Movin' to Big D
For his first full season at the helm, Gary Bettman saw the Minnesota North Stars move to Dallas, and the expansion Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim begin play (both franchises were awarded Dec. 10, 1992).

Perhaps the biggest change of his brief tenure was renaming and realigning the divisions and conferences. The league dropped the Norris and Smythe divisions in the Clarence Campbell Conference, and the Adams and Patrick divisions in the Prince of Wales Conference, in favor of regional identification. Bettman was criticized for abandoning the league's historical identity in order to make the league more appealing to casual sports fans.

Mike Modano has been a "Star" -- both in Minnesota and in Dallas.

On The Tube
On Sept. 13, 1994, Bettman announced a new deal with the Fox Network, giving the league a regular network broadcast partner for the first time in years. Fox decided not to renew its deal after averaging 2.6 million viewers in the final year. In August 1998, ESPN -- which originally entered a five-year deal with the NHL in September 1992 that was later extended -- and ABC agreed to a five-year deal which expires after the 2003-04 season.

According to a recent report in the Toronto Globe & Mail, the money from ESPN/ABC, CBC, TSN and RDS, plus revenue from the NHL's Center Ice pay-per-view service, yields $6-8 million per team.

Fox tried to sell hockey to the masses on TV with its glowing puck.

LOCKOUT!
Coming off one of the most compelling Stanley Cup finals in league history -- a seven-game series between the Vancouver Canucks and New York Rangers -- a stalemate in negotiations of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement resulted in a 103-day lockout and pushed the start of the regular season to Jan. 20, 1995. Teams played a 48-game schedule with no interconference play and no All-Star Game. Key components of the agreement were a cap on entry-level contracts, salary arbitration and unrestricted free agency at 32 (which dropped to 31 in 1998).

After Mark Messier's Rangers won the Stanley Cup on June 14, 1994, fans went seven months before seeing another NHL game.

Adieu, Les Nordiques
Despite their popularity and their first-place finish in the Northeast Division in 1994-95, the Quebec Nordiques were sold to COMSAT Entertainment Group, owner of the Denver Nuggets, for $75 million and began play in 1995-96 as the Colorado Avalanche. In December of 1995, the Avalanche acquired goalie Patrick Roy from the Montreal Canadiens and went on to win the Stanley Cup in four games over the Florida Panthers.

Also, the league adopted the Canadian Assistance Program, to compensate Canadian-based franchises for the currency-exchange rate. In December 1995, the Canadian dollar was worth 73 cents in the U.S. In January, 2003, it was worth 65 cents.

Joe Sakic and the Nordiques went south for the 1995-96 season and won the Stanley Cup.

1996 World Cup of Hockey
In an agreement between the NHL, the NHLPA and the International Ice Hockey Federation, the 1996 World Cup of Hockey was staged prior to the start of the 1996-97 season as a preview for the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. The tournament featured eight teams and was played in nine cities in six countries, with the final round taking place in Canada and the U.S. The U.S. beat Canada, 5-2, in the final game of the best-of-three series at Montreal. Tony Amonte scored the game winner for the Americans and goalie Mike Richter was named MVP after making 35 saves -- including 22 in the second period. The tournament grossed $15 million for the three organizations.

Chris Chelios and his Team USA teammates claimed hockey's first World Cup title in Montreal.

Flying South Forever
After repeated attempts to raise money to keep the Jets in Winnipeg fail, owner and president Barry Shankarow announced on Aug. 15, 1995, that he has no alternative but to sell the team to an out-of-town buyer. The Jets were sold to Richard Burke and David Gluckstern on Oct. 18, 1995; two months later, it is announced the team will move to Phoenix. Teemu Selanne, the 1992 Calder Trophy winner, was traded at the deadline to Anaheim, where the Jets lost their final regular-season game, 5-2.

The Phoenix Coyotes began play in 1996-97.

Keith Tkachuk led the Jets from Winnipeg to the Arizona desert.

