Colin Campbell Steps Down

[Konnan511 1,736]

You're smart enough to know the difference between the Kovulchuk and Zetterberg/Franzen deals.

That doesn't take into consideration the highly questionable deals that preceded the Zetterberg deal and closely followed the Franzen deal.

The GMs agreed to the suspension, not the last minute Crosby clause handed down by Bettman, while on a phone call with Crosby and Shero.

That is blantly false. "NHL commissioner Gary Bettman imposed the policy, established at last year's general managers meetings, to legitimize injury claims and improve All-Star Weekend attendance. The policy states All-Stars who are injured must have missed at least the last game before the All-Star break in order to be excused; otherwise, they must sit out the first regular-season game after the break."

Revenues have grown, but lagged behind all major sports leagues in N. America and numerous non-major sports.

Of course it has, and that will never change since the NHL is a niche sport. Baseball, football and basketball is something poor people can play on the spur of the moment and in leagues. Hockey is a very expensive sport. That's not a proper argument. That's like saying Omaha has had it's fifth consecutive year of financial growth then you saying "Well they're no New York or LA."

He allowed the game of hockey to deteriate to such a degree that the #1 sports network in N. America would rather air bowling and poker over hockey.

Again, false. ESPN was quoted as saying their intial contract was "a bad decision" and they wished they never made such a deal. What scared away ESPN was the lockout, which was due to the owners and players, not Bettman.

He alienates the fan base of the NHL in favor of attracting new fans in new markets.

You claim that the NHL lags in the revenue department, but you don't want them to expand or globalize. The former is impossible without the latter.

Bettman can't even win his personal vendetta against dead, boiled cephalopods.

If you can't see what he was actually trying to do, then there's no way I can ever debate this with you. It's not about killing tradition, it's about stopping idiotic traditions and to prevent fans from thinking it's ok to throw things on the ice. Look at what happened recently with players being pelted with giveaway toys at the end of games, or Waffles being thrown on the ice. Bettman and the NHL needed to take a stand and go on record and saying "this behavior is not to be tolerated". If they would have said "Detroit can throw things on the ice but no one else can", wouldn't you think that'd sound retarded beyond all belief? You're smarter than that.

And I would say he has a weasel face, not a rat face.

To each their own

Sorry for the derail, but I thought those were some pretty blanket statements that at least deserved a quick riposte.

Likewise, I felt the need to fix common misconceptions and false claims based on nothing.

[egroen 384]

Not in the mood now and it is OT anyways... Start a new thread devoted to praising Bettman.

[Guest Shoreline]

Addendum to egroen's reply:

And what exactly has Bettman done to be fired....errr resign? Let me guess...his love for Crysby? No no no, the fact he took substantially more money to sign with OLN/VS than ESPN? Record profits each year since the lockout? His rat face? The All-Star game fiasco involving Datsyuk/Lidstrom that was approved by every GM (including our own)? The Octopus thing that is against city ordinance and league rules? The increasing cap every year? Cap circumvention that was allowed for Red Wing players but not for Kovy? You know he isn't in charge of making rules right? he has a committee and council for that.

Certainly not a nonsensical expansion of NHL teams to non-viable markets. Nope.

And certainly not trying to push the cost of running a franchise upon city taxpayers already on the hook for paying off an arena, amirite? Damn good job, Bettman. Two thumbs up from us. The Coyotes could have been sold and all the operating costs + moving costs would have been taken care of. Instead, Bettman vies to keep a hockey team in a market it can't succeed in, where the only interest in hockey is from hockey loving transplants from other areas and likely are fans of other teams.. like the Red Wings, and where taxpayers surely will be reaping the rewards ever so popular in the U.S. in the 21st century, taxpayers picking up the tab for failed private enterprise.

What am I saying? Bettman is the s***. He single handedly made the NHL famous. This league was dead in the water before he helped add expansion franchises piggybacking on taxpayers due to little interest.

More people in the U.S. watch ESPN than OLN/Versus. Not that I care for ESPN much because of their inferior hockey coverage, however, given some friends of mine were stuck watching weather updated on NBC instead of hockey last night, well, clearly Bettman made a good decision to keep with these stations where there's less exposure.

Again, false. ESPN was quoted as saying their intial contract was "a bad decision" and they wished they never made such a deal. What scared away ESPN was the lockout, which was due to the owners and players, not Bettman.

Bettman is the owners. They speak vicariously through him. How can this not be Bettman yet it's the owners? o.O

This forum needs a facepalm emote.

Edited June 2, 2011 by Shoreline

[Konnan511 1,736]

Addendum to egroen's reply:

Certainly not a nonsensical expansion of NHL teams to non-viable markets. Nope.

