Gary Bettman could fart gold dust and blew rainbows out of his nose.  He took a year of hockey away from both fans and a tremendous number of players who retired as a result of the lockout--MacInnis, Messier, Stevens, Hull, you know, minor players--and his platform was based upon lies upon lies, from “lower ticket prices” to teams in “30 safe, stable markets,” he engaged in a smear campaign against the NHLPA and the league’s players while co-opting their December 9th CBA proposal as the backbone of his capped CBA, and he colluded with a splinter group of players and Ted Saskin to help depose Bob Goodenow and create a sell-out CBA largely written by NHL and PA executives who foised a hard salary cap with no transition period for cap compliance on its constituent players and the NHL’s 30 teams--many of which are struggling thanks to relocation and/or poor placement in sunbelt markets that may never embrace the game, at the expense of extremely passionate markets and any sort of willingness to continue to “grow the game” in hockey’s core markets. 

Bettman’s CBA rewards the mediocre (as Larry Brooks suggested last weekend) and penalizes success, it subsidizes small-market teams and over-promotes two stars at the expense of the big markets that drive league revenue and the hundreds of marketable players that could make hockey a more household name, its hockey-related revenues have not increased, save the tremendous gains made by the Canadian dollar, and while its theoretical cost-certainty gives franchises exponential growth in terms of franchise equity (that’s what the lockout was about, more than any other issue), it’s already spawning complaints about the fact that its strict socialist model has is no longer effective at constraining the big-market teams or silly GM’s from overspending and driving salary comparables up, which means that the most influential owners and GM’s in Bettman’s inner circle are very likely plotting their next lockout and are already blaming any inequalities upon “greedy players” who end up subsidizing the GM’s overspending thanks to escrow payments.

Bettman is a liar who stole a season from fans, remains an unrepentant and arrogant little man who is “little” and “petty” in every sense of the word, he illegally colluded with Ted Saskin to force his CBA upon the league and its players, and he actively helped Saskin try to fight off Roloson, Klatt, and Chelios’s push for accountability. 

It’s like Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit’s mayor.  He may have generated tremendous growth for the city of Detroit, but when you screw your chief of staff, fire the two police officers who were courageous enough to acknowledge that the mayor had a case of wandering wiener, leave a trail of text messages admitting his infidelity, trysts at city expense, the firing and smear campaigns against the whistleblowers, and then ended up settling with those two officers for wrongful termination in a $9 million settlement ($4.5 million per cop, of city taxpayer funds) after he and his chief of staff perjured themselves on the stand.  When the scandal came out over the last few weeks, Kilpatrick ran and hid and now claims that because he’s still married and has resolved the situation with his wife, his illegal indiscretions are a “private matter” and that any investigation into what happens is just re-hashing the past.

Bettman is a liar and a participant in illegal activities, and even if he is the golden goose himself, he can never repay the NHL’s fans or players for his transgressions.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 01/31/08 at 08:03 PM ET

Don’t hold back, George.  Tell us how you really feel.

Posted by PT on 01/31/08 at 08:16 PM ET

That’s the short version

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 01/31/08 at 08:26 PM ET

Contacted a publishing house for the long version yet?  I’m thinking is sounds like 180 pages (including diagrams). 

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 01/31/08 at 09:03 PM ET

Amen George!!!!!

http://www.FireBettman.com

Posted by Joe from USA on 01/31/08 at 09:18 PM ET

I know it wasn’t meant to be, but that was just hilarious, George!

You know a guy is wound up when his post is only eight sentences long but contains 587 words, including 172 in the second sentence alone. That has to be the longest single sentence in KK history.

I can’t wait for the unabridged version...180 pages, with one sentence per page.

Posted by OlderThanChelios from Grand Rapids on 02/01/08 at 12:02 AM ET

Rock on, George.  May you find the next shot of Jack Daniels to be the best damn whiskey you ever had after a post like that.  Thanks for rant.  It’s what the NHL desperately needs to hear right now.

Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 02/01/08 at 12:15 AM ET