Also worth noting: the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup was Montreal in , when Gary Bettman had been on the job for just half a season. Coincidence or conspiracy? According to ESPN, nine of the team's bottom 11 franchises in terms of attendance come from these ten expansion or relocation teams.
Minnesota is the only one to escape, at a lofty No. If you build it, they won't necessarily come? Let's examine the plight of some of these franchises. Sorry Gary Bettman but you created the problem with disastrous expansion teams The Atlanta Thrashers franchise was awarded under Bettman's watch in , as part of a four-team expansion that also included Minnesota, Columbus, and Nashville.
This was not Atlanta's first foray into hockey: the Flames originated there in but moved to Calgary in The Thrashers franchise lasted a little longer—from to —before also relocating to a smaller Canadian market, this time Winnipeg. According to Hockeydb. They made one playoff appearance, where they were swept by the New York Rangers despite having home-ice advantage.
Attendance started at 17, in their first expansion year and dwindled to a low of 13, in their final season. In , James Mirtle of The Globe and Mail explained that the demise of the Thrashers had more to do with poor, fractured ownership than anything else. As fans are well aware, finding and nurturing good owners is Gary Bettman's responsibility.
No matter how large the market or how many big corporations might call it home, stable ownership is absolutely necessary for a franchise's long-term success. Of all the "non-traditional" markets Gary Bettman has pursued, Phoenix is the one that troubles fans the most. On top of bearing the weight of being the dearly departed original Winnipeg Jets, the Coyotes franchise has been plagued with problems from the outset.
Their original home at the AmericaWest arena was not well-suited to hockey; their current home in Glendale is in the middle of nowhere. Combine this with the fact that hockey is not indigenous in the desert and the Coyotes have struggled to build a fanbase. The Phoenix area is the 12th-largest television market in the US, and American television partners wanted it included in any national TV deal.
It's fantastically ironic that after all their statements about how the current economic system needs to be tweaked, the Phoenix Coyotes joined the pre-lockout frenzy in signing Shane Doan to a rich free agent contact. It's never a good sign when any franchise player asks for a trade. Rick Nash's departure could spell the beginning of the end for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Since joining the NHL in , the Blue Jackets have amassed a record that's almost identical to Altanta's: games played, for and a 0.
Attendance peaked in their second season, at 18, The last two years have been their worst, although there was a slight rebound in from the previous year's franchise low.
Like Atlanta, they've made the playoffs one time and like Atlanta, they were swept in their lone appearance—in this case, by Detroit in After just three years, the team ceased operations and merged its assets with the Minnesota North Stars.
The Blue Jackets have had a more successful run than that. Because they're not in the sun belt and because they generally don't do damage to anyone's favorite franchise, they're rarely the object of fans' wrath.
But Columbus is in trouble from a hockey operations standpoint. In another eerie coincidence, Atlanta was awarded the All-Star Game in , the season lost to the last lockout. This year? It's Columbus. Mabye the nhl wanted a lockout because they didn't want to have a Columbus all star game televised. One can point to the new hockey team in Las Vegas, a city whose temperature can reach above forty degrees Celsius on a normal summer day.
In , Bettman was appointed as the commissioner of the National Hockey League NHL by the owners of the league based on a mandate of expansion. Ever since the beginning of his tenure he has pursued an aggressive often misguided expansion into non-traditional hockey markets. These aggressive moves also come at the expense of the traditional, loyal Canadian markets. The latest expansion to Las Vegas is another example of his stubborn refusal to give the majority of fans what they want.
In , he refused to allow a sale that would have moved the Nashville Team to Hamilton. The aggressive expansion into the sunbelt affects not only the Canadian cities without teams but also the seven Canadian teams currently in the NHL. This means that Canadian teams are often unable to compete with the higher salaries and bigger TV audiences of their American counterparts.
While Bettman was primarily brought on to expand the game to US markets, he was also given the mandate of ending labour unrest within the league, something he has failed miserably to accomplish. Some reasons may be his own fault, others may not. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. This might be the most common answer. Strikes and lockouts were nothing new in professional sports or a unique creation by Bettman.
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 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.
Meanwhile, on the NHL side of things, the blame seems to be almost exclusively directed at Gary Bettman. His previous experience with the NBA saw the league grow exponentially when measured with the almighty dollar sign.
The NHL is steeped in tradition, and so are its fans. They forget that the very reason the NHL doubled in size during the expansion was to land a television contract.
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