It worked in California and Tampa Bay and Nashville. It's worked more often than it's failed.

And certainly not trying to push the cost of running a franchise upon city taxpayers already on the hook for paying off an arena, amirite? Damn good job, Bettman. Two thumbs up from us. The Coyotes could have been sold and all the operating costs + moving costs would have been taken care of. Instead, Bettman vies to keep a hockey team in a market it can't succeed in, where the only interest in hockey is from hockey loving transplants from other areas and likely are fans of other teams.. like the Red Wings, and where taxpayers surely will be reaping the rewards ever so popular in the U.S. in the 21st century, taxpayers picking up the tab for failed private enterprise.

You do know that if a city wants a sports team, they have to supply an arena for them to play in...right? And just because someone wants to buy a club, they shouldn't be allowed to because they offered money. It goes through a vote through a committee. You keep making it sound like Bettmen is the sole proprietor of the NHL.

What am I saying? Bettman is the s***. He single handedly made the NHL famous. This league was dead in the water before he helped add expansion franchises piggybacking on taxpayers due to little interest.

Holy hyperbole.

More people in the U.S. watch ESPN than OLN/Versus. Not that I care for ESPN much because of their inferior hockey coverage, however, given some friends of mine were stuck watching weather updated on NBC instead of hockey last night, well, clearly Bettman made a good decision to keep with these stations where there's less exposure.

Everyone in Canada watches TSN and not ESPN. Plus, in terms of viewership, The last time I read was that ESPN was available in 100million homes and Versus was available in 87million. Not as big of a difference as you though, huh.

Bettman is the owners. They speak vicariously through him. How can this not be Bettman yet it's the owners? o.O

Bettmen is NOT the owners. The owners do have a say. It isn't like the Owners are shareholders who never speak to the board. Owners are actively involved in the NHL and through their teams GMs they relay a good portion of their messages. Plus, the way you're saying it, is that Betmman is the liason between the Owners and the league, and if that's the case, it sounds like he is just the messenger. "Hey Shoreline, go tell the board that I hate the new proposal", "Dear board, the terms of the new proposal are inadequate", random posterboy: "Shoreline sucks!". How assinine is it for Shoreline to take the blame?

This forum needs a facepalm emote.

Agreed.

[ComradeWasabi 109]

Bettman is the owners. They speak vicariously through him. How can this not be Bettman yet it's the owners? o.O

Bettman doesn't decide on the opinions of the owners. He is their mouth, not their mind - he might agree with them, but it's not like the hard salary cap was Bettman's pet project which he shoved down the throats of everyone involved with the NHL. The demand for a salary cap came from the owners, the ones who were paying the players. So yes, while Bettman represents the interests of the owners, that's simply a requirement of his job. You can't really try to give orders to the people who pay your salary.

[Guest CaliWingsNut]

Addendum to egroen's reply:

Certainly not a nonsensical expansion of NHL teams to non-viable markets. Nope.

And certainly not trying to push the cost of running a franchise upon city taxpayers already on the hook for paying off an arena, amirite? Damn good job, Bettman. Two thumbs up from us. The Coyotes could have been sold and all the operating costs + moving costs would have been taken care of. Instead, Bettman vies to keep a hockey team in a market it can't succeed in, where the only interest in hockey is from hockey loving transplants from other areas and likely are fans of other teams.. like the Red Wings, and where taxpayers surely will be reaping the rewards ever so popular in the U.S. in the 21st century, taxpayers picking up the tab for failed private enterprise.

What am I saying? Bettman is the s***. He single handedly made the NHL famous. This league was dead in the water before he helped add expansion franchises piggybacking on taxpayers due to little interest.

More people in the U.S. watch ESPN than OLN/Versus. Not that I care for ESPN much because of their inferior hockey coverage, however, given some friends of mine were stuck watching weather updated on NBC instead of hockey last night, well, clearly Bettman made a good decision to keep with these stations where there's less exposure.

Bettman is the owners. They speak vicariously through him. How can this not be Bettman yet it's the owners? o.O

This forum needs a facepalm emote.

While I'm not a fan of Bettman (see: my avatar) I wish people would stop blaming him for the Coyote's situation.

Their previous owner bankrupted them, killed the local support (that they had), and tried to illegally sell them in bankruptcy court where they could break contracts made by the team. The NHL took over the Coyotes to prevent their illegal sale.

This put Glendale (and appearantly Bettman) in an incredibly bad spot. They are a largely residential town linked to Phoenix (itself a huge real estate boom/bust town). Glendale now has an unpaid for billion dollar stadium/retail complex, with contract obligations (likely with retailers, the city, and others), and the NHL is not going to go nuts promoting a team they are barely keeping alive. Glendale has done all it can to keep the team.

