11/05/24
January 04, 2005
Business Week Votes Bettman among the worst managers of 2004: A fairly scathing review of Bettman's performance, and not just this year. He is in good company with luminaries such as Eisner (Disney) and Scott Livengood of Krispy Kreme.
Bettman is either a genius with whom hockey fans have to be patient or a total disaster, and only time will tell. I'm not an expert on this, but it seems that if he plays his cards in a way where he can declare an impasse and impose his labor terms on the hockey players (who really have nowhere to go, as evidenced by the ESPN the Magazine article on the 2 Tampa Bay Lightning players who played for a time near what had to be some former gulag in Russia) and get a salary cap, then he might well have saved hockey. But, if as Wayne Gretzky fears, hockey will be down for two years, then pro hockey as we know it could be over.
posted by SportsProf at 09:04 PM on January 04, 2005
odds seem to point to the latter?
posted by owl at 03:06 AM on January 05, 2005
Bettman says hockey WILL be destroyed under the present system. Uh, Gary, look around. There is no hockey NOW.
posted by roberts at 05:03 AM on January 05, 2005
Bettman is either a genius with whom hockey fans have to be patient or a total disaster, and only time will tell. Bettman took over the NHL almost 12 years ago, and in those 12 years, they've had 3 work stoppages...the only 3 in NHL history, I might add. I'm all for giving a guy a fair shake, but just how much time does his "genius" need to blossom??
posted by MeatSaber at 07:32 AM on January 05, 2005
...only time will tell Time done gone and told us already. Hockey, as a sport, as a business, and as entertainment is worse for having known Gary Bettman.
posted by 86 at 08:42 AM on January 05, 2005
Anyone who turns a $2B business into a $1B business over ten years deserves the axe, preferably in the back of the head. Bettman has done almost nothing right in his ten years, aside from a couple of good expansions (and a pile of bad ones), and getting NHLers into the Olympics. If he were in charge of any other business, he'd have been fired a long time ago. Hopefully we'll only have to wait a while longer.
posted by Succa at 09:32 AM on January 05, 2005
word
posted by garfield at 09:32 AM on January 05, 2005
No matter how badly Bettman has performed I don't see the owners giving him the chop until after this contract negotiation is completed.
posted by billsaysthis at 10:54 AM on January 05, 2005
Bettman should retire to a life of eating Krispy Kremes.