Ian White calls Bettman an Idiot

English: NHL Commisioner Gary Bettman in 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am sure that my buddy Redwing77 will be happy to see than one of the players from his favorite team called Gary Bettman an idiot.

Personally I agree with White, when I see Bettman's face it reminds of all of the bad things that have happened to the NHL.

 Lets think about this for a minute. Bettman is the NHL commissioner that under his reign of terror has had three labor disagreements that have led to work stoppages. Also, Bettman is threatening to cancel his second season in eight years. Marvelous!!! Let's not forget the fiasco in the desert.

The Detroit News — Ian White has been one of the more vocal and frustrated players during this NHL lockout.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has caught most of White's verbal frustration the past two months, the length of this lockout thus far.

After learning of Bettman's suggestion for a two-week moratorium in negotiations, White called Bettman "an idiot.

"I personally think he's an idiot," said White Friday after a group of locked out Red Wings finished a workout. "Since he's come in, he's done nothing but damaged the game.

It will be interesting to see how long this plays out. Will we see more players speak out against the NHL Commissioner?  One also has to wonder if there are NHL owners that agree with White but aren't allowed to speak up at the current time.

Tweets of Silliness - Bettman wasn't two week Moratorium.

Daly: "Regardless of what we propose or how we suggest to compromise the answer is "no,"At some pt you have to say "enough is enough".
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) November 16, 2012

I really don't know why the two side can't come to an agreement and get a deal done. The NHL can't afford to lose another whole season. The NHL owners lead by one of the most unlikable people Gary Bettman is trying to break the player union or at least weaken it. If the season is lost, the blame in on the NHL Commissioner in my opinion.

Daly: "unfortunately, we have determined we are involved with Union leadership that has no genuine interest in reaching an agreement."
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) November 16, 2012

Series of Daly quotes on league initiated hiatus:"We have made repeated moves in the Players' direction with absolutely no reciprocation."
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) November 16, 2012

Sources have indicated Bettman floated the idea to NHLPA that both sides take 2 week moratorium.This has NOT been discussed further. #TSN
— Aaron Ward (@aaronward_nhl) November 16, 2012

#CBA Can confirm what @aaronward_nhl first reported, that Gary Bettman suggested to NHLPA's Don Fehr that two sides take 2-week moratorium
— Katie Strang (@KatieStrangESPN) November 16, 2012

My opinion: Bettman's 2 week moratorium makes no sense if he really wants a deal. Trying to burn calendar, put more pressure on players.
— Allan Walsh (@walsha) November 16, 2012

57% is irrelevant now that both sides talking about principle of 50/50. NHLPA agreed to eliminate back diving deals. @globekpd
— Allan Walsh (@walsha) November 16, 2012

Related articles

• Did Bettman over play his hand? (ndgoon.blogspot.com)

Not so fast - NHLPA and NHL Owners no closer to a deal

English: NHL Commisioner Gary Bettman in 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Tuesday the NHL owners put forth another proposal for a new CBA – shortly thereafter there was a lot of excitement that finally we might get an NHL season.

Donald Fehr came out on Tuesday and said, "Simply put, the owners' new proposal, while not quite as Draconian as their previous proposals, still represents enormous reductions in player salaries and individual contracting rights."

Today, the NHLPA put forth three (3) counter proposals to the NHL owners and Gary Bettman and the NHL owners balked at all three of them.

TORONTO — NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman received three counterproposals from the players’ association on Thursday and left the negotiating table “thoroughly disappointed.”

No new talks have been scheduled, and the possibility of a full hockey regular season is quickly shrinking.

The union offered multiple options in response to the NHL’s offer on Tuesday that called for an 82-game season and a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenues between owners and players.

Bettman said that proposal was the “best that we could do” and added that the two sides are still far apart.

“None of the three variations of player share that they gave us even began to approach 50-50, either at all or for some long period of time,” Bettman said. “It’s clear we’re not speaking the same language.”

After today's revelations, I think we're right back where we were before the lastest round of proposals and counter proposals. This tweet by the Breaking News Twitter feed give me pause to think that we're not going to have an NHL season this year.

