His face twitches when he speaks because he cannot stand the sound of his ludicrous bullshit. He has trouble making eye contact with people interviewing him because he is pathologically incapable of honesty. His unpopularity is virtually unanimous amongst NHL fans. The team owners - whose status as his boss is decidedly inconvenient for anyone who gives a fart about the sport - seem to love him for some reason (he just received a five-year contract extension). What reason could that possibly be? I will give you one guess. Yes, profits are up. As a whole, NHL franchises are making more money than ever, and Bettman’s supporters credit him with the resolution of lockout that ushered in a number of new rules designed to make the sport more exciting.
There are a number of worthy questions for his supporters. Why does he deserve credit for resolving the lockout but no blame for allowing it? Isn’t it odd to praise him for overseeing a more profitable league while he is stubbornly refusing to relocate failed franchises, nurturing hockey in the sunbelt like he’s planting a garden in the desert? Even statements made by the little twerp himself acknowledge that the increased speed of the “new NHL” makes it a more hazardous league. Okay, I guess that last one was not a question, but you get my point.
Apparently none of these issues are pressing for the owners (I rarely see eye-to-eye with the super-rich). But suddenly, out of nowhere, an insidious issue called player safety has become a financial issue for the league. Now, he might be in trouble.
Player safety has become rather controversial in recent seasons, as the rate of serious head injuries has risen. Progressive hockey fans yearning for a safe yet physical game are at loggerheads with reactionaries that fear severely punishing offending players will result in gradual elimination of violence from the game (to these people, “European” is always the clinching pejorative used to rest their cases).
The most obvious solution to the issue is to regulate player equipment. Shoulder- and elbow-pads have apparently evolved from foam to adamantium as players protect said body parts at the expense of each other’s heads. It is good to know that today’s NHL players will have strong elbows and shoulders as they develop dementia in their mid-fifties.
Neither the league nor the player’s union seems to have any interest in regulating equipment, though, so that is out. Instead, the idea is to regulate player behaviour (because it’s so much easier to make a healthy decision in less than a second than it is to have a series of meetings designed to substantially improve the safety of the game) by cracking down on deliberate head-shots. This has also proven a difficult process haunted by hypocrisy and inconsistency so egregious it seems intentionally random.
The best hockey player in the world will probably miss the rest of the season with post-concussion syndrome, and while it would be immoral to punish offenders based on the skill of their victims, Sidney Crosby suffered two blatantly illegal checks that should have been subject to supplementary discipline. It is not Crosby’s skill that warrants punishment, but rather his skill that highlights the league’s irresponsibility in letting two different players skate by after illegally ending his season (that was developing as one of the best in NHL history, no less).
When the league does suspend a player, it tends to go one of two ways: if the offender has any skill at all, the suspension is far too short, and if the offender has so little skill that his presence in the league is questionable, the suspension will be reasonable.
I suppose I should hurry the fuck up and get to the part that means trouble for Bettman. Last week in Montreal, star Boston Bruin defenseman Zdeno Chara viciously and intentionally bludgeoned Montreal winger Max Pacioretty’s head with a stanchion used to support a glass partition. Chara had a well-known beef with Pacioretty entering the game and his team was losing 4-0 with fifteen seconds remaining in the second period. It could not possibly be a more obvious example of desperate, violent revenge designed to galvanize his pathetic teammates.
The league did nothing. Oh, did I mention that the head of NHL discipline, Colin Campbell, has a son on the playoff-bound Bruins, and that captain Zdeno Chara is easily its best player? Let’s not even mention the fact that the Boston-Montreal rivalry is currently the most heated in hockey, and that his father is more famous for the Rocket Richard riots than anything else (I guess I mentioned them). Somehow, it does not strike anyone as a conflict of interest for the head of NHL discipline to have a son playing in the league. Sure, he recuses himself from decisions involving the Bruins, relinquishing responsibility to an inferior that reports directly to him (no one would ever make a decision based on what they thought their boss wanted, right?) but every time he makes a ruling, it has the power to affect the Bruins in some capacity.
