“I am 74, and I do acknowledge the fact that I can’t do this forever. There’s nothing happening imminently, and reports of my demise or retirement are greatly exaggerated,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman (May 28, 2026).
Please forgive me for getting all giddy and Canadian over the possibility of Gary Bettman finally retiring. At least he’s talking about leaving the stage so that’s a start.
We haven’t planned a national parade quite yet but at least we’re starting to feel that the storm is coming to an end.
If it wasn’t already obvious, we Canadians have a very stark view of Gary Bettman. Unless you own one of the seven hockey teams in this country. Then you’re loving it. The expansion money. The consistent TV deals. But, for most of us, we hate Commissioner Gary Bettman to varying degrees.
This isn’t some kind of psychotic passion that makes us want to hurt the man. We’re Canadian. Come on. We just don’t like the way he’s been running the NHL. Some would say “ruining it” – and they wouldn’t be wrong when you can see the issue from a Canadian’s point of view.
His reign over these parts the last thirty years has not been kind to the villagers. We’ve lost a couple of franchises and gained one back even the one we gained was actually one of the ones we lost. Only, not directly.
It’s very complicated.
We should have known something was amiss when Gary was there to crown Montreal Stanley Cup champions in his very first year on the job. It was too good, too fast. Felt great at the time but a little too “great.” I mean the man calls it “hackey.”
We never liked the New Jersey accent. Never. Try saying “hockey” with a New Jersey accent. It’s like when milk goes sour. Makes you want to vomit.
But there he was. The new Commissioner of our NHL, with a peanut butter thick New Jersey accent and the guy’s only there because the NBA wouldn’t hire him. So, we end up getting a castoff and someone we never asked for who pronounces it “hackey.” Ugh.
The owners? They loved him of course because the NHL had been such a poorly run league for so long. It always had lots of heart but very little business sense and even less sex appeal even though hockey is the sexiest game going. Just ask your 18 year old daughter what a “boy aquarium” is.
Anyway, the owners loved him because he “was going to grow the game” and when you substitute the word “grow” for the word “stuff” and the word “game” with the word “wallet” you’ll begin to understand why the owners were so gosh darn giddy.
Right out of the gate he brings us the Florida Panthers and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The guy is adamant about hockey in the sun belt, in his first year. Ballsy for sure, but not at all popular in Canada.
Then he presents us with a lockout and the prospect of no hockey in 94-95. Do you have any idea how offside this is to a Canadian? Watching hockey is a means of survival for our long, cold winter nights.
In all honesty we also secretly loved that the NHL lockout was a complete train wreck right from the start. This new guy – apparently hockey’s “saviour” – fumbled the first handoff. He lets in two sunbelt teams and then immediately grinds the sport to a halt.
The lockout resulted in a 104-day work stoppage, a shortened 48-game regular season, and a new collective bargaining agreement that introduced a rookie salary cap while avoiding an overall league-wide salary cap.
What did this all accomplish? Not much other than to establish himself as the new sheriff in town.
Then came 1995, the year the Quebec Nordiques – the other half of the glorious Battle of Quebec – were whisked away to their new home in Colorado where they immediately won the Stanley Cup. Quebec City sets the table and Denver eats the meal. That sort of win was like a biological father losing custody of his child the moment it’s born.
In 1996 the cuts went even deeper. Winnipeg this time. Their beloved Jets are trucked off to Phoenix. If beaches in the NHL weren’t enough, we now had a desert.
Taken in context, the south keeps rising and Canada is reeling. Two franchises ripped from Canada’s arms in consecutive years. What could possibly happen next?
That would be the introduction of the FoxTrax puck in 1996. It was a television enhancement that tracks the puck wherever it went. It glows blue under normal conditions and red when the puck is fired at high speeds, like a firefly trapped in an indestructible mason jar. Corny as hell and completely unnecessary in the eyes of any reasonable hockey fan.
Imagine doing that to baseball. You can’t. The powers that be would never allow that to happen, yet we now had to install a fancy laser pointer to help Americans locate the puck.
Meanwhile back in Canada, most of our clubs were really struggling. The weakness of the Canadian dollar was slowly strangling them so the NHL instituted the Canadian Currency Assistance Plan, in the late 1990s in an attempt to minimize the financial hardship caused by this disparity.
It helped in the short term but did nothing to address the long term problems north of the border. Furthermore, it was rich that the league would add a solution like this only after Canada had already lost two of its franchises. This move was tone deaf and perfunctory. A rescue plan instead of a viable long term strategy. Like offering a weathered cork to a sinking ship.
Despite the growing number of equity issues the NHL continued to plod along, establishing new American hockey ports wherever it could, starting with Nashville in 1998, Atlanta in 1999, and Minnesota and Columbus in 2000.
It must be noted that this expansion was the second attempt to make hockey work in Atlanta. The original attempt started in 1972 and ended in 1980, when the Flames were moved to Calgary. Yes, Calgary. Keep in mind this was in an era when Canada was looked at as an equal opportunity employer. We mattered then.
By the dawn of the 21st century the NHL had grown to 30 teams and before the dust could settle along came Lockout 2: The Sequel, in 2004. This one was for real and Sheriff Bettman wasn’t playing games. Neither was the NHL. The entire season was cancelled, marking the first major North American professional league to lose an entire season to labour conflict.
The good news? Bettman got his salary cap, which is considered Bettman’s crowning achievement of his tenure, which gives you some perspective on who benefited most from its creation.
Sure, it created cost certainty, revenue-sharing and the notion of implied parity but did little to address any tax and currency disparities. “Not our jurisdiction,” said the NHL although true parity demands holistic measures that benefit all members of the club. Not just the ones with year round swimming pools.
But Bettman never acknowledged that obvious disconnect. He couldn’t give Canada the time of day when it came to financial stability but coddled the Arizona experiment like an infant.
This included an endless number of ownership searches, arena negotiations and myopic plans to find a solid fanbase. Gary just wouldn’t or couldn’t give up on this and there is nothing that epitomized the NHL doublespeak more than this fixation on hockey in the desert.
Where was that concern for Winnipeg and Quebec? How hard did the NHL work to keep those teams in Canada? Gary Bettman’s run as commissioner is tainted with a very real anti-Canadian bias whether it was intentional or done simply out of neglect. Either way Canada deserves better than to be continually taken for granted.
Canada, the birthplace of hockey, is the heart that keeps beating regardless of how the NHL has treated us. We’ve been a complete afterthought with this regime, and we’re always taken for granted. Always there to save the league when we’re needed.
Canada is the oldest child in a big family. Expected to be self-sufficient and always there to pick up the pieces when another Bettman-inspired scheme goes sideways. We’re angry about it and have been since the very beginning. For good reason.
And now, the issue is overbearing tax issues that see most of the elite talent funneled to either Texas, Vegas and Florida. This isn’t just a Canadian problem. Most of the teams in the United States can’t compete with the financial prowess of the no-tax states but the NHL remains deaf to these concerns. It’s just that we’re already accustomed to the lack of concern. We know what it feels like to be an orphan in the league you created. Canada is invisible when it comes to the NHL.
Which is why we cheer wildly at the mere mention that this unexpected nemesis may be retiring soon. Getting a new commissioner is something we dream about up here because we know when all of this started and we know who started it.
Commissioner Bettman will not be remembered fondly north of the border. His legacy is one filled with apathy and disrespect for us, whether it was intentional or not. In fact, he couldn’t have done much worse if it was intentional.
All we know is that we ain’t doing this again. Whoever’s in charge next will have some major bridge building work to do. We deserve better.