As the NHL's Gary Bettman is on the verge of being the longest-tenured major league commissioner in North American sports, he is "fully comfortable with being the dean of those in charge," according to Ira Podell of the AP. Bettman, 62, said, "I will be the oldest. ... That is a little bit harder to get your arms around. I still consider myself a young man." Bettman said of the '14-15 season, "We are coming off a series of successive seasons where each one was better and more successful than the one before. Last season may have been the best in the history of the league." When asked what keeps him up at night, Bettman responded, "There is never any one thing. We have to make sure that it's all working both on and off the ice -- making sure that all our business initiatives are moving forward both at the national level and at the club level" (AP, 10/8).
LONELY AT THE TOP: Bettman appeared on-set of NHL Network’s “NHL Live” to discuss his tenure and the upcoming season. Bettman, on how often he communicates with other league commissioners: “I probably spoke to David Stern more frequently than the others, simply because we had a history. But that would be every few weeks. Periodically, we'll touch base with each other. The answer to your next question is no, I have not spoken to Roger Goodell in the last few weeks.” On how commissioners handle controversy: “I do know what it's like to get hammered by the media. But that's why we try to do our homework. We try to be prepared. We try to be transparent and react in ways that we think we'll deal with whatever issue or crisis may be in front of us. It's certainly no fun” (“NHL Live,” NHL Network, 10/7). SPORTSNET's Stephen Brunt asked if Bettman is the "best boss in North American pro sports." Brunt: "Here we are in 2014, and how do hockey and its commissioner stack up in comparison to the rest of the professional sports landscape?" He has a "long way to go before they love him in Hockeyland, but maybe one of these years they won’t even heckle him when he hands over the Stanley Cup" (SPORTSNET.ca, 10/5).
STATE OF THINGS: The AP's Ira Podell
reported Bettman is "pleased with the health of the league, and there have been no internal discussions about adding teams." There is "no immediate risk of any team moving, either." Bettman: "What we are doing is continuing to listen to expressions of interest, and we're pleased that there are lots of expressions of interest, but we haven't and are not ready to deal with them in a very structured, formal way and make that decision. ... There is no reason to relocate. The 30 franchises have never been healthier, never been better owned, never been more stable" (
AP, 10/7). Bettman, on the league's new Canadian TV deal with Rogers: “It will be giving fans more ways to connect with the game than they've ever had. Rogers is investing an incredible amount of time, energy, attention and money in our direction because we've got a big, long-term relationship. ... People will focus, justifiably, on the money. And, obviously, that was a big deal -- and it's a great deal of money. But you get to a certain point where you understand what the market will do and how much you can get. Then it's about all the other things that come with being with an important media partner, whether it's promotions, scheduling, the interplay of how things are going to work, the vision that they have for growing the game. Those are all things that come into the decision-making process” (
“NHL Live,” NHL Network, 10/7).
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Bettman, on the possibility of the World Cup of Hockey coming back: “If we were to announce now, ‘We're just doing a World Cup of Hockey,’ everybody would shrug and say, ‘Yeah, you've been talking about it long enough.’ If we're going to do it and make an announcement, we're going to want to have the details that everybody's going to want to know about. I'm personally excited about the possibility and I think it's something we should be doing. I hope we're in a position in the not-too-distant future to make an announcement and move forward and plan for one.” Bettman said of future NHL player participation in the Olympics, "It's a break in continuity in the season. We disappear from the 11:00pm news, all the publications for 17 days when there's nothing but basketball and us. Football's gone. There's no baseball yet. From a competitive standpoint, it impacts everybody differently. Some NHL teams will send 10 players; some will send two, which means when they come back at the end of the break, some teams are going to be more rested than others, some teams are going to be more banged up than others. There's no doubt that it has an impact on our season. Is it worth it? Clearly when you're in Vancouver or Salt Lake City you say, ‘Wow it's getting a lot of attention. A lot of coverage. The games are being played at a time where lots of people are going to watch it.’ When you're halfway around the world and games are being played in the middle of the night or 7:30 in the morning, is it worth the 17, 16 days? That's something we're going to have to focus on as to whether or not we got to Pyeongchang, South Korea -- not exactly a hockey hotbed. Then was it Norway just dropped out of the '22 bidding process? So it's either Beijing -- I didn't know they had big, tall mountains there for skiing, but that's a different story -- or Kazakhstan or something like that”
(
“NHL Live,” NHL Network, 10/7).
DELAY OF GAME: In N.Y., Jeff Klein notes the '14-15 season "will be shadowed by something altogether different: a snowballing concussion lawsuit, which could leave the league with a multimillion-dollar liability like the one facing the NFL." It "threatens to hover all season long in the background like a lingering reflection in the rink glass" (
N.Y. TIMES, 10/8).