The Final Frontier
On June 25, 1997, the NHL's Board of Governors approved the applications of Nashville (to begin play in 1998-99), Atlanta (1999-2000), Columbus and St. Paul (2000-01), increasing league membership to 30 teams. The $320 million in membership fees was divided among the other 26 members. The expansion was the largest since the NHL doubled in size -- from six teams to 12 -- 30 years earlier.

The board also approved extending the Collective Bargaining Agreement by four years, to Sept. 15, 2004.

Mike Dunham was the first player chosen by the Predators in the 1998 expansion draft.

Storm Front Moving
Hartford Whalers owner Peter Karmanos announced on May 6, 1997, that the team would relocate to Raleigh, N.C. The team played in Greensboro for two seasons as its new arena was built. The team moved into the Raleigh Entertainment & Sports Arena for the 1999-2000 season. Two seasons later, the Hurricanes reached the Stanley Cup finals where they fell to the Detroit Red Wings in five games.

Jeff O'Neill is one of only three Hurricanes who were with the team for its last year in Hartford. Sami Kapanen and Glen Wesley are the others.

Czechs Win Gold
With NHL players participating in the Olympics for the first time, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Vancouver Canucks opened the season with two games in Tokyo on Oct. 3-4.

At the 1998 Games in Nagano, the Czech Republic, which received little consideration as a medal favorite, won the gold behind the netminding of Dominik Hasek. The Czech's claimed the championship with a 1-0 win over Russia, after beating Canada 2-1 in a semifinal shootout. The biggest side stories of the event -- the omission of Wayne Gretzky from Team Canada's shootout, and members of Team USA vandalizing their dorm rooms.

Strong team defense and stingy goaltending by Dominik Hasek helped the Czech Republic to the gold.

Seeing Double
In an effort to cut down on infractions behind the play, the league instituted a new officiating system for the 1998-99 season, during which each team plays 20 games with two referees and two linesmen. In 1999-2000, teams were required to play 25 home and 25 road games using the system. In 2000-01, the two-referee system was implemented for all games. Also for the 1998-99 season, the blue lines, goal lines and all markings in between were moved two feet closer to center, increasing the amount of space behind the nets to 13 feet and decreasing the size of the neutral zone to 54 feet.

One referee wasn't enough, so the NHL went to two for the 1998-99 season.

Nipping And Tucking
In an effort to make the game more appealing to fans, the league introduceed the "overtime loss" and four-on-four overtime in 1999-2000, with hopes that if one point is already guaranteed, more games will produce a victor.

In 2002-03, the "hurry-up" faceoff rule was instituted. The rule, which was used during the 2002 Olympics, reduced the length of games by roughly 15 minutes.

Rod Brind'Amour and Sergei Fedorov have less time to jockey for position in the faceoff circle.

Februar 2000
The McSorley Incident
After initially suspending defenseman Marty McSorely indefinitely for slashing Donald Brashear across the head on Feb. 21, 2000, Bettman set the suspension at one year -- the longest for an on-ice incident in NHL history. McSorley was convicted in a Canadian court of assault with a weapon on Oct. 6, but received a suspended sentence and does not have a criminal record. Bettman's decision, made on Nov. 9, allowed McSorley to negotiate and sign with any team, and begin practicing on Jan. 1. McSorley signed with the Grand Rapids Griffins of the International Hockey League, but after 14 games, he didn't find any takers and decided to retire.

Marty McSorley was convicted in a Canadian court of assault with a weapon.

Februar 2002
Oh, Canada
Team Canada, led by executive director Wayne Gretzky and coached by Pat Quinn, ended a 50-year drought with a 5-2 win over Team USA in the gold-medal game of the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. A week later, team captain Mario Lemieux announceed he would miss the rest of the NHL season with a hip injury, which he played through during the Games.

Team Canada goalie Martin Brodeur is mobbed by his teammates after defeating the United States

Going Bankrupt ... Again
Filing for bankruptcy protection in the NHL is nothing new -- the Ottawa Senators and Buffalo Sabres became the third and fourth teams to go through the process during Bettman's reign. The Los Angeles Kings filed in 1995 in order to facilitate the sale of the team. The Pittsburgh Penguins filed in 1974 and again in 1998 before being bought by Mario Lemieux.