NHL owners reject 3 counter-offers from players; commissioner says sides 'nowhere close' to deal - @globeandmail bit.ly/RbCL0W
— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) October 18, 2012

Sidney Crosby: when you make 3 proposals and get shut down in 10 minutes it's hard to think the other side really wants to negotiate.
— Michael Grange (@michaelgrange) October 18, 2012

Crosby says he will look a little harder at playing in Europe.
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) October 18, 2012

Easton Synergy EQ50 Sr. Hockey Equipment Combo (Google Affiliate Ad)

CBA update

This is what the Commissioner of the NHL Gary Bettman had to say about the NHL Owners second proposal.

"We need to get on the same page on the economics," Commissioner Bettman said, "and we're hoping that by virtue of the proposal we made today that there will be some traction and that there will be a framework for the negotiation."

"We believe we've made a significant, meaningful step," he added. Bettman also said, he said it was "a significant proposal with meaningful movement."

This what the head of the NHLPA Donald Fehr has to say about the proposal.

"It's a proposal that we intend to respond to," said Fehr. "I'll leave it at that."

While there won't be a response today, there should be a response by the players tomorrow according to Fehr. 

“There’s not a lot to say today,” Fehr said. “We want to work further on it overnight. We have an expectation, based on what we know now, that we’ll get back together tomorrow afternoon.

“It is different in some respects from before, but I don’t want to categorize it until we have an opportunity to really go through it and we understand it and come up with an appropriate response.”

Looks like the owners latest proposal is asking for a 52/48 split from the players - so there is some movement.

Darren Dreger from TSN tweeted this break down of what the Owners proposed today - you can see that the owners are going for the 50/50 split.

Bettman's taking NHL fans for granted.

It sounds like the NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is taking NHL fans for granted – his logic is – because the fans came back after the two previous lockouts - they will come back this time again.

I am sure there were a lot of fans that weren't happy today with Bettman's condescending, pompous and arrogant statement statement, I don't like reading that statement.

Tim Panaccio, Flyers Talk --- And that’s what NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is counting upon. That you, the fans, will come back again when he locks the doors on Sept. 15.

A week, a month, an entire season. He’s pretty confident you’ll come back.

How do we know that? The Commish all but said so today in Toronto at the CBA meetings.

After a brief, 90-minute negotiating session with the NHLPA in which nothing was really bargained and nothing was gained on either side, Bettman was asked about the damage another lockout could do.

“We recovered last time because we have the world's greatest fans,” Bettman said.

That, in a nutshell, is why the owners are willing to do it again. They know the sport will recover. They have past history to prove it.

Hockey fans are like addicts. They can’t resist the ice. They come back. Again and again.

First, I am not sure how Gary Bettman can start making ridiculous comments like he did today – does he have research to back up his claims? How does he know that the fans will be back after the lockout is over – there might be some fans that might just decide to not renew their season tickets or spend the money on something else – the country is in an economic down turn and some fans might decide that they won’t by the tickets and save the money for a rainy day.

This is one of the reason I believe that there is no reason to remain optimistic. The owners and Gary Bettman are taking NHL fans for granted – the owners and Bettman are making the assumption that the fans will forgive the owners for locking out the players after the labor dispute is over.

Today Gary Bettman said, "the only way to make progress in ongoing labour talks is to solve the "fundamental economic issues."

Is Gary Bettman the lockout commissioner?

I think it's a good question - under the tutelage of Gary Bettman he has presided over two NHL work stoppages since he took over the NHL League Commissioner job in February 1, 1993.

There is a very good chance that the NHL is going to have their third lockout under the leadership of Gary Bettman. Another dubious honor Bettman holds is that the NHL is the only professional sport to lose an entire season due to a work stoppage.

Jack Todd, Montreal Gazette --- You get the feeling that Gary Bettman loves his lockouts. This is Bettman’s thing. Shut down the league. Grind the players to powder. Go back to the owners and get his own salary bumped up for having satisfied the owners’ greed.

Then come back five or 10 years later and say that the salary system he shut down the league to get is unworkable, so he has to shut it down again. Why? Because he wants to. Because he can.

Last time round, it seemed like the owners had a case. We were on the fence, until the latter stages of the lockout, when Bettman morphed into Richard M. Nixon.

This time, it is Bettman who has presented an entirely irrational plan, one the NHLPA would be mad to accept — and it is PA executive director Donald Fehr who responded with a response so rational, so well thought out, that we actually hoped Bettman might accept it, at least as a starting point for a new approach.