[Konnan511 1,736]

Bettman doesn't decide on the opinions of the owners. He is their mouth, not their mind - he might agree with them, but it's not like the hard salary cap was Bettman's pet project which he shoved down the throats of everyone involved with the NHL. The demand for a salary cap came from the owners, the ones who were paying the players. So yes, while Bettman represents the interests of the owners, that's simply a requirement of his job. You can't really try to give orders to the people who pay your salary.

Holy crap..someone who understands business!!!!

While I'm not a fan of Bettman (see: my avatar) I wish people would stop blaming him for the Coyote's situation.

Their previous owner bankrupted them, killed the local support (that they had), and tried to illegally sell them in bankruptcy court where they could break contracts made by the team. The NHL took over the Coyotes to prevent their illegal sale.

This put Glendale (and appearantly Bettman) in an incredibly bad spot. They are a largely residential town linked to Phoenix (itself a huge real estate boom/bust town). Glendale now has an unpaid for billion dollar stadium/retail complex, with contract obligations (likely with retailers, the city, and others), and the NHL is not going to go nuts promoting a team they are barely keeping alive. Glendale has done all it can to keep the team.

Wow...two people! lol.

A little research goes a long way.

[ogreslayer 1,069]

TSN.Ca

I wonder who will have the balls to criticize Shanahan over a suspension or fine or non-suspension

I'm thinking she will....

[wingslogo19 281]

Welcome aboard Shanny

[Guest Shoreline]

It worked in California and Tampa Bay and Nashville. It's worked more often than it's failed.

California? Surely you don't mean the Ducks. That was before Bettman. That would be President Stein. Ducks and Panthers. Bettman came along as commish after that deal was squared away.

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-12-11/news/mn-1680_1_title-mighty-ducks/3

"We're thrilled to announce that both of these companies known throughout the world for their marketing expertise, image and family values came and sought to join the NHL," Stein said.

Everyone in Canada watches TSN and not ESPN. Plus, in terms of viewership, The last time I read was that ESPN was available in 100million homes and Versus was available in 87million. Not as big of a difference as you though, huh.

I'll ignore the silly TSN comment, but surely the market share has improved of OLN, now Versus, what are your statistics of Versus/OLN when the deal was first signed? I bet not nearly as convenient.

You do know that if a city wants a sports team, they have to supply an arena for them to play in...right? And just because someone wants to buy a club, they shouldn't be allowed to because they offered money. It goes through a vote through a committee. You keep making it sound like Bettmen is the sole proprietor of the NHL.

Bettmen is NOT the owners. The owners do have a say. It isn't like the Owners are shareholders who never speak to the board. Owners are actively involved in the NHL and through their teams GMs they relay a good portion of their messages. Plus, the way you're saying it, is that Betmman is the liason between the Owners and the league, and if that's the case, it sounds like he is just the messenger. "Hey Shoreline, go tell the board that I hate the new proposal", "Dear board, the terms of the new proposal are inadequate", random posterboy: "Shoreline sucks!". How assinine is it for Shoreline to take the blame?

Quite asinine. When a business has essentially a CEO, the board members aren't blamed. The CEO is, because he's the messenger to shoot. Guess what? Bettman is the CEO. Furthermore, Gary Bettman is a product, a brand. He put himself out there to keep the Coyotes, the Thrashers, and the Predators, in arenas they were not viable in. Sure, a few teams are successful now. However, I will reiterate that the NHL teams and their owners, i.e. the board, speak vicariously through Gary Bettman. That's his job.

It's nice to state some rather generalized and well known technical mumbo jumbo about TSN or the owners being shareholders, but these are not relevant to the discussion nor does it give you any points. It's just fluff.

It's nice to defend Bettman and cite soaring revenues. That was because of the lockout's horrible revenues, plus inflation, plus a higher population (should certainly as hell be a decent revenue), and where owners took far more of a hands-on approach, and players conceded as a cap was necessary from the owners to save those same owners from writing checks they have trouble cashing -- not a fault of players there if a business stupidly writes itself into bankruptcy. A cap was necessary and that really isn't a product of Bettman either, as that was not his fault, therefore not his accomplishment, although surely he would put that on a CV.

While I'm not a fan of Bettman (see: my avatar) I wish people would stop blaming him for the Coyote's situation.

Their previous owner bankrupted them, killed the local support (that they had), and tried to illegally sell them in bankruptcy court where they could break contracts made by the team. The NHL took over the Coyotes to prevent their illegal sale.