Though L.A. is considered a big market, the Kings were unable -- or unwilling -- to keep Rob Blake, and traded their captain to the Avalanche in February 2001.

Friday, January 31

Bettman must find cure for growing pains

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Damien Cox
Special to ESPN.com

It's fair to cite Gary Bettman as a decisive improvement on what, or who, came before.
After years of unprecedented growth, Gary Bettman could face an unprecedented labor war.
Men like Frank Calder and Clarence Campbell operated in circumstances too different from modern times to make reasonable comparisons, but few would argue that Bettman has provided the NHL with more impressive leadership in almost every respect compared to John Ziegler or Gil Stein.

Then again, that's sort of like bragging you run a cleaner administration than the Nixon White House.

Much more complicated, as Bettman approaches his 10th anniversary as NHL boss on Feb. 1, is to draw an accurate assessment of the overall job he has done in his effort to usher in a new era of NHL prosperity.

After all, these are dark times threatening to become even gloomier for the NHL, and in such a foreboding and uncertain climate it is difficult for any individual administrator to appear overly successful or particularly progressive.

That said, there is a record to be analyzed here, a decade of decisions and leadership that offers more than, to steal a phrase from Bettman's book, a mere snapshot.

Without question, Bettman has presided over an unprecedented era of expansion and growth, creating a 30-team league, multiplying NHL revenues many times over and increasing to some degree the NHL's profile across the North American sports market.

Under Bettman's watch, the league operates in the cyber-world, has taken some stabs at the international market, has modernized its business tactics, often reacted progressively to events and developed attractive new layers of merchandising.

Bettman hasn't simply sat on his hands. He has tried to make it happen, and has generally been there to answer the tough questions.

While a master of spin, he has been accountable every step of the way. Yet it is that very growth and expansion, some of which could fairly be described as reckless, that now threatens to choke the industry into lifelessness.

Could one commissioner both grow and simultaneously kill the league? It's an intriguing concept, one that Bettman will seek to eradicate through negotiations with the players on a new collective agreement that some believe will provide the panacea to that which ails this league.

Bettman, with years still left on his contract and strong support among NHL governors, has both the time and the opportunity to correct past misjudgments and to set this league on a more profitable course.

But it won't be easy.

Right now, it seems reasonable to say that Bettman's ambitious reach has exceeded his grasp.

That ambition and an inclination to pursue muscular growth over moderate expansion and stability can best be measured through the growth of the league from a 21-team loop to the 30-team organization that exists today.

But it wasn't just about adding nine expansion teams in nine years. The pursuit of bigger markets and the dream of substantial U.S. television dollars also took the form of the movement of teams from the game's heartland, specifically Quebec City and Winnipeg, to untested markets in Denver and Phoenix.

Bettman didn't move those teams. But for the middle portion of his reign, the NHL appeared to embrace the proposition that it could sell hockey anywhere, and that those areas that best loved the game were less important that those which contained more TV sets and larger, state-of-the-art arenas.

One wonders that if the league could do it all over again, whether it would have blocked the reduction of teams in Canada, and perhaps found alternate ways of stabilizing those franchises and using expansion or transfers of U.S. teams to get to other markets.

The voracious style in which the NHL pursued growth attracted businessmen that proved to be mediocre or downright weak partners. Moreover, Bettman's administration utterly misjudged the supply of players to fill all the new jerseys, or perhaps decided that quality control was not nearly as important as pucks with TV-enhanced red streaks or third jerseys in every town.

That did two things. First, the product began to suffer, and to this day is mired in an unimaginative, low-scoring era that has failed to energize new legions of fans, viewers and ticket buyers. The best hockey is played by athletes who can deliver skill while moving at high speeds, and there just aren't enough of those players per team to produce consistently compelling entertainment.