Again, I am sure that most of us would have more empathy for the owners if the NHL had not made 3.3 billion dollars last season. Also, I am sure the owners would get more sympathy from the fans if the owners weren’t signing players to ridiculous salaries like they have this off-season.

Bettman, 'we will Lock out the players if there is no agreement.

I have said this before, the NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a pompous, condescending and lastly, a smug jerk... So much for the nice and civil negotiations eh? Make no mistake about it the owners, in my opinion, are trying to weaken the NHLPA. Yeah, I blame the owners in this dispute because they're the ones that created this mess by signing players to these ridiculous contracts. Donald Fehr head of the NHLPA confirmed that the players union will send a counter-proposal to the National Hockey League on Tuesday. There are 37 days left until the current CBA expires that's a little over a month for the two sides to get an agreement done between the two sides.

TSN.CA --- National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters on Thursday that the NHL will lock out its players if there is no new collective bargaining agreement by the time the old agreement expires on Sept. 15.

"We reiterated to the union that the owners will not play another year under the current agreement," he told a scrum of reporters in New York after the latest talks.

"I re-confirmed something that the union has been told multiple times over the last nine to 12 months. Namely, that the time is getting short and the owners are not prepared to operate under this collective bargaining agreement for another season so we need to get to making a deal and doing it soon. And we believe there's ample time for the parties to get together and make a deal and that's what we're going to be working towards."

Reports indicate that NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, who just returned from a player information session overseas, is expected to make a counter-proposal on Tuesday. He mentioned earlier this summer that the players were willing to keep working past Sept. 15 as long as solid progress was being made in the negotiations.

NHL's Bettman: Suspension criticism 'gamesmanship'

NHL Commisioner Gary Bettman in 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this one. I mean seriously, you can’t make this stuff up; this is the ultimate display of buffoonery in action. Does Gary Bettman not get it? This is why many people, fans, coaches and players look at the NHL commissioner and the NHL League front office as a gong show.

 NEW YORK (AP) - NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman calls teams' complaints about player suspensions during the postseason "gamesmanship."

Bettman said Friday that criticism of the league's disciplinary decisions as inconsistent simply reflected clubs disliking rulings that hurt them. He used the one-game suspension of Washington center Nicklas Backstrom for an illegal cross-check as an example. Bettman says of the Capitals' disagreement: "That doesn't mean anything; they didn't like it."

Bettman says he has confidence in league disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan. The commissioner spoke at an Associated Press Sports Editors meeting shortly before Shanahan was to hold a hearing with Phoenix forward Raffi Torres. Torres is suspended indefinitely for launching himself into Chicago's Marian Hossa on Tuesday.

Nine players were issued suspensions through the first eight days of the playoffs.

The reason the team’s management, the players and fans of various NHL teams are upset is that they see the current state of affairs in the NHL to be disgusting. I don't mind the rough stuff and the after the whistle stuff because it adds to the drama and the rancor, however, when a a player drive another players head into the glass and only get a $2,500.00 fine, you have to think that something is wrong here. Then other players get a random one game or a three game suspension, it's like the Wheel of Justice is back in the NHL.

Then we have star players getting off without even getting a fine for acts that would get other players a two to three game suspension.

Related articles

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• Bettman: Teams' complaints on suspensions 'gamesmanship'
• Nicklas Grossman injuried by Malkin Elbow.
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• NHL's punishment must be swift and severe for Raffi Torres hit on Marian Hossa

Time for Gary Bettman to go?

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeMy buddy Redwing77 would probably agree with some of the things written in Ken Gray’s Ottawa Citizen Newspaper article; Gary Bettman must go. Of course I am also in favor of the NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman stepping aside; I have never been a fan of the man because I find him to be a very unlikable person, he is smug, arrogant, condescending and a very pompous person. Whenever I hear Bettman talk he reminds me of a Washington D.C. Politician that talks in circles, never answers direct questions and says very little in the way of substance. We can only dream that some day we will have an NHL without Gary Bettman.

Ken Gray; Ottawa Citizen --- Bettman has orchestrated a league that has absolutely glorified violence to the point where the players are being irreparably harmed. Concussions from head hits and fighting would have normal business owners concerned. Sutcliffe would do something about it in his workplace. The pads are too hard. Bettman should have acted.

Furthermore, the game is basically flawed. The players are so big, so fast and so well trained that even legal hits are causing brain damage. Something fundamentally needs to change in hockey or players will face brain disease later in life. Why Bettman could not protect the game’s biggest asset, Sidney Crosby. The NHL should be examining how the game can be basically changed to protect the players and provide a good life lesson on Saturday night instead of fighting.

