Just why is NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman hated so much by hockey fans?
Standing just over five feet tall is the biggest, and most powerful, man in the world of hockey. We’re talking about NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. He’s the only man that can have the cheers of home fans seeing their team win a Stanley Cup be immediately drowned out by deafening boos.
Why do hockey fans hate Gary Bettman? I’m not asking that to defend the guy, but ask ten different hockey fans and you might get ten different answers. You might not get an answer from a few of them at all. Some only see Gary Bettman as a suit and know he’s the enemy.
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why the NHL commissioner is so hated by his own fans. Some reasons may be his own fault, others may not. Let’s actually take a good, honest look at them.
Looking at just why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is hated so much by fans
The Lockouts
This might be the most common answer. Before Gary Bettman’s reign, the NHL had never had a lockout, although they did have a short, 10 day “strike” in the season before he became commissioner. Strikes and lockouts were nothing new in professional sports or a unique creation by Bettman.
However, Bettman’s NHL seemed to be a different breed. The NHL has had three lockouts under Bettman, including the only time in North American professional sports history an entire season was cancelled back in 2004-2005. I remember that year: with no hockey I had to resort to watching basketball to entertain myself (it wasn’t as fun). Under Bettman, lockouts have sadly become almost predictable and commonplace.
Is it fair to unilaterally place the blame for three lockouts on Gary Bettman? After all, it does take two to tango and the players association, the NHLPA, has had an equal part in it. Donald Fehr, the NHLPA’s executive director, was just a part of the 2012 lockdown as Bettman. In fact, Fehr was also widely seen as responsible for the 1994 MLB strike that cancelled the World Series. In Fehr’s defense, he was only directly involved with that lockout and not the other two during Bettman’s NHL tenure.
The Donald Fehr 1994 MLB strike is a very interesting comparison. When baseball returned, fans blamed both MLB, the fans, and specifically Donald Fehr. There’s even a famous example of him being run out of Yankee Stadium on their 1995 opening day. Meanwhile, on the NHL side of things, the blame seems to be almost exclusively directed at Gary Bettman. I’m not saying the three lockouts weren’t Gary Bettman’s fault, but I’m not saying they were entirely Gary Bettman’s fault either.
Commercialization of the Game
This is exactly what Gary Bettman was bought to the NHL to do. His previous experience with the NBA saw the league grow exponentially when measured with the almighty dollar sign. The NHL was starting to realize relying on a customer base of Canada and the Northeastern United States wasn’t going to work compared to the other major sports leagues.
The NHL is steeped in tradition, and so are its fans. That’s why the thought of hockey teams in locales such as Miami, Florida (okay, well Sunrise, Florida if we’re being technical here) seem so blasphemous. They forget that the very reason the NHL doubled in size during the 1967 expansion was to land a television contract. So yes, the NHL has a long history of drastic measures to commercialize their product.
Some of Bettman’s moves have been more successful than others and he deserves a lot of criticism. For example, there’s his emotional attachment to doing whatever it takes to keep the Arizona Coyotes relevant. Whether Bettman was Commissioner or not, the league was going to have to expand and commercialize themselves more to stay relevant and in business.
The Sport is Getting Soft
Look, I love the physicality of the game of hockey. How can I not when I grew up watching Scott Stevens captain my favorite team the New Jersey Devils? To this day I always cheer when I’m treated to a live hockey fight in person. In fact I saw one the other night at the New Jersey Devils vs Philadelphia Flyers game. With all of that being said, this one complaint is the only one I can’t fault Gary Bettman for in the slightest amount.
The game isn’t getting “soft”, player safety is just evolving. We all sit here and complain “look the game is getting soft nowadays” but this is nothing new in sports as a whole. In the early 1900’s, the game of football was fundamentally changed for this exact reason. At one point, even the President of the United States was onboard with the idea.
I love the fights, I love the physicality, but there has to be balance. It’s not Gary Bettman’s fault that science and medicine are finding ways to make players careers and health better. In fact, it’s foolish to suggest otherwise. But all of the above are just some of the reasons why the NHL Commissioner is disliked so much in the hockey community.