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Hockeytown0001

Thanks for screwing us all, Mr. Bettman

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Guest MrSandMan

Bettman lost many loyal fans to gain a few fly by night ignorant ones (insert Ducks fans here)

What a nice trade off, eh? :clap:

First time in 25yrs I didn't follow hockey through the SCFs into Stanly Cup victory. (last 3yrs I started losing interest because every year it's becoming more and more of a joke)

Hockey isn't what it use to be in the day. :thumbdown:

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I didn't mean to imply that the teams that have won for the past 3 years didn't deserve to win. I was thinking more along the lines of that despite brilliant Gary's plan, most people in those cities that recently won just don't care. His whole plan to save hockey never worked out. The cities that have recently won just do not care. Even the Ducks players admitted that they've had to accept that hockey takes a back seat to just about everything else in SoCal. Sure, it's nice to have some privacy without being approached by fans all the time, but wouldn't it be nice to be at least recognized?

Good article on Bettman - http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/6844396

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I didn't mean to imply that the teams that have won for the past 3 years didn't deserve to win. I was thinking more along the lines of that despite brilliant Gary's plan, most people in those cities that recently won just don't care. His whole plan to save hockey never worked out. The cities that have recently won just do not care. Even the Ducks players admitted that they've had to accept that hockey takes a back seat to just about everything else in SoCal. Sure, it's nice to have some privacy without being approached by fans all the time, but wouldn't it be nice to be at least recognized?

Good article on Bettman - http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/6844396

This would have been a much better way to start the thread, and I can empathize with a good portion of it.

Edited by Never Forget Mac #25

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Guest jaytan

I've got the perfect solution!

You know how teams in European soccer leagues are only allowed a certain number of foreign players on their rosters? I believe this is still the case, though I don't really follow the sport....

Anyway, it should be required that 80 per cent of the players dressed for any NHL team are from a 100-mile radius of the team's arena. Of the remaining four players, one must be from anywhere in the team's home country, and three can be from anywhere on the globe.

This way, we'd practically eliminate the chance of any Southern-based team ever winning the Cup again, give Toronto an opportunity to win one before everyone from their last championship roster is dead, and encourage teams in non-traditional markets to either move or to start aggressive youth hockey programs and hockey development campaigns in their local areas.

Best idea ever. :)

Edited by jaytan

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Guest bullocks

So this is the third year in a row that the most revered trophy in all of sports has been claimed by a non-traditional hockey market with fans who had no clue about the team that won it during the regular season. For the third year in a row, Bettman had a huge smile on his face at the conclusion of the SCF. Has anyone told him what the ratings of the SCF this year were? I didn't think they could get any worse than they did in 04, and then in 06. But apparently, when team from Southern California (which is the worst hockey market on Earth) makes the Finals, interest drops to a whole new low. I remember an article saying that the best thing for hockey would be to have a Detroit/New York SCF, because the ratings would be high due to the fact that the Wings are the most poplular American hockey team, and you know that New York is passionate about hockey as well. Most fans in Anaheim will forget about the Ducks come next week. I had a friend from Southern California who thought the Cup was filled with money and would be cracked open like a piniatta. :crazy: Anyone remember that "Ducks are playing the Canadian team, the 'Minnesota Royals' thing?

And don't even get me started on the officiating. I almost can't watch hockey sometimes because of some of the calls made out there that change the game around. (Even some of the calls that benefit the Wings, I was in shock over.) Perfect example? At the end of Game 5.

Gary Bettman has brought hockey morality for the real fans in the league to an all time low. Seeing Pronger raise the Cup was bad enough, but that the Cup will now be defaced with the words "Anaheim Ducks" on it is almost unthinkable. They might as well put Mickey Mouse and Goofy on there as well. You know he's a hated man when even the Ducks "fans" booed him as he entered last night. Remember when he had to say "It's ok, I bring gifts"? They should be worshipping him like the second coming of Jesus. He's one of the main reasons why the Ducks and other non-traditional teams have won. His first screw up was to put teams in places like Miami, Anaheim, Los Angeles (The only reason they are still around today was because of Gretzky), Tampa Bay, and Nashville, who could barely sell 3/4 of their tickets this season despite their top ranking in the standings for so long. Was Gary asleep when this came out, or did he just pretend not to notice?

