from Jonathan Mahler of Bloomberg,

In case you missed the latest news - - the National Hockey League has a hard enough time getting people to pay attention when games are actually being played -- Commissioner Gary Bettman went nuclear last week, filing a lawsuit against his own players.

The suit was intended in part to affirm the legality of the NHL’s ongoing lockout. We’ll have to wait for a federal judge to rule on that. What we can safely say now, with his league about to lose its second full season in less than a decade, is that Bettman is the most inept commissioner in North American professional sports.

Bettman wants to eliminate signing bonuses, cut the salary cap, increase time in the league required before free agency and set the maximum duration of contracts at five years. By one economist’s estimate, these proposals would reduce the average player’s wages by 15 percent to 20 percent.

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