Monday, December 25, 2006

It may be early to judge, but Gary Bettman might have really done it this
time. You never know with the NHL owners of course, but this latest fiasco
over the Pittsburgh Penguins just might be the one clanger that will open
their eyes to who is running their league. Research in Motion head Jim
Balsillie was all set to pay a monstrous amount of money to buy a team with
very low revenues, even though if everything went well and the rink had been
built by the casino group, it would have been several years before he saw
any type of return. Here was a guy so keen to buy a team that he was going
to put up $175 million US for a franchise that has exceptional players
playing cheaply right now, but with a collective bargaining agreement in
place whereby he would have virtually no chance to hang onto all those
players once they reach their free-agent freedom date. And what happens?
Bettman steps in at the last minute and puts 24 conditions on the deal, the
most onerous of the bunch being that he couldn't move the franchise for at
least seven years after competition of the sale no matter what the outcome
of the arena situation in Pittsburgh. Apparently he was terrified Balsillie
was going to move the team to Kitchener, where a new rink is planned.
According to Balsillie, these conditions came right out of the blue and were
introduced at the last minute and as such he walked away from a deal that
would have raised the value of virtually every franchise in the NHL. If the
Penguins were worth $175 million, how much are the Rangers, Wings, Avalanche
and Canucks worth? And Penguins owner/front man Mario Lemieux, who was
finally looking at his dream of putting hockey behind him for good and
getting his money out of what he never wanted to be involved in, saw it all
blow up in his face. No matter what happened after the sale, Mario would
have been a good guy who fought the good fight to keep the team in
Pittsburgh. If it moved, it would have been the ugly Canadian owner's fault,
not his. He would have had his money and been the town hero. Now he's
looking at still trying to peddle this team elsewhere, likely for a lot less
money, all because Bettman wasn't confident of being able to discourage
Balsillie from moving later in the process. And Lemieux is so stunned, he's
blaming the guy who wanted to pay him all that money for what happened,
blaming Balsillie for walking away from the deal.

At what point do the owners figure out they might be further ahead with a
commissioner who knows something about the game and the degree to which it's
still suffering under the dominance of these coaches, 70 per cent of whom
insist on playing some sort of roving trap whereby nobody even attempts to
score five-on-five? They just hang around and wait for penalties which come
in droves courtesy of a sea of officials who appear to be paid by the call.

At what point do the owners notice that their fan base is disappearing for
very good reason? The game is almost totally lacking action and emotion, an
entertaining game a surprise instead of the norm.