Even the good moves the league has made to enhance the game -- four-on-four in overtime, the hurry-up faceoff rule, attempted crackdowns on violence and obstruction -- have been compromised by the quality of athletes available to play the game.

Wealthy, talented clubs aren't even able to retain more than three or four legitimate scorers or three frontline defenders, as only the supply of goaltenders has outstripped demand. Without enough talent, coaches have been all but forced to push conservative, dullish hockey, creating the predictable, congested style of play that dominates the league most nights.

The laws of supply and demand, plus the carelessness of some owners, also drove salaries skyward, jeopardizing the very prosperity that expansion fees were supposed to guarantee.

The laws of supply and demand, plus the carelessness of some owners, also drove salaries skyward, jeopardizing the very prosperity that expansion fees were supposed to guarantee.
Indeed, in many cases the owners gobbled up those expansion fees from Ottawa, Tampa Bay, Florida, Anaheim and others, and simply shuffled them over to the players, creating new levels of debt that have most recently been partial contributors to bankruptcies in Buffalo and Ottawa.

Players, understanding they could not be easily replaced, simply sat out if their salary demands weren't met, and in virtually every case ultimately won the day even when the absence of a rival league, their age and their status within the collective bargaining agreement gave them no real leverage.

Here's all you need to know to understand how quickly this all got out of control. When the league was trying to negotiate a salary cap with the players in 1994, sources say the figure offered was $16 million across the board. That figure seems trivial now, but at the time, teams had payrolls of $8 million or less.

That reckless drive to expand and grow leaked into other areas. Bettman's Olympic plans and the belief that the Olympics could boost the league's image and, ultimately, its TV profile, led his administration to extend the 1995 collective bargaining agreement not once but twice.

With the opportunity to rewrite that agreement and establish a new economic order still 20 months away, those decisions now appear disastrous.

The gloom-and-doom surrounding the NHL right now would be lessened somewhat if the product was outstanding. But last fall's obstruction and interference crackdown has, in the estimation of media, players, coaches and GMs, already been unofficially rolled back, leaving the game looking like a featureless landscape with only a handful of dazzling stars.

Overall, there is more money for everyone. But the league, under Bettman's leadership, has failed to use that growth to create stability, but rather has seen teams skew the market and retard the development of many smaller market clubs.

Quite clearly, the league has learned some hard lessons. It appears more committed to Canada and has diverted increasingly more resources to the quality of the game with, sadly, limited results.

There is muted support for continued Olympic participation now, and certainly no appetite to extend the current agreement to allow NHLers to skate in Turino 2006.

Bettman, meanwhile, understands that any agreement signed in the future must have ironclad economic safeguards given the propensity for weak-willed or misguided NHL owners to throw money at players rather than use the tools available in the current agreement to control costs.

On the down side, the NHL has failed to assert itself as the guardian of the sport, declining to effectively fund amateur operations in the countries that supply it with players and moving too slowly to develop a game that prizes skill and speed.

Moreover, the NHL's actions in dealing with bankruptcies in Ottawa and Buffalo suggests Bettman is doggedly pursuing a failed business model, keeping franchises alive when the league might well benefit from lopping off a team or two.

So is Bettman the right man to lead the NHL through the frightening labor fires of 2004 into some future level of success?

In the absence of a viable alternative, you would have to say yes. Moreover, Bettman has taken his wounds in battle and now is well positioned to address the key areas of economic weakness. He knows the owners and he knows union boss Bob Goodenow, and there is a sense he has a strong mandate to fundamentally alter the way this league does business.

One fears for the lack of imagination he has often shown. Other than four-on-four for overtime, a bold initiative that has been an unqualified success, it's hard to pinpoint an area in which the Bettman administration has demonstrated an ability to think outside the box and produce creative answers.

Over the course of a decade, Bettman has shown he can direct growth, but not control its effects.

The NHL is now like a child with a terrible stomach ache after eating too much candy.

It needs Bettman to be more than simply better than what, or who, came before.

Damien Cox, a columnist for the Toronto Star, is a frequent contributor to http://www.ESPN.com.

http://www.Espn.Com

We're not broke, we forgot our wallet
By Kurt Snibbe
Page 2 cartoonist

The financial troubles erupting out of the NHL in January have been so strange that you almost expect Paul Newman to show up as coach of the Buffalo Sabres with the Hanson Brothers in tow.

The Ottawa Senators couldn't pay their players and the Senators and Sabres declared bankruptcy. What happens when teams are in a money crisis and can't just pull out an American Express card? Page 2 cartoonist Kurt Snibbe tells us what comes next:

Kurt Snibbe is a sports news artist for the Orange County Register, and his work will appear frequently on Page 2. He can be reached at Sportoon@hotmail.com.

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/sportoon/nhl.html

Der mächtigste Mann im Eishockey
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman seit 10 Jahren im Amt

von Stefan Herget

Die NHL hatte schon einige starke Persönlichkeiten als Ligapräsidenten an der Spitze ihrer Organisation seit der Gründung im Jahr 1917. Aber vor einem Jahrzehnt, nachdem John Ziegler abtrat, entschieden die Eigentümer der NHL, dass der Mann ganz oben, entsprechend den anderen professionellen Sportarten, noch etwas mehr Macht besitzen sollte und suchten den ersten NHL Commissioner. Fündig wurden sie in einer anderen Organisation des amerikanischen Profisports, nämlich bei der NBA.

1992 arbeitete Gary Bettman für die NBA als General-Rechtsanwalt und Vizepräsident direkt unter dem NBA Commissioner David Stern. "Es wäre nur gerecht zu sagen, dass David Stern mein Mentor im professionellen Sport war", sagt Bettman heute. "Wir hatten über die Jahre eine sehr enge Beziehung. Als ich bei der NBA war, verbrachte ich mehr Zeit mit ihm als mit jedem anderen in der Organisation."
Das Board der Gouverneure registrierte schnell, dass Bettman, der ein großer Eishockey-Fan war, ihr idealer Kandidat ist. Am 1. Februar 1993 wurde Gary Bettman der erste und bislang einzige NHL Commissioner.

Bettmans erste Erfahrungen mit Eishockey sammelte er als heranwachsender Junge in Long Island und bekennender Fan der New York Islanders. Sein Interesse intensivierte sich noch während seiner College Zeit. "Als ich nach Cornell kam, nahm Eishockey einen zunehmend signifikanten Platz in meinem Leben ein. Cornell war eine Hochburg des College Hockeys und ich war ein Dauerbesucher des Teams in den vier Jahren, die ich dort verbrachte, was gleichzeitig aber bedeutete, dass ich auch einige Nächte im Freien verbringen musste, nur um an die Karten zu kommen", bemerkt Bettman.
Nach seinem Abschluss ging Bettman an die New Yorker Universität um Recht zu studieren und begann so seine erfolgreiche Karriere in Jura. Zu dieser Zeit konnte er noch nicht ahnen, dass dieser Weg ihn eines Tages zum mächtigsten Mann im Eishockey machen würde. Drei Jahre vertiefte er seine Kenntnisse im Sportbereich, ehe er 1991 von der NBA als stellvertretender General-Rechtsanwalt angestellt wurde. In dieser Zeit sammelte er die Erfahrungen, die ihm in seiner späteren Rolle hilfreich sein würden: "Ich wurde bei der NBA mit allen Aspekten vertraut, die nötig sind eine professionellen Sportliga zu verwalten: Wie die Dynamik arbeitet, was für verschiedene Aufgaben nötig sind, von der Termingestaltung über die Sicherheit, die Lizenzvergaben, dem Fernsehen bis zum Marketing. Ich hatte die Gelegenheit alles zu sehen, wie es zusammen arbeitet und passt.

Mit der Übernahme des Commissioner Postens bei der NHL war es vom ersten Tag an sein Ziel das Spiel so stark zu machen, wie es nur sein könnte, interessanter für die Fans und wesentlich populärer. "Wir hatten eine Organisation umzustrukturieren, denn vieles lief nicht im Gleichschritt", sagt Bettman. "Als ich dazu kam, gab es niemand der für die Gestaltung der Liga verantwortlich war. Ebenso gab es in den USA keinen Zuständigen für die Übertragungsrechte, für Sicherheitsfragen und Marketing. Wir versuchten daher schnell alle Bereiche abzudecken, die jede professionelle Sportliga beinhaltet, um eine entsprechende Marktposition einzunehmen."
Viele Felder musste der Neue abdecken. "Wir benötigten in Kürze eine neue Gehaltsvereinbarung mit den Offiziellen und eine weitere mit den Spielern. Außerdem sollte die Liga weiter in den Vordergrund und mehr Wachstum aufweisen. Wir brauchten mehr Sponsoren und Lizenznehmer", umschreibt Bettman das Aufgabengebiet nach seiner Übernahme. Nicht wenig Kritik sieht sich dieser Mann immer ausgesetzt, doch zurückblickend hat sich das Vertrauen der Gouverneure ausgezahlt, denn Bettman kann bemerkenswerte Erfolge vorweisen. Unter seiner Führung hat die NHL einen gewaltigen Sprung nach vorne gemacht und das Wachstum in Bereichen wie Übertragungsrechten, Marketing, internationale Bekanntheit und Expansion gehörig an Fahrt aufgenommen.

Beim Amtsantritt 1993 zählte die NHL mit den gerade perfekten Zugängen aus Tampa Bay und Ottawa 24 Teams. Bettmans Engagement ist es zu verdanken, dass heute 30 Mannschaften um den Cup spielen. Regionen wurden erschlossen, von denen niemand dachte, dass sie konkurrenzfähig wären. "Es war sehr wichtig diesen Schritt zu wagen. Einer der Gründe ist wohl die nationale Identifikation der Amerikaner. 1990 waren wir in 11 Städten vertreten, jetzt sind es über 20", hebt Bettman die Wichtigkeit des amerikanischen Marktes hervor.

Phoenix Coyotes General Manager Michael Barnett, der in der Exekutive stets die Vorteile der NHL-Erweiterung gesehen hat, betont, warum die Expansion wichtig für den Eishockey-Sport war: "Seit der Übernahme durch Mr. Bettman ist es ein Fakt, dass mehr Kinder in den USA unser Spiel annehmen und besonders mehr als je zuvor in den 'Sonnenstaaten'. Man kann in der Nähe die NHL verfolgen, das macht Appetit und lässt einen von der großen Karriere träumen. Es gibt mehr und mehr gute Trainer über den Kontinent verteilt. Das vergrößert die Auswahl der Talente, wovon die NHL schließlich lebt. Mit der Festigung der Standorte Florida, Texas und Kalifornien ist die NHL von Küste zu Küste vertreten. Somit ist sie jetzt eine nationale und keine regionale Liga mehr."

Neben der Erschließung des amerikanischen Marktes wurde als weiteres Ziel die zunehmende Internationalisierung der Liga anvisiert. So wurde es unter der Regentschaft Bettmans erstmalig möglich, dass die besten Spieler der Welt an den Olympischen Spielen 1998 in Nagano teilnehmen konnten und auch 2002 in Salt Lake City ihre Sportart würdig präsentieren durften. "Es ist wichtig für die Sportart, dass die besten Akteure bei Olympia zugegen sind", sagt der langjährige slowakische NHL-Spieler Peter Stastny, der während seiner Karriere als einer der ersten Legionäre aus dem Osten Europas dafür sorgte die Liga in Osteuropa populär zu machen. "So wird der Sport in ein besseres Licht gerückt, als in der Vergangenheit und es öffnet mehr Spielern den Weg in de Liga."

