I like the point of distinguishing between a conspiracy and a business plan. A conspiracy would be "let's make damn sure that Chicago wins the Stanley Cup this year" while a business plan is "let's promote the heck out of hockey in Chicago and really hope they win the Stanley Cup this year."

Gary is trying so hard to mold the NHL in the model of the NBA from which he came, failing to recognize that not only are they vastly different sports, but have vastly different fan bases. Basketball is a very star-friendly sport, as one player can dominate the game and will spend the entire game on the court doing so. The fans don't care if he travels (something most can't identify anyway), so long as he can dunk from the free-throw line like JJ said. I hate basketball and yet I can identify Kobe or LeBron or hell even Steve Nash anytime they show up on my tv. Hockey is a team sport and even a stud like Lidstrom will only spend less than half of the game on the ice, in shifts no less. I was watching the Blackhawks skate with the Cup on Wednesday, and at best could only identify 5 players by face (or Mullet) without seeing a number. And the fans will care if you apply a separate reffing standard to the stars, especially the blatant non-calls/non-suspensions. The NHL is trying so hard to manufacture superstars and rivalries to attract "casual" fans who know nothing more about hockey than that Carrie Underwood is going to marry a player, but couldn't name Mike Fisher if their life depended on it. