Hockey

[1995hoo]

The Florida Fraudsters seem to be well underway to cheat their way to a second Stanley Cup in a row.

They played multiple Canadian teams in their playoff run, so of course they won. What else would you expect? They got an unfair advantage getting to play so many Canadian opponents.

[LilianaUwU]

Anyways, I think both Canadian and American fans can agree on one thing: Gary Bettman needs to resign.

[SEWIGuy]

Anyways, I think both Canadian and American fans can agree on one thing: Gary Bettman needs to resign.

Eh. I think he's been pretty unfairly maligned.

[Max Rockatansky]

Anyways, I think both Canadian and American fans can agree on one thing: Gary Bettman needs to resign.

Eh. I think he's been pretty unfairly maligned.

A lot of the things he was trying to set up early in his tenure are coming to fruition now.  Granted, he probably shouldn't have surprised a season being cancelled or losing out on some really big TV contracts.

[SEWIGuy]

He makes the owners money, and that's who he works for.  I also think that if people believe there will be a "different" NHL when he retires, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

[1995hoo]

I read a biography of Bettman a few years ago, The Instigator: How Gary Bettman Remade the NHL and Changed the Game Forever by Jonathon Gatehouse. It would be somewhat dated by now because it was published in 2013 (Amazon shows I bought it in 2015).

It was a rather interesting read and it portrayed someone more complex than most of us would realize. Obviously SEWIGuy makes an excellent point about his role (and really any commissioner's role—consider how the baseball owners drove Fay Vincent out of office). The book definitely reinforced my impression that he can be a vindictive little fucker when he feels like someone has crossed him, especially early in his NHL career. I got the impression that some of that came from his reaction to being perceived as an outsider because he came over from the NBA, such that there was a reaction of who was this basketball guy coming in telling the hockey world it was doing things the wrong way. On the other hand, some of what he had to say in that respect was undoubtedly correct and I think there can be little doubt that some of how the NHL had been run over the years was somewhat symptomatic of, "<shrug> That's how it's always been." I remember being somewhat amused by some of the "boys' club" aspect of the league's management being taken aback when he was seen picking up paper towel waste and other such trash that people had thrown on the floor in the league office men's room. They said there were cleaning people who would pick that up at night and he rather testily responded along the lines of visitors to the league office used that men's room and they were getting an impression of an unprofessional outfit if they saw that, so it would be kept clean.


Edited to add: Another interesting book about NHL history is The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL: The World's Most Beautiful Sport, the World's Most Ridiculous League by Sean McIndoe. As the name implies, it focuses on weird history. For example, there's the story of the 1970 NHL amateur draft when the two expansion teams were to spin a wheel to decide who would get the first pick (Gilbert Perreault). But how did they decide who got to spin first? They tossed a coin, of course. There was a chapter on all the weird playoff formats over the years (for example, it's still the case that nobody really knows why for many years the #1 seed played the #3 seed and #2 played #4, unlike in every normal seeding system). The Down Goes Brown book would be an interesting back-to-back read with the Bettman biography.

[1995hoo]

The Florida Fraudsters seem to be well underway to cheat their way to a second Stanley Cup in a row.

https://x.com/TOSportsAdam/status/1935169069084262475

[ET21]

NHL Draft in 9 days