There is an article out that caught my attention. It is by Ken Campbell of The Hockey News, and the title is more of a question: "Why Does Gary Bettman Get All The Blame?". It got me to write this rather passionate blog about what I, personally, feel has gone wrong with hockey since Bettman first became commissioner in 1993, almost twenty years now. It's a long laundry list of things, frankly, and I will try to show that Bettman, while maybe not responsible for this particular lockout, still has to bear the brunt of responsibility for why hockey has slipped and regressed, why it's popularity and credibility have taken a hit, and why he has played a very active, and frankly, detrimental, role in all of this. I did not recently jump on the "Blame it on Bettman" bandwagon, as Campbell calls it (he mentions, quite amusingly, that this bandwagon is so full that it is nearly bursting at the seams). I have not liked him, and frankly blamed him, since 1995, with the first of now three work stoppages under his watch, and following the departure of the Nordiques from Quebec, and the near departure of the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Devils from New Jersey (the Stanley Cup was what saved them from moving).
Right now, NHL hockey is supposed to be starting play. Sure, it's the time of the preseason, but still, nevertheless, it's usually the time that we fans get the chance to see the teams skate around the ice. Perhaps we can get cheap tickets, maybe even better seats than we normally might get.
But not this year. For the third time since 1994, the NHL has seen a stoppage in play. In 1994, it halted much of the early part of the season due to an owners lockout, although play did resume in the latter part of the season, all of which fell in 1995. It was a shortened season, but they did play, and the playoffs were deemed a success.
Then came the lockout of 2004-2005 that remained unresolved. An entire season was cancelled as a result, and so the NHL became the first sport in North American history to cancel the entirety of a season, from beginning to end, including playoffs (although it should be noted that baseball had experienced a stoppage of play after playing the equivalent of a half of a season back in 1994, and there was no World Series that year, but they had played the first half).
It is perhaps ironic that there was a major debacle with the replacement officiating on Monday Night Football before a national television audience just a few days ago (which I wrote a blog entry about on Tuesday, just two days ago), because it needs to be noted that the failure (and it was undeniably a failure) that marked the termination of the 2004-05 season came on the heels of one of the most controversial officiating calls the NHL has ever seen, surely (and one of the most controversial in sports, because it may have robbed a team of a championship).
The Calgary Flames entered game 6, a home game for them, having just come off an impressive Game 5 road victory. In a best of seven series, they were now up 3 games to 2, and had a chance to clinch the series at home. It was a tight game, tied 2-2 in the final minutes of the third period, when Calgary scored what appeared to be the winning goal, as there was very little time left. But the play was never reviewed, and the goal was discounted. It let the air out of the Flames, and the Lightning quickly capitalized seconds into overtime, sending the series to the deciding Game 7, in Tampa. The Lightning won their first ever Stanley Cup.
But to understand the full extent of the controversy, one needs to understand the plan that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman not only had in mind, but actually put into place. He had the idea that hockey was not growing fast enough, so he decided that what it needed was a makeover of sorts. What did he have in mind? Expansion. Particularly, expansion southwards, in a market that traditionally had not existed before, and that coming at the expense of traditionally loyal hockey markets in Canada and the northern United States (cold weather areas where frozen lakes and such are standard during the winter, on other words).
Of course, it was not the best idea to create too many teams, because then, there would be watered down talent. Expansion teams alone was not going to be the answer. So, some northern cities were going to lose their teams, in order to populate this Southern expansion. Thus, the Minnesota North Stars left town in 1993 to become the Dallas Stars. Bettman may or may not have been at all responsible for this, as it happened very early on during his tenure. Still, it did happen on his watch, and we should note the trend of a northern city losing it's team to a southern city. There were plenty of others to come: the Quebec Nordiques moving to become the Colorado Avalanche in 1995 (and in a particularly stinging slap in the face to Canada and specifically Quebec, winning the Cup the very first year of their move), the Winnipeg Jets moving to become the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996, the Hartford Whalers moving to become the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997. Given this trend there have been, and continue to be, real concerns in northern cities that their professional NHL team is about to relocate. At various times, fans in Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, New Jersey, and Buffalo have feared the possibility of losing their beloved NHL franchises - usually to a city much farther South.