Bettman has failed horribly in his southern U.S. franchise strategy and failed when Fox TV tried to make NHL hockey a national U.S. sport. He failed so badly that he had to bring Winnipeg back into the NHL and will probably do the same for Quebec City in the near future. There is room for new teams in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. In fact, you could probably put a NHL club in Dawson City and draw better than Atlanta.

The reason Bettman signed a big TV contract recently is because networks and cable companies are trying to secure programming as sports in the increasingly diverse broadcasting universe is one of the few places where people (and advertisers) continue to gather in one place. It had little to do with Bettman. At least he didn’t screw it up.

No it’s time for Bettman to go. Perhaps it has always been time for Bettman to go.

Related articles

• Gary Bettman Earned $7.5 Million Last Year; Do You Care? (sbnation.com)
• Bettman's salary tops $7.5-million (theglobeandmail.com)
• SBD: NHL czar Gary Bettman's compensation reaches $7.5 million (aol.sportingnews.com)
• Bettman's salary skyrockets (thestar.com)

NHL realignment for the 2012-13 season

Image via WikipediaWith the Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg Manitoba, it appears that the Detroit Redwings will be moving to the Eastern Conference like many of the hockey pundits had suggested. I also like the idea of having a home-and-home against teams outside their division.

Bruce Garrioch ,Ottawa Sun - The NHL could be ready to make drastic changes with a major realignment for the 2012-13 season.

Two league executives told QMI Agency Wednesday that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman presented a proposal during Tuesday’s board of governors meetings in New York to scrap the current format used by the league.

Sources say under Bettman’s proposal, the league will have four divisions: Pacific, Midwest, East and South. It’s believed the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets would both get their wish to move to the East conference.

Changes need to be made with the Atlanta Thrashers’ move to Winnipeg now official. The two conferences and six divisions will be kept this year, but Bettman is pushing for a major change.

The realignment is by no means final. It’s still in the discussion stages.

Teams would play a balanced 82-game schedule with home-and-home against teams outside their division.

The top four teams in each division would make the playoffs. The first round would be divisonal play, the teams would then re-seed for conference play. Bettman’s idea would not affect a East-West Stanley Cup final matchup.

Commissioner promises harsher penalties for head hits - "Next Year."

Image via WikipediaKey word is next year... I guess we will have have more of the same during the Stanley Cup Finals.

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was talking tough Wednesday, promising harsher penalties for violence "next season"and introducing the league's new chief disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan.

Bettman used his state of the league address ahead of Game One of the Stanley Cup final between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins to announce that Shanahan would be taking over the most thankless job in ice hockey.

A tough as nails former-player, Shanahan replaces Colin Campbell, who had been in charge of dispensing NHL supplemental discipline for 13 years but had come under increasing criticism for what was viewed as wildly inconsistent punishment.

The league continues to struggle to find a balance between player safety and removing the physical component of the game, which is at the heart of the sport and its appeal.

Concussions and the hits that cause them have become the hot button issue in sport this year, particularly in the NHL, and Campbell's uneven suspensions created the perception the league was unconcerned, sparking an uproar among fans and sponsors.

Bettman said Campbell had approached him and suggested a change.

"Collie and I believe it is time to take a fresh look at the standards that we use and if we are going to move to harsher discipline that change needs to send a clear message and we think it would probably be best to do it on a clean slate," Bettman told reporters.

Related articles

• NHL Commissioner Bettman expects realignment in 2012 season (cbssports.com)
• NHL Commissioner Bettman expects 2012 realignment (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Commissioner promises harsher penalties for head hits (reuters.com)
• NHL Commissioner Bettman expects 2012 realignment (sfgate.com)
• Bettman expects NHL realignment for 2012-13 (sports.espn.go.com)

Winnipeg press conference with Gary Bettman

Wow!!! I can’t be the only one that thinks the NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a smug little pompous jerk? When I watch Gary Bettman talk in press conferences on television or listen to him speak on XM radio; Bettman reminds me of one of the many empty suits that make up Washington, D.C., arrogant, condescending, smug, gets short with people… Frankly I think Bettman is a jerk the way he conducts himself. I would have loved to hook up a lie detector during his press conference today.

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