TAMPA — This week, Gary Bettman started his “Dick Cheney Tour.” It’s a simple format. You find people in the media who won’t challenge your assertions and then you go out and change history.
This past week, Bettman sat down with Toronto-based Sun Media and got all warm and fuzzy about his relationship with Canadian hockey markets. In a piece entitled: Bettman Asks Canada to Be Patient, the commissioner of the National Hockey League suggested he had a great track record “in respect to the Canadian franchises.”
“For anyone that knows my record in respect to the Canadian franchises, that’s simply not true (that he tried to keep Jim Balsillie out of Hamilton simply because he disliked teams in Canada),” Bettman told the Sun. “I can’t satisfy those who believe our intentions were other than straightforward of ensuring NHL rules and procedure. That’s what this was about.”
Really? What rules? And at what cost?
When Bettman forced the Jets out of Winnipeg in 1996, he convinced the two hockey-ignorant rich guys who bought the franchise that if they couldn’t cut a deal with the Target Center in Minneapolis, they should take the team to a basketball gym in downtown Phoenix, Ariz.
Dr. Richard Burke and his partner Steven Gluckstern lost a fortune on the Coyotes (mostly because of the restricted view arena they were forced to play in) and soon sold the team to Steve Ellman and Jerry Moyes who lost millions more. Since 2004, the Coyotes have lost $389 million and that doesn’t count this year. Currently, the Coyotes are on pace to lose approximately $140 million on operations. Especially after virtually giving away tickets to the season home opener, then drawing announced crowds of 6,899 and 9,162 to their next two games.
So in order to “uphold the rules” of the NHL, Bettman is going to ask the other 29 franchises to find another $140 million (at least) to cover the losses of a team owned by the league (as long as Judge Redfield T. Baum allows the NHL to ultimately purchase the Coyotes for about $140 million out of bankruptcy). Nice rules.
Trouble is, Bettman has always found ways to bend his own rules. For those who remember the loss of the Jets, owner Barry Shenkarow proposed a “group ownership” position, in which a number of Winnipeg business people would own an equal share of the team. Bettman said, “No,” that the NHL’s governors wanted to deal with only one prominent person in each market, a person who could make financial decisions at the drop of a hat.
Bettman put a halt to the group ownership plan in Winnipeg, adding more fuel to the team’s demise, but a few years later he went ahead and allowed it in Edmonton, since it was the only way to save the Oilers. In essence Bettman made up the rules as he went along: First, to take a team out of Winnipeg and put it in Phoenix and then, to save a team in Edmonton. Some Canadian markets he likes, others he doesn’t. Rules be damned.
So if Gary Bettman simply asks Canada to be patient, I wouldn’t believe him. However, if he told the truth (remember, this is the guy who said the league was NOT funding the Coyotes last year and then, in court, was forced to tell the truth) and admitted that he had to come back to Canada because he had no other alternative in the recession-crippled United States, I’d probably listen to that.
Remember, the six Canadian franchises make up 33 per cent of the league’s revenues. Despite what Bettman says or thinks, he’s going to have to come back to Canada eventually.