In Campbell's article, "Why Does Gary Bettman Get All The Blame?", he argues that Bettman is not nearly as responsible for the southern expansion program, although he gets blamed for it. Specifically, he says:
"But it remains vogue to slag Bettman for simply doing his job. For example, people often point to Bettman's failed Sunbelt expansion. But guess how many southern cities have received expansion teams under Bettman's watch? Two, Nashville and Atlanta. Tampa Bay and San Jose were already in the league, and Minnesota North Stars had relocated to Dallas before he was hired. The Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim had already been accepted into the league in a move that was orchestrated by soon-to-be-convicted felon Bruce McNall. It's true Bettman did little to stop the move of teams to Raleigh, Phoenix and Denver, but we're going to go on a limb and speculate that those moves had more to do with the previous owners than the NHL head office."
Campbell makes some very valid points. Yet, it remains to be said that it is hardly a minor point that Bettman did not stand in the way of those moves. A better commissioner would have recognized the detrimental nature of removing teams from northern cities in order to populate a barren sunbelt market. Let it be clear that the market there is barren for a reason: it's just not hockey country, and wishing it will not make it so. The reason should be obvious: these are not cold weather cities. Lakes do not freeze over, and skating rinks specifically have to be constructed for people to play the sport. It's just not a natural fit, and if it seems obvious in hindsight, after what can already be seen as largely a failed experiment, it can also be said that this fact was equally as obvious during the experiment. at least it was by hockey fans, and perhaps by outside observers, as well. In fact, perhaps the only people that did not see it were those narrow minded owners, and the NHL head office.
Campbell also ignores the threats that franchises from other cities seemed to constantly feel. In Edmonton and Calgary, in Buffalo and Ottawa. And here in New Jersey, where it seemed that the only thing that kept the Devils from moving further south was the enormously good fortune of the team having put it all together in time to win the Stanley Cup in 1995. I remember some people saying that it would be too embarrassing for the league's defending Stanley Cup champions to skip town. Not the kind of publicity that the league would want, I guess, and so the Devils stayed. The Quebec Nordiques were not so lucky, and so the loyal fans of Quebec, who had voted not to have their taxes increased to build a new arena that the franchise demanded in order to keep the team in town, had to watch their former team win it the very next year after the Devils did, only now incarnated as the Colorado Avalanche. Yet, although I don't personally particularly care for them, the Colorado Avalanche have actually been a success story, as far as the southern expansion policy was concerned. They have become a storied franchise, and competed at the highest levels for years. They were phenomenally popular, and gained a strong following. It should be noted, of course, that Colorado also gets cold weather, gets ice, and I would be willing to venture that this had not a small amount to do with the team's success. I would also like to point out that this particular team's success in Colorado came at the expense of a loyal NHL city in Canada, who paid the price of the greed that brought the team far south of the border, far away. Call me naive, but I don't think that's fair, and it really did not have to come to that. there should have been more effort to keep the team in Quebec, and work out a deal. But greed won out, and kept winning out throughout Bettman's days as head of the league. It kept winning out, and is still winning out, and yet, irony of ironies, the league itself has been worse off for it, hasn't it? Maybe Bettman isn't the only one to blame, for sure. But someone is to blame, and Bettman was not exactly a lonely voice in the wilderness, crying for some sanity. he seemed entirely in favor of the greed that drove the southern expansion and, as such, he deserves to pay the price and get his share of the blame now.
The NHL, and Commissioner Bettman, have continually had to allay these fears and reassure the fans that they were not about to lose their teams, although there does not seem to be a great deal of trust or good will towards the league, or especially towards Bettman. Whenever he goes to an arena (at least in the north, in traditional markets that have a strong background with their hockey) he is soundly booed. Even when a team's home crowd is celebrating wildly (such as after a championship), the fans take a moment to pull themselves away from the joyous celebration in order to make sure they express their dislike of Bettman, and voice their disapproval of the job that he has done. That's pretty strong determination, I would say.