Der Einfluss der Kufencracks aus Übersee in der NHL stieg schließlich in den letzten Jahren rapide an. Nicht zuletzt ein Verdienst von Gary Bettman, der diesen Prozess gefördert hat. Es bringt einen wesentlichen Vorteil mit sich. Die NHL hat von allen großen amerikanischen Sportarten die größte demographische Streuung vorzuweisen. "Wir haben die unterschiedlichsten Spieler aus den verschiedensten Ländern und mehr Spieler mit differenzierter Abstammung aus Nordamerika, die das Spiel betreiben, als jemals zuvor", betont Bettman. "Ich glaube unsere multinationale Splittung ist eine große Stärke. Wir haben Spieler aus 23 Ländern, ein Drittel der Spieler kommen nicht aus Nordamerika und sie gehören damit zu den besten Spielern der Welt."
Um die dazugehörigen Märkte besser zu erschließen, eröffnete die NHL ihre Saison schon zwei Mal in Japan und Teams wie Toronto oder Colorado hielten Sommercamps in Schweden ab. Die NHL war in der vergangenen Spielzeit in 216 Ländern der Erde im Fernsehen zu sehen.

Einer der wichtigsten Arbeiten zum Auftakt seiner Amtsperiode war für Bettman die erstmalige Vergabe der nationalen TV Rechte in den USA. "Es gibt keine notwendigere Sache als im nationalen Fernsehen vertreten zu sein", bemerkt er damals bei der Unterzeichnung. "Das ist es, was die Hauptsportarten von den anderen unterscheidet. Wir haben in den 70er und 80er, sowie in den frühen 90er Jahren die Gelegenheit versäumt, im Fernsehen präsent zu sein, aber es klappt gerade jetzt, in der Zeit, in der die Medienkonzentration verstärkt zunimmt."

"Wir haben eine sehr, sehr gute und pulsierende Fanbasis zu bieten, die sehr interessant für Werbungtreibende sein dürfte und ich bleibe optimistisch, dass wir weiter auf das Fernsehen bauen können", äußerte sich Bettman vor kurzem, angesichts schwindender TV Raten bei nationalen NHL-Übertragungen. "Man muss nur auf die Berichterstattung zurückblicken. Vor 15 Jahren wurden 50 Prozent der Partien übertragen. Dieses Jahr übersteigt die Zahl 98 Prozent, so dass der Markt abgedeckt ist. Wir haben mehr nationale und regionale Präsenz als je zuvor."

Mit dem Ziel mehr Kinder für das Spiel zu gewinnen, hat Gary Bettman ein Projekt mit der Entwicklung einer Website für Heranwachsende begleitet, die den Kindern alles über das Spiel beibringen soll, aber auch Videos aus der NHL speziell für Kinder beinhaltet. Das All-Star Game Wochenende wird seit ein paar Jahren zu einem Event mit vielen Aktivitäten auch für die Kleinsten und deren Familien genutzt.

Bettman weiß um die Wichtigkeit seiner Aufgabe, die er in den letzten zehn Jahren gut ausgefüllt hat. Doch die Probleme der Zukunft stehen nicht weit in der Ferne. Nach der kommenden Saison läuft die Vereinbarung über die Spielergehälter mit der Spielergewerkschaft NHLPA ab und vielen sehen schon einen Streik auf die Liga zukommen, wie 1995 beim Abschluss des letzten Vertrages. Dann würde die Liga viel einbüßen, was sie sich zuvor erarbeitet hatte. Doch der kühle Commissioner sieht es gelassen. Er weiß, dass das Verhältnis zur NHLPA lebenswichtig ist, die jedoch auch ein gemeinsames Ziel vor Augen haben muss: "Wir müssen übereinkommen, dass wir das richtige ökonomische System haben, dass alle unsere Clubs finanziell gesund und wettbewerbsfähig sein können und somit unser Spiel glaubwürdig bleibt und die Ticketpreise erschwinglich bleiben. Und wir arbeiten als Partner mit unseren Spielern, um das Resultat zu erreichen, welches sich für das Spiel, die Spieler, die Eigentümer und am aller wichtigsten für die Fans am meisten auszahlt." (sth)
http://www.eishockey.com/berichte/hgrund03063.htm