are extremely marketable. When is the last time you couldn’t understand what a player was saying in an interview? When was the last time a player was arrested for drug or gun charges? The answer is never. The league and it’s players have been mismanaged, and horribly marketed. The NFL & NBA have no problem marketing their criminal players, yet the NHL can’t market a bunch of hard working blue collar superstars?
It’s time the owners realize the best way to make money is to have HAPPY loyal fans. We pay the ticket prices. We deserve a well run league, including exposure on mainstream sports channels such as ESPN. Canada should be given the first opportunity at taking over failed expansion teams, or for that matter any new expansion teams. (Winnipeg, Hamilton, Quebec, Maritimes, Kelowna) After that, the league should look at Western Northern American cities to balance the league between the Western & Eastern conferences. (Seattle/Portland) I don’t know much about cities in Idaho or N & S Dakota, but geographically they seem to work well.
Down with Bettman!
aaronbest, “When was the last time a player was arrested for drug or gun charges? ”
Remember Mike Danton?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Danton
How about Rick Tocchet and gambling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Tocchet
What about Dany Heatley and Vehicular Homicide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dany_Heatley#Vehicular_homicide
Don’t get me wrong, Bettman needs to go, but your statement is totally off… The NHL has its troubles too…
The NHL might have some problems, just like the other professional sport leagues… but not NEARLY the amount that the other leagues have. Aaron was a bit off by saying never, but he makes a good point about how hockey players are a better overall example for the youth of today and should be more marketable than a large percentage of athletes from the NFL and NBA.
I’m an American…and I think its kinda sad that most of you are hoping for Bettman to get voted out by the board of Governors at the next meeting. We couldn’t even vote Dubbya out of office after his parade of blunders and ineffectiveness.
Or maybe Bettman does step down and announce his bid for President(R)!
check this article out:
“Bettman’s quiet summer belies NHL’s current predicament”
http://www.sportsnetwork.com/default.asp?c=sportsnetwork&page=NHL/misc/top_shelf.htm
Thanks for posting the link article. Great write-up. He’s pretty much said what we’ve been saying here all along
indeed.
have you seen this one?
(i’m posting the whole thing as i don’t think the link will work anymore)
Nashville situation shows Canadian teams’ lack of clout
Bruce Dowbiggin, Calgary Herald
Published: Wednesday, July 18, 2007
There’s an old joke that goes, “How do you make a small fortune in pro sports?” Answer: “Take a large fortune and buy an NHL franchise from Gary Bettman.” OK, that might be a bit harsh. If RIM co-founder Jim Balsillie gets his way, one of the . . . uh . . . investors in Bettman’s Master Plan will walk away with more than just a sobering experience. But that outcome, like Jeremy Roenick’s retirement, is on hold for a while.
Until that happy day, the battle for the Nashville Predators has officially morphed into a struggle for the hearts and minds of Canadian hockey fans. To quote Richard Rodier (Balsillie’s right-hand man) quoting the Blackberry dude himself, “We are becoming strangers in our own (hockey) house.” So, while Bettman is otherwise engaged, frantically making his way down the list of the Fortune 500, trying to find someone — anyone — to buy the Preds and keep them stateside, Balsillie’s troops are asking, “Where are the Canadian NHL governors when it comes to boosting native content in the world’s top hockey league?” Where they are is in witness protection to avoid being fined by Bettman for opinions that cleave from the official NHL line that “there’s a process going on.” (Although it would be hard to describe the current mammoths-wrestling-in-the-tar-pit negotiations between Nashville’s Craig Leipold and Kansas City’s “Boots” DelBiaggio as a process.) With over a third of NHL revenues now coming from their half-dozen teams, the Canadian owners would seem to have unprecedented clout should they wish to exercise it. But asking why Leipold should get $50 million less in K.C. than Hamilton would involve taking on Bettman, something no one wants to try now that the commish is insulated by Jeremy Jacobs as board chairman and by an all-American audit committee. While the Canadian buck is paramount, Canadian power within the owners’ lodge is negligible.
And frankly, no answer Canadian owners are going to give on this file is going to sound very patriotic. They’re already making piles of cash on waiting lists and seat licences and don’t want to split their national market more than six ways if they don’t have to. They think the uber-rich Maple Leafs deserve more money if Balsillie lands in their backyard. And — while Rodier denies they will go the Al Davis litigation route — the New Original Six are mortified at the prospect of their bylaws being scrutinized in Canadian courts.
So they are holding Bettman’s coat while he shadow boxes with Balsillie, hoping to get the benefits of the $240-million purchase price while making the loyalty noise go away. Problem is, unlike previous challengers who either disappeared or went to jail in due order, Balsillie’s not likely to go away anytime soon. With the NHL face planting in the USA, he knows that time is on his side. If he can exert steady pressure on the NHL’s Canadian sponsors and media outlets, the day will eventually be his. If not Nashville, then Atlanta or Phoenix or whomever has a portable lease and a burning desire for $240 million in their pocket.
“Either Jim will get a team, or he will shine a light on what’s happening to hockey in this country,” says Rodier. To accelerate that process, the Canadian club is a convenient tool for bludgeoning the commissioner. Bettman’s never had great bonafides as a pur laine Canadian, and that wasn’t helped by him hosing CBC on some Saturday playoff dates this spring. For all the equalization plans when the dollar was at par with Bhutan’s ngultrum, the commish has never been quite Tim Hortons enough for most folk north of the 49th. But, on this one, Bettman is less anti-Canadian than pro-Gary. The contemporary NHL is a sandbox where Bettman and his allies within the Board of Governors carefully dole out the fast-shrinking spoils to each other, not some hotshot Canadian businessman who just happens to have revolutionized the communications history of the planet. It just so happens Bettman’s closest allies these days have a distinctly American tinge to them. As in, guys like Phil Anschutz and Ed Snider and Jeremy Jacobs who own or operate big arenas around the U.S.
It’s always worked like that in the NHL inner sanctum. The real problem is that, having driven hockey underground in the Excited States, it’s a zero-sum game for the commish at the moment. Bettman either pulls the Las Vegas/Jerry Bruckheimer rabbit from his hat or loses the undying loyalty of his Board of Governors who desire a $300-million expansion top-up. In which case, he takes the gold retirement watch and lets others deal with the ca-ca on both sides of the border.
One way or another Bettman will eventually wave a flag — either a Canadian one or a white one.
dowbboy@shaw.ca
© The Calgary Herald 2007
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/columnists/story.html?id=a2c25cbd-34a4-449d-9489-7a11ea340491
this guys gotta go!
Bring back John Ziegler,he’s better than Bettman,and knows a lot more about hockey.
I can not stand the fact that Gary Bettman is the face of the game that I love. I’d bet the farm that he never played a meaningful game of hockey in his life. He looks like the stereotypical person who was picked on by jocks at school & since the NHL has given him the power over jocks, he can now get his revenge. I realize that the NHL is now a business, but, can it not find someone to publicly administer that business who at least looks like he might have played the game. Perish the thought that they pick an administrator that actually knows how players feel because they at some time stood in their skates.