Gary Bettman Makes Tom Cruise Look Sane

Written by Miles Crowther

The winter of 2004-2005 could possibly end up being the low-tide mark of my life. Years from now, my wife could leave me for a Mexican, my dog could die, and I could have kidney failure, and it will not match the emotional ruin that haunted me through those eight months.

The sport I grew up loving with reckless abandon and passion was nowhere to be found. The league I cherished more than almost anything else suddenly decided to call off its season, because a bunch of grown men could not sit down and work out their differences to save a season.

I would like to think that you could take a bunch of Palestinians and Israelis, lock them in a room, and they could have worked out the CBA more efficiently than the NHL and the NHLPA.

Each day I read about how both sides refused to compromise on almost every issue, like a bunch of third graders arguing over who gets go down the slide first. To be honest, it was the fault of everyone who was involved, and I will not be happy until Gary Bettman is out of his job and selling fake dog shit at Spencers somewhere. He has spent the past decade molding the NHL into a mirror image of himself, a clownish joke.

He decided to expand the league exponentially, into hockey-starved markets like Miami, Nashville, and Atlanta. Sure, they sold tickets at first, because it was a novelty.

It would be like putting a SeaWorld in downtown Moscow.

Hockey is not football in the fact that it does not have the national appeal of the NFL. All expansion did was dilute the talent pool of the league, causing teams to play boring, defensive hockey.

Yes, my favorite team, the New Jersey Devils, was the main cause of this plodding brand of hockey, because it helped them win three Stanley Cups in eight years.

And yes, I am going to Hell for rooting for them.

Now, the league has no national TV contract, it is searching for its identity, and Bettman still has a job. The on-ice action is great, the new rule changes like shootouts after overtime are a big hit, and attendance seems to on the rise.

The league is still run by assclowns who have decided to tout Sidney Crosby as the Next Great One over the real future of the sport, Alex Ovechkin. The NHL could be something amazing, but it is currently relegated to being special to its fans. It needs to evaluate the way it markets itself, emphasize how great its athletes are, and stop the bickering amongst the player’s union and the front office.

It also needs a good, big market team to win the championship, like…..The Philadelphia Flyers. I will now go stick my hand in a Salad Shooter®.