from Michael Grange of Sportsnet,

The NHL commissioner is entering his 20th season on the job and has suffered all measure of indignities, be it requiring a police escort in Winnipeg when he sounded the death knell for the first go-round of the Jets to having Chris Chelios threaten his family in the lead-up to the 1994-95 lockout to simply being unpopular, as the greeting he receives at most NHL arenas when he pokes his head up would attest.

But Bettman plows ahead. You get the sense he’s oblivious, figuring those doing the baiting have, over time, shown themselves to be overly emotional or provincial or fools. He’s not any of those things, so he figures he’ll win in the end.

But maybe, just maybe, Don Fehr has Bettman on edge, as he faces a new foe with poker face and no need to please.

"Don’s not afraid to tick someone off," says Buck Martinez, the Toronto Blue Jays broadcaster who was the American League vice-president of the MLBPA for eight years during his playing career and part of the negotiating committee for baseball’s labour stoppages in 1981, 1984 and 1985. "He knows how to push buttons and he knows what to fight for."

read on