Either he just doesn't have a clue, or he was tired of having teams like Detroit and Colorado and Jersey dominate year after year. Hello? It's sports, and there will always be dominating teams, no matter what. Deal with it. Look at San Antonio in the NBA. Uh oh, the Spurs are too good, we better make a salary cap so the Charlotte Bobcats can have a chance and those selfish Spurs will finally crash! You wouldn't have this problem, Gary, if you didn't put teams in those markets where people couldn't give a flying rat about those teams. I'm glad that Pittsburgh didn't move to Kansas City. Before moving back to MI in 03, I lived there for 9 years, and their minor league team, the Blades (which featured future NHL'er Patrick Lalime and Ray Whitney) had to fold due to a total lack of fan interest.

Once again Gary, thank you for screwing the best game on Earth, and a sincere thank you from all of us real fans for screwing us as well. You thought you were saving the sport? It's in even worse shape than it was in 04.

Would u like some tissues? Stop your ******* whining. How did i know you'd bring up the penalty in game 5. Well guess what, it was a penalty...and they scored!! Was i sour, yes...but its time to get over it. They had bs calls against them to that be didnt cash in on, that was the difference in the series. I guess nobody complained about the parade to the box they had in game 6 that let us almost tie it.

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What bothers me is that the cap disassembles all the talent of all of these teams right after they win the cup. The stupidity of Bettman's plan is that after generating interest in the smaller markets, their team falls apart the next season, allowing the fans to return to not caring. It just doesn't make sense. We'll probably see it with the Ducks. Giguere is going to want a lot of money to stay (like Khabibulin did after Tampa won), and as soon as the young stars get older and better, the team won't be able to sustain them anymore. We'll probably see the same thing happen with the Penguins and other developing teams.

How can you say that the cap does this when the cap has only been around one year? Theres no evidence to that yet in the NHL. And even if you go with the last 4 Cup champs, the Canes were the only one of them that didn't make the playoffs the following year. The Canes had an awful year this year but a lot of the guys who won it for them were still there. Weight and Recchi(don't think I spelled that right) were gone because they were rent-a-players with no intention of staying. And if teams that win it have a smart GM they can be just fine. The Lightning handcuffed themselves by signing Richards to such a big deal so that has hurt them from contending still because they don't have money to get a goalie.

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How can you say that the cap does this when the cap has only been around one year? Theres no evidence to that yet in the NHL. And even if you go with the last 4 Cup champs, the Canes were the only one of them that didn't make the playoffs the following year. The Canes had an awful year this year but a lot of the guys who won it for them were still there. Weight and Recchi(don't think I spelled that right) were gone because they were rent-a-players with no intention of staying. And if teams that win it have a smart GM they can be just fine. The Lightning handcuffed themselves by signing Richards to such a big deal so that has hurt them from contending still because they don't have money to get a goalie.

I think you disagreed with me there and argued my point. And why would rent-a-players want to leave a team they saw huge success in? If they could have stayed, then they probably would have. I think the cap forces players to become rent-a-players. Shanahan was a rent-a-player too. He stayed after the team saw success because the team wasn't limited by a cap. That Red Wings team was able to keep its fans because the players that brought success to the team stayed around and Ilitch could keep resigning them. And I think the Richards signing proves my point exactly.

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Yes garys an idiot but really people, the last three teams that won the cup had every right to win it. the fans aren't out there playing the game the players are, and each of the last three teams had great players out there. So what if the fans are just fare-weather fans. Anyone who lives in detroit should know about this really well. Anyone remember how many people would show up for a tigers game 3 years ago? But the min the win some games everyone is a tigers fan. So who care where the Cup is handed out each year, because its the players in those citys that earned it each year.

