Kukla's Korner Hockey
Gary Bettman And His 20 Years With The NHL
by Paul on 01/31/13 at 05:37 PM ET
Comments (4)
from Scott Burnside of ESPN,
There will be no cake with 20 little wafer hockey sticks or stick-shaped sparklers or 20 little licorice pucks to mark this day.
Did you really expect NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to mark his 20th anniversary on the job in such an ostentatious manner?
"I don't typically dwell on those types of things," Bettman told ESPN.com this week.
And so instead of a grand celebration of two decades as commissioner of the most unique if not difficult of pro sports leagues to manage, we start instead with a bathroom story.
Brian Burke went to work for Gary Bettman in the old league offices in Manhattan in the fall of 1993, a few months after Bettman took office as commissioner.
One day Burke went into the bathroom and found Bettman picking up paper towels from the floor. Burke joked with his boss that there was actually someone whose job it was to look after that mess. Bettman whirled on Burke and asked him if he knew what time that person started work.
No. Burke did not know.
That person came in after 5 p.m., and so until that time, anyone who came into the league office to do business with the NHL was going to use this bathroom and he was going to find it clean, Bettman explained.
Filed in: NHL Talk, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: gary+bettman
Comments
If only Brian Burke had turned out the lights and locked the door , this long national nightmare may have never happened.
At least gary has a fallback job as a restroom attendant when the owners wise up and fire him.
Posted by Down River Dan on 01/31/13 at 07:16 PM ET
Naturally, the focus on how many more players have jobs and how much more revenue the league is generating.
Just once I’d like to see an article that concentrated on the quality of the product (horrid), the equipment changes (dangerous) and the quality of the ice in the expanded markets (mushy at best).
For those that love money Bettman is king ... for those of us who love the game, he’s an evil troll.
Oh to be able to turn back the clock 20 years.
Posted by Hockeytown Wax from West Bloomfield, Mi. on 01/31/13 at 08:39 PM ET
Congrats Mr. Bettman! I brought cake to celebrate, but you can only have 47 per cent of it. Oh, and I want two mouthfuls back in escrow.
Posted by Mr. Fnytelhatt on 02/01/13 at 04:06 AM ET
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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.
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I couldn’t get past there. Someone let me know how this turns out.
Posted by Red Winger from Sault Ste Marie on 01/31/13 at 06:49 PM ET