This put Glendale (and appearantly Bettman) in an incredibly bad spot. They are a largely residential town linked to Phoenix (itself a huge real estate boom/bust town). Glendale now has an unpaid for billion dollar stadium/retail complex, with contract obligations (likely with retailers, the city, and others), and the NHL is not going to go nuts promoting a team they are barely keeping alive. Glendale has done all it can to keep the team.

How did the owner kill support? Beyond the initial show of support necessary to get the team to Phoenix, they haven't ever had support. They've been operating at a loss of eight figures every season, consistently, even with different owners now, with no sign of getting out of that, and potential owners who refuse to see your vision of viability by backing it up with hard, cold cash. If this was true they wouldn't need, nor would they want, a huge sum of that to be backed by taxpayers.

And while by illegal I'm sure you mean Balsillie and his antics with numerous teams, which I suppose after-the-fact I can agree with the NHL on merely on terms of continuity, this doesn't explain the True North issue (NOT illegal) and others who went by Bettman's rules, yet he opposed those anyways.

At this point a concern is indeed the arena and what Glendale is on the hook for, but why make it worse by adding paying for a team on top of that, when Hulsizer and other ventures would have inevitably filed bankruptcy and once again taxpayers would be running the team along with the cost of an arena, and without a doubt, Bettman still suggesting this is a viable area. One can only ignore stupidity for so long. The Phoenix Coyotes issue is already a perfect example of the bad business being levied upon taxpayers throughout the United States, where taxpayers subsidize failing business instead of letting the business fall or be bought out in cash by someone else as it's supposed to. This is all a joke. It begins with "Gary Bettman..".

Edited June 2, 2011 by Shoreline

[Guest CaliWingsNut]

How did the owner kill support? Beyond the initial show of support necessary to get the team to Phoenix, they haven't ever had support. They've been operating at a loss of eight figures every season, consistently, even with different owners now, with no sign of getting out of that, and potential owners who refuse to see your vision of viability by backing it up with hard, cold cash. If this was true they wouldn't need, nor would they want, a huge sum of that to be backed by taxpayers.

And while by illegal I'm sure you mean Balsillie and his antics with numerous teams, which I suppose after-the-fact I can agree with the NHL on merely on terms of continuity, this doesn't explain the True North issue (NOT illegal) and others who went by Bettman's rules, yet he opposed those anyways.

At this point a concern is indeed the arena and what Glendale is on the hook for, but why make it worse by adding paying for a team on top of that, when Hulsizer and other ventures would have inevitably filed bankruptcy and once again taxpayers would be running the team along with the cost of an arena, and without a doubt, Bettman still suggesting this is a viable area. One can only ignore stupidity for so long. The Phoenix Coyotes issue is already a perfect example of the bad business being levied upon taxpayers throughout the United States, where taxpayers subsidize failing business instead of letting the business fall or be bought out in cash by someone else as it's supposed to. This is all a joke. It begins with "Gary Bettman..".

The owner killed the fan base by running the team into the ground. He neglected to pay on the stadium loan for 8 months before seeking NHL support. [sarcasm] I'm sure the loan was his first choice of cost cutting. [/sarcasm]

Actually... Balsillie had little to do with the takeover. He was around, likely the reason for Moye's choice to file chapter 11, and was a public figure trying to take control, but the fact is that Moyes tried to take the Coyotes to bankruptcy court when he had no legal right to do so.

"This is not about whether or not we want a franchise in southern Ontario and whether or not Mr. Balsillie would make a suitable owner that the (NHL) owners would approve," explained Bettman. "This is about the League rules and the enforceability of our rules, whether or not Mr. Moyes even had the authority to file a bankruptcy petition is something we're going to get into. This is more about the tactic and I think a challenge to League rules than it is about economic conditions of the club, which we believe, with new ownership and with accommodations the city of Glendale is prepared to make, we think can succeed."

True North never made a bid Glendale approved of.

Bettman and Glendale supported Hulsizer's plan, which has been bashed on by a privately funded group that has yet to file a court case supporting their publicity.

[Konnan511 1,736]

[More misinformation and bias mumbo-jumbo]

Well i guess we'll have to agree to disagree since all my "fluff" apparently doesn't pertain to anything. It's ironic, though, because that "fluff" easily refutes all of your claims and then some.

And for the record, I'm not praising Bettman. I think another guy could come in and do a better job, but to say bettman has done a terrible job is a damned lie. If you don't like the man, then don't like him. But don't make stuff up, it just makes you look silly. Case in point, I've never liked Cleary, there's no rhyme or reason as to why I don't like him, but I'm not going to say he sucks and start regurgitating incorrect things about him that I know nothing about or heard on a message board.

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

It seems to me that, in the end, he provided more controversy than solutions.

[Hockeytown0001 7,652]