In the old capless NHL, those teams would of never won. I don't really want to sound like they should fix the cap in favor of the bigger market teams cause that is kinda crap. But if teams like Anaheim and Carolina keep winning, I don't see the NHL really lasting all that long.

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I've got the perfect solution!

You know how teams in European soccer leagues are only allowed a certain number of foreign players on their rosters? I believe this is still the case, though I don't really follow the sport....

Anyway, it should be required that 80 per cent of the players dressed for any NHL team are from a 100-mile radius of the team's arena. Of the remaining four players, one must be from anywhere in the team's home country, and three can be from anywhere on the globe.

This way, we'd practically eliminate the chance of any Southern-based team ever winning the Cup again, give Toronto an opportunity to win one before everyone from their last championship roster is dead, and encourage teams in non-traditional markets to either move or to start aggressive youth hockey programs and hockey development campaigns in their local areas.

Best idea ever. :)

NHL racism at its finest.

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I'm no fan of bettman, but these cup wins by non-traditional markets at least increase the fanbase, if only by a little bit. Had things happened the opposite way and ottawa, edmonton, and calgary won the cup the last three years, it would do nothing for the NHL. I do not quite understand the hostility towards the NHL in non-traditional markets. Its not quite the fault of these markets that they aren't hockey hotbeds, but the fault of bettman who has done little to promote these teams. The NHL has successfully expanded to newer markets before, and so have many other sports organizations. The NHL needs to give these markets some time and promote them better.

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Guest MrSandMan

NHL at an all time low--

I don't just blame Bettman, I blame the team playing in the SCF. If refs didn't decided to eject Wings out in the WCF the ratings would have probably been near an all time high.

http://www.nhl.com/nhl/app?articleid=31682...mp;service=page

NEW YORK (AP) -Anaheim's Stanley Cup-winning victory over Ottawa produced another dismal televising rating.

The Ducks' 6-2 win over Ottawa on Wednesday night received a 2.5 overnight rating and 4 share, NBC said Thursday. That marked a 14 percent drop from Game 5 last year, a 4-3 overtime victory by Edmonton over Carolina.

National ratings were due later Thursday, and this year's Stanley Cup finals were on track to set a record low for TV viewers.

Game 1 on Versus was seen by 523,000 households in the United States and Game 2 on the cable network was viewed by 446,000 homes.

When the series switched to NBC, Game 3 was seen in 1.2 million homes and produced a 1.1 national rating, matching a July 2005 rerun of "The West Wing" as the lowest-rated prime-time broadcast in NBC history. Game 4 had a 1.9 national rating, which translates to 2.1 million homes.

Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest television markets in the United States, and each overnight rating point represents about 735,000 households. A national ratings point represents 1,114,000 homes.

The rating is the percentage watching a telecast among all homes with televisions, and the share is the percentage tuned in to a broadcast among those households with televisions on at the time

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i don't like bettman, but putting teams in non-traditional markets is the only way to gain more fans. how many fans will the league gain if nashville moves to hamilton? ZERO. every single person that lives in hamilton is already a hockey fan. how many fans will they lose by moving out of nashville? can't say for sure. a couple thousand maybe. i don't really have much of a problem with the sun belt teams, i just think it was too many too fast. bettman worries more about putting new teams in weak markets than he does about marketing those teams.

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Guest MrSandMan

want some cheese with ur whine?

No thanks.. just justice. Spread the word, maybe the pressure will help make next year fair with right calls for everyone.

btw, welcome to the boards newbie.... you'll soon learn that trolling isn't tolerated here and it'll get you quick exit on the banned wagon.