The league’s refusal to punish Zdeno Chara has proven more controversial than is typical for its bad decisions, because this was simply one of the most extreme instances of hockey violence in recent memory. A lifelong hockey fan at the age of 26, I can only recall two incidents more brutal than this one, and I only need say “Marty McSorley” and “Todd Bertuzzi” to clarify them. Those assaults remain in a class of their own. Remember that Bertuzzi received a season-long suspension, but due to the lockout (that somehow counted against his suspension despite the fact that not a single game occurred), only missed 13 regular-season games and 7 playoff matches. So yeah, the league does not have a great record of accomplishment for discipline and many people are pissed off about this Chara shit.
A few of those people hold prominent positions at Air Canada, apparently, because the airliner issued this surprisingly stern warning to the NHL:
We are contacting you (Wednesday) to voice our concern over (Tuesday night’s) incident involving Max Pacioretty and Zdeno Chara at the Bell Centre in Montreal. This is following several other incidents involving career-threatening and life-threatening headshots in the NHL recently. From a corporate social responsibility standpoint, it is becoming increasingly difficult to associate our brand with sports events which could lead to serious and irresponsible accidents; action must be taken by the NHL before we are encountered with a fatality. Unless the NHL takes immediate action with serious suspension to the players in question to curtail these life-threatening injuries, Air Canada will withdraw its sponsorship of hockey.
Wow, right? Pretty strong stuff. Now, I am finally going to get to the part that might spell bad news for Bettman. Here is his response:
Our hockey operations people are extraordinarily comfortable with the decision that was made. It was a horrific injury, we’re sorry that it happened in our fast-paced physical game, but I don’t think whether or not supplemental discipline was imposed would change what happened… Air Canada is a great brand as is the National Hockey League and if they decide that they need to do other things with their sponsorship dollars, that’s their prerogative. It is the prerogative of our clubs that fly on Air Canada to make other arrangements if they don’t think Air Canada is giving them the appropriate level of service.
Ballsy stuff all around. It looks like we have a couple of cowboys on our hands here. Before I get to the sponsorship issue, can I get a WTF? for the choice of words, “extraordinarily comfortable?” What the hell is that supposed to mean? They are normally less comfortable with their decisions than they are here? This was somehow a situation in which they were more certain of their ruling? Bettman was an immature cunt to add the word “extraordinarily” for no other reason than to taunt his critics.
One more thing before we talk about Air Canada: does Bettman actually think that the league has some magical power to change the past? “I don’t think whether or not supplemental discipline was imposed would change what happened.” Feel free to read that one over a few times. Who the fuck said that supplemental discipline would undo the assault and its injury? Have there been previous suspensions that retroactively altered the events that led to said suspensions? In that case, it must have been pretty confusing that people were getting suspended. Have people been contacting the league, blaming them that Max Pacioretty broke his neck because Zdeno Chara was not suspended? No no no, it’s not the fault of the Chara non-suspension that Pacioretty broke his neck; it’s the fault of the Chara decision that the next guy intentionally bludgeoned by a rink-side stanchion because his assailant fears no reprimand will break his neck.
Is it wise to play fast and loose with huge sponsors like this? Air Canada is not only the (estimated) biggest corporate sponsor of NHL franchises, but it also charters several teams including all Canadian clubs. It should come as no surprise that Bettman should be so careless with Air Canada - he would probably rather fly Southwest anyway. I did not make up that joke and I have no idea who did.
I would not count on this being the beginning of the end for Gary Bettman. Owners just extended his contract, the league is making money and my opinions rigidly tend to oppose those of the NHL in all matters Bettman. However, if he fails to get a grasp on discipline (firing Colin Campbell is no longer an option) and sponsors start withdrawing, the owners will probably look for a commissioner who can keep the big corporate dollars rolling in. This is especially likely to happen when an NHL player dies during a game resultant of a headshot. The way Campbell and Bettman like their hockey, that should happen very soon.
