The Case Against Gary Bettman

(Photo by Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images)

We’re less than three weeks away from the quest for the best, and most interactive, trophy in sport.

Three weeks from the most competitive pro playoffs top to bottom. 

Three weeks from playoff beards, edge-of-your-seat penalty kills, some euro goalie catching fire, and sudden-death overtime not decided by a coinflip.

(Keep trying to justify that as ‘fair’ football, NFL.)
 
In short, hockey playoffs are about to start—and the travesty is not so much that no one knows, but why no one knows (or cares).
 
The reason/fault/blame all can be summed up in four words:  The Count, Gary Bettman.
 

 
This assclown has single-handedly done more to ruin the great sport of hockey than Yoko did to the Beatles.
 
Where do we begin? From blindly pouring money into bad business model / non-hockey fanbases (see Phoenix, Florida), to mismanaging hockey’s TV deal, to his asinine schedule that only this year seemingly remembered that the Original Six existed.  (Yeah, those franchises aren’t important.)  

Gary von Gary continues to misstep and make what was the fourth major into a fringe sport.  
 
For those of us that remember his hire, keep in mind this jackass was supposedly some marketing guru from the gold-standard NBA?  Is that a joke?

Cue laughter.  The count isn’t even as good as Charlie Weis to D-Stern’s Hoodie.  What’s worse, not only is he a bad business man AND salesman, this dude doesn’t even like/know hockey?

Uh, five minutes for cluelessnes Gary.  We hockey fans got shafted. 
 
Let’s just quickly recap some of the Count’s ‘brilliant’ marketing gems:

 
1.  He’s on VS. 

Spare me the argument that VS’ brand recognition is up from 16 to 60.  Great.   So now instead of three people watching channel 298, 13 people watch.

If you’re not on ESPN (or related in some way), you don’t exist in mainstream sports media. How often does the four-letter lead with hockey?  Shit, Ovi could beat all five guys, stop a purse snatching in row three, cure cancer, catch Bin Laden, make a ridiculous move to score a game winner and maybe, maybe

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