So tread lightly my new little friend. Also it'll help if you actually contribute something to the boards. I read about 6 of your posts in the last day and you seem to repeat yourself a lot while saying absolutely nothing. :rolleyes:

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I think you disagreed with me there and argued my point. And why would rent-a-players want to leave a team they saw huge success in? If they could have stayed, then they probably would have. I think the cap forces players to become rent-a-players. Shanahan was a rent-a-player too. He stayed after the team saw success because the team wasn't limited by a cap. That Red Wings team was able to keep its fans because the players that brought success to the team stayed around and Ilitch could keep resigning them. And I think the Richards signing proves my point exactly.

Doug Weight said he would probably go back to St. Louis anyways so I don't see how the cap has anything to do with that honestly. All the cap does is make you have to be smart with your signings. The Wings will be able to resign Bert with a cap and after some success. Why? Because they aren't over paying guys to have them stick around. You can't go and give a guy like Marty Lapointe 5.2 million anymore and I am quite fine with that. The smart teams will be able to get it done. If you have to let guys walk because they want more money then fine. If you know what you are doing you can find guys to replace them somehow. The spending got out of control. If your players want to stay they will. Datsyuk probably could have gone out and got more than he got here after finally having a good playoff. The Ducks will probably have to let Giggy walk and with Bryzgolov(sp?) behind him I don't think they mind. But him leaving won't hurt them that much because Burke will move pieces in and out to make them successful. Look at the New England Patriots in the NFL. They've let a lot of guys go because of their salary cap and they are still at the top of the league year in and year out because they know what will help them win. You can be successful even with guys leaving if you know what you're doing. And teams had to dump players after success even before the cap. The Wings dumped Mike Vernon after he won the cup because they felt it was better for the teams future.

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I don't have a problem with small-market teams winning it. I also don't have a problem with Bettman's goal of expanding hockey by making smaller market teams more competitive. A team with moderate success is going to be more effective at attracting new fans than a team with a snowball's chance in hell at even making the playoffs.

What bothers me is that the cap disassembles all the talent of all of these teams right after they win the cup. The stupidity of Bettman's plan is that after generating interest in the smaller markets, their team falls apart the next season, allowing the fans to return to not caring. It just doesn't make sense. We'll probably see it with the Ducks. Giguere is going to want a lot of money to stay (like Khabibulin did after Tampa won), and as soon as the young stars get older and better, the team won't be able to sustain them anymore. We'll probably see the same thing happen with the Penguins and other developing teams.

That seems more of a problem with the team management than where the team is from. Every team can spend the same amount now, if the GM's can't figure out how to manage their resources then they need to be replaced with some one that can. If When the wings win the cup are they going to have a fire sale the next year. Nobody has a gun to the GM's head making him overpay for a few players. If the player really wants to be there he'll be a little more likely to get creative with the contract to help the team (how many Wings took pay cuts to bring in players they thought would help), Dom's contract this year for example.

The one thing that has helped Dallas is they had a good core and they kept them. The fans were able to see the same players every year which gave the team an identity/personality.(That and they were in the hunt pretty consistantly)A good amount of northern transplants didn't hurt eather. ;)

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Per the guys on ESPN this afternoon, NBC is reporting the lowest ever ratings for prime time (I took that to mean "My Mother The Car" was a higher-rated show, but maybe that's a disservice to Mama Car).

So how many commercials were there for the NHL on NBC? By my count: none.

Lot's of 'em for Simon Cowell's latest crapfest, "America's Got Talent".... for "Age Of Love" (most offensive idea EVER for a reality series...heck, even "Poker After Dark" is receiving steady promo! The SCFs? Dead silence.

With so very much to grab a viewer's increasingly short-attention span, the NHL cannot neglect promotion.

On a similar thread to this one, some posters put forth the (rather good) argument that they're fine with hockey being a niche sport, they didn't need it to rival the NBA or MLB or NFL. All good, that, but what happens when niche sports become nil sports? What happens when a sport becomes marginalized? What happens when a little DOESN'T get inspired and beg for skates for Chrissy, because the Next Great One inspired him: simply because said little has never been exposed to the sport via telly?