It should be noted, because this does not seem a minor point, that there presently exists the longest Stanley Cup drought for the in what had traditionally had strongest market and support for hockey traditionally, Canada. Canada is where hockey is not only the national sport, but to some, it seems almost like a religion. Yet, the popularity of the NHL in Canada had long been on the decline, probably in large part due to the seemingly strong possibility (sometimes it felt more like an inevitability) that the teams there were under constant threat of moving, save for perhaps the major two, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. Plus, their once proud teams have fallen by the wayside, unable to compete with watered down competition. There were periods of downright dominance by franchises like the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Edmonton Oilers. But starting with the 1994 Vancouver Canucks, who lost in the Finals in the deciding seventh game to the Rangers, Canadian teams have failed to win the Cup. Only five Canadian teams have qualified in the almost two decades since the last Candaian Stanley Cup Champion (note the year, 1993, when the Canadiens won the Cup in the same year that Bettman took over as Commissioner, and not a single Canadian team had hoisted the Cup since), and they have all lost. The Vancouver Canucks at least lost twice to two of the six original franchises. But the other three times, Canadian teams lost to southern expansion teams (Calgary lost to Tampa Bay in 2004, Edmonton lost to Carolina in 2006, and Ottawa lost to Anaheim in 2007).
Are Canadian fans pissed off? You bet they are. Look at the overall trend, and you can understand why.
Now, it should be noted that Minnesota got a hockey team back, and the city of Winnipeg managed, seemingly against all odds, to get their Jets back. Still, something does not feel right. The Canadian teams seem weak and watered down somehow. Only two of them made it to the playoffs last season, and they were both knocked out in the first round. Not exactly mirroring a proud and strong tradition.
The question is why is this happening now, when everything else about rthe NHL seems to be dumping on Canada? Has the watered down talent been specifically geared towards allowing Southern expansion teams to succeed, to make the plan look like a huge success? In other words, are these new teams succeeding at the expense of the older, more established hockey markets, so that Bettman's mad experimentation looks like a rousing success. Every time a Southern expansion team has a run well into the playoffs, we hear about the wild enthusiasm in their home towns. We see excited fans and hear about sold out seats, we see the banners and jerseys everywhere in the city and region. Hockeymania has taken over. Of course, these reports are not so forthcoming two seasons before or later (take your pick), when the team is struggling, about to miss the playoffs, and playing before a mostly empty arena.
Eventually, the inevitable happened. Fans turned away from the NHL. Hockey fans in Canada increasingly turned to more local hockey teams and leagues, where ticket prices also happen to not be nearly as steep. Much like the baseball farm leagues here in the United States, these smaller leagues offered a more accessible package, and people began to flock there more and more over the years. What are the chances that there will not be an additional gain in popularity as this lockout continues, and NHL hockey doesn't? Whatever the issues, and whether or not Bettman is responsible for this particular problem, a trend has been set, and Bettman has been at the center of that issue: namely, the crumbling quality of NHL hockey under his watch.
Ken Campbell makes clear that, in this particular case, Bettman, does not deserve all of the blame. Okay, fair enough point. and I will not argue it. Yet Campbell hardly seems to be a fan of Bettman, and in fact, seems to have been a part of the overcrowded anti-Bettman bandwagon that he mentions in the article. There is a reason for this, too, as Campbell makes clear:
"And let's face it, Bettman often makes it easy to dislike him. He frequently comes across as condescending and arrogant and after 20 years on the job, still can't shake the fact that he never took a stick in the chin. There are times when he makes taking potshots at him as east as shooting fish in a barrel."
The article says not to (only) blame Bettman. Maybe he does not deserve all of the blame for the recent predicament that the NHL is in. But let's be clear about this: he and his supporters and enablers, deserve the mountain's share of blame for why the NHL has lost much of it's appeal in traditional markets. Whether or not the NHL wants to admit it or not, this man as commissioner has been a failure, and a monumental one at that. He is the reason that hockey is viewed, at worst, as almost as a joke these days, and at best, as an afterthought, usually mentioned in sports news after the other major sports have been covered.
If nothing else, it has been an interesting approach by Bettman. He has taken a strictly business approach to a sport that gets it's support almost purely through emotion, and he has delivered his itinerary in that emotionless, businesslike manner. He was absolutely determined to expand the popularity of hockey into new markets, and did so, at least in part, at the expense of (rather than in addition to) the popularity of hockey in traditional markets. Almost as if he thought that in order for hockey to gain acceptance and credibility in newer markets, he would have to belittle and anger older ones. Not the approach that might seem to make sense to most people (and apparently, that includes the mass majority of NHL fans), but one that Bettman has taken and, apparently, stuck with, often with a smug, "I know best" attitude to boot. How this guy lasted as long as he has is a mystery to many, including me. Yet, there he sits on his throne, and still, NHL hockey is suffering for it. The man is nothing if not persistent.
Whether he deserves all of the blame or not seems perhaps a bit contrived. Someone deserves the blame for all of the things that have gone wrong, and they all seemed to come to a head during his tenure at the top office. These things all came to a head, for that matter, in large part because Bettman certainly did not help matters. In fact, he seems to have taken an active role in exacerbating matters. To repeat: no, he does not deserve all of the blame. Yet, the fact of the matter is that, as head of the league during it's least successful period in modern history, Bettman has unwittingly become the face of that failure. Now, maybe it could have been different. he could have been the voice of reason. He could have pointed out that scrapping old and loyal markets in favor of experimenting with new ones was a huge gamble, one that many predicted the league would lose out on, and were proven correct. But that is not what Bettman did. What he did was act like a detached businessman. Campbell made the point that Bettman was haunted by never having actually been a player, but I think it runs deeper than that. Bettman does not even seem like a real fan of the game. Seriously, it's hard to imagine him kicking back and enjoying a game, getting excited or emotional about the outcome. To be able to relate to fans who do get emotional or excited should have been more of a priority, because maybe then the league would have have acted in a cold and callus business manner, as it continues to do presently with this lockout. The fans just want to see their favorite game, to go to games or watch them on television, to check up the standings in newspapers or on the internet. But that is not happening, because the league's focus is elsewhere. Apparently, so it Bettman's, or he would have used his head position to step up and give everyone a better perspective. That he has consistently failed to do, and that is why he gets so much of the blame. No, he does not deserve all of the blame. Point well taken. Frankly, however, he certainly deserves his fair share of the blame for not doing more - much more - to protect the integrity of the sport that he allegedly represents and defends the best interests of. He is a businessman, and took a more pragmatic approach. The thing is, hockey is not so much a business, as it is a sport, and particularly from the fans perspective, it is something more like a feeling in your heart, and an escape from the everyday, than anything else. When it becomes a reminder of the problems of the world, it becomes a source of stress, and people turn away, as they have, and may continue to do. Someone taking a less businesslike approach might have gotten the fans to warm to him or her, and used that popularity to their advantage to find some better balance. Hockey is a sport played on ice, but Bettman's only relation to the sport seems to be the iciness in his demeanor, which has hardly warmed the hearts of disheartened fans of the sport, and that is where he has failed. And yes, he deserves blame accordingly for that failure.
Here is the article that got me to write about this particular issue, namely, Gary Bettman as probably the worst commissioner in the history of sports:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-does-gary-bettman-blame-190500547--nhl.html
Here is an article by Yahoo's Dan Wetzel, venting his frustration at the ineptitude of Gary Bettman and his philosophy of mindless expansion at whatever cost:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?slug=dw-nhlexpansion060807
Here is an article from earlier this year by Teresa Walker of Salon, suggesting that the expansion to the South has actually been a success:
http://www.guelphmercury.com/sports/article/662124--booming-hockey-numbers-proof-nhl-s-southern-expansion-paying-dividends
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