Wayne Anyone
“No more. Yesterday NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who had locked out the players in September just before the start of the 2004-2005 season, cancelled the remaining games as well as the Stanley Cup playoffs because he and Bob Goodenow, executive director of the players union, could not come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement between the league’s 30 team owners and the players. While the media has focused on the NHL’s operating losses ($96 million last season) and player salaries (an average of $1.8 million), the truth of the matter is that league’s bloody P&L statement is the symptom, not the disease.
Hockey’s illness is Bettman, a basketball man who is a prodigy of NBA commissioner David Stern. Bettman and the owners he works for trashed the league’s identity when they tried to turn a cash-rich, mom-and-pop league into a growth industry.
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If the NHL is ever to recover from the debacle created by Bettman, it must put in place a commissioner with hockey in his blood and tremendous integrity. Someone who the fans can identify with and trust. It needs someone who has enough guts to eliminate some teams in order to make the NHL stronger. Wayne Gretzky, anyone?”