(and what happens when Centre Ice shuts down because of lack of subscribers? Where is our sport then?)

Edited by RedRockit

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Holy cow. Well, here goes...

So this is the third year in a row that the most revered trophy in all of sports has been claimed by a non-traditional hockey market with fans who had no clue about the team that won it during the regular season. For the third year in a row, Bettman had a huge smile on his face at the conclusion of the SCF.

So what does it matter that a team who comes from a non-traditional hockey market won the cup? I'm pretty confident that anyone on this board would be ecstatic if ever city was as passionate (or probably slightly less passionate :) ) as Detroit was over hockey, but America simply isn't interested (or more appropriately, educated) on hockey. If anything comes out of this victory, we're all leaning on increased tv ratings, including you, I'm sure. To be quite honest, I think Anaheim is a fairly decent hockey city. They're playoffs sold out much more efficiently than ours did, and I remember a couple years ago when we swept them how unbelievably energized their crowd was. Go take a look at some Stanley cup videos, you'll see what I mean. The point is they earned it, and even if they come from Mars, they deserve to enjoy the cup this summer.

Has anyone told him what the ratings of the SCF this year were? I didn't think they could get any worse than they did in 04, and then in 06. But apparently, when team from Southern California (which is the worst hockey market on Earth) makes the Finals, interest drops to a whole new low.

Honestly, if we eliminated all the 'bad hockey market teams' we would probably end up with the original 6 teams, and probably 5 or 6 others, which would definitely decrease ratings, as the season would get repetitive and old, and the finals would only be like 2 rounds.

I remember an article saying that the best thing for hockey would be to have a Detroit/New York SCF, because the ratings would be high due to the fact that the Wings are the most poplular American hockey team, and you know that New York is passionate about hockey as well.

Are you suggesting we rig the nhl? And lets just entertain this conspiracy idea of Bettmann pulling some strings to get his favorites into the finals. Detroit definitely wouldn't have gotten as far as we did, seeing as how poorly we represented our team by failing to buy tickets (no matter what the reason was that we didn't do it, the point remains that our upper bowl was empty and that wouldn't give a good message to the uneducated media.) Detroit wouldn't have made it 6 games into the Calgary series.

And don't even get me started on the officiating. I almost can't watch hockey sometimes because of some of the calls made out there that change the game around. (Even some of the calls that benefit the Wings, I was in shock over.) Perfect example? At the end of Game 5.

The officiating has always been bad in the nhl. Mickey Redmond makes it a priority to point out referee flaws, and hes been doing it since he began helping out with commentating. The fact remains that refs are human, and they will miss calls, look too much into a play and call something that shouldn'tve been, even bias comes into play, I'm sure. But that happens in every sport, and hockey is MUCH faster paced than ANY sport, and if you've ever tried reffing (as I have done for intermural college teams), you'll realize exactly how hard it is to make sure you keep track of every offsides, icing, roughing, tripping, high sticking, boarding, elbowing, and the countless other calls that can happen anywhere on the ice at any time. Do they suck sometimes? Completely. Is their job easy? Not at all. So calm down a little on the refs, especially this and last year of all years.

Gary Bettman has brought hockey morality for the real fans in the league to an all time low.

I couldn't agree more, but for different reasons than you mention. I'm disappointed with his failure to prevent lockouts, his weakness in taking advantage of media outlets (although nbc was a positive turn, and I hear its supposed to be even better next year), his unbelievable ability to turn blind eyes to apparent problems, as well as his persistent meddling in things that seemed perfectly fine before he screwed around with them. NOT for allegedly pulling strings so an ignorant hockey city can win the cup.

Seeing Pronger raise the Cup was bad enough, but that the Cup will now be defaced with the words "Anaheim Ducks" on it is almost unthinkable. They might as well put Mickey Mouse and Goofy on there as well.

They're an official nhl team despite what you think of them, and its quite appalling how bias you seem to be against them. And for what reason? The only one you've mentioned as of yet is the fact that their fans aren't as intense as ours, which last time I checked has very little, if anything at all to do with how good a team plays. And apparently their team plays very well, as they did just win the stanley cup.

You know he's a hated man when even the Ducks "fans" booed him as he entered last night. Remember when he had to say "It's ok, I bring gifts"? They should be worshipping him like the second coming of Jesus. He's one of the main reasons why the Ducks and other non-traditional teams have won. His first screw up was to put teams in places like Miami, Anaheim, Los Angeles (The only reason they are still around today was because of Gretzky), Tampa Bay, and Nashville, who could barely sell 3/4 of their tickets this season despite their top ranking in the standings for so long. Was Gary asleep when this came out, or did he just pretend not to notice?

He definitely is a hated man, and he really has a lot of guts presenting the cup each year. However, like I've already argued, I believe he has very little with Anaheim actually winning the cup. They have been around for a good 10-15 years (I'm sorry I don't know the exact number), and they've been a pretty good team since the start. It was only a matter of time before they finally won. And like I said, if you're going to base a city's fanbase with how well their arena sells out each night, you should be placing the Wings fans at the bottom of the barrel. I believe we failed to sell out a single playoff game.

Either he just doesn't have a clue, or he was tired of having teams like Detroit and Colorado and Jersey dominate year after year. Hello? It's sports, and there will always be dominating teams, no matter what. Deal with it. Look at San Antonio in the NBA. Uh oh, the Spurs are too good, we better make a salary cap so the Charlotte Bobcats can have a chance and those selfish Spurs will finally crash! You wouldn't have this problem, Gary, if you didn't put teams in those markets where people couldn't give a flying rat about those teams. I'm glad that Pittsburgh didn't move to Kansas City. Before moving back to MI in 03, I lived there for 9 years, and their minor league team, the Blades (which featured future NHL'er Patrick Lalime and Ray Whitney) had to fold due to a total lack of fan interest.

One of the main points of having an "nhl commissioner' is to increase ratings and to popularize hockey. If you decide to not put new teams anywhere in America, you honestly need to be fired, because that shows me you don't care about the ratings, or popularizing hockey. Most of the cities that have had teams for a while are fairly content and educated with hockey. Why not try to spread that to other cities? How could that possibly be a bad idea? Sure there are cities that aren't going to accept hockey no matter what, but you need to take those chances to get to the cities that would embrace a new team like a new baby.

Once again Gary, thank you for screwing the best game on Earth, and a sincere thank you from all of us real fans for screwing us as well. You thought you were saving the sport? It's in even worse shape than it was in 04.

I'm not going to deny that hockey is in bad shape, and I'm not going to deny that alot of the blame rests on his shoulders. But that really has nothing to do with Anaheim winning the Stanley cup, or the Wings not winning the Stanley cup. So as I agree with your statement that Bettman sucks as an nhl commissioner, I unfortunately see absolutely no real support for your claim in your long winded argument

edit: quote coding error

Edited by Echolalia

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Guest Shoreline

Meh, I've kinda worn myself out with the "Bettman sucks" posts. Think it's obvious he does and that he needs to go, but looks like I have no choice but to get used to the fact that the Ducks won, as well as much of California doesn't give a crap. That's what makes it a bitter pill to swallow, that an area with such lack of concern for the greatest award in sports wins the cup. Oh well. I'll be ordering Center Ice again this next season.. hoping there may be an online version again this year -- might test that out. Makes it a lot easier doing straight video capture within the computer than using a TV-in graphics card (such as the ATi All-In-Wonder cards, or TV tuners). There's so many games I'd have loved to record, but I refuse to use VHS players or DVR's for recording.

Edited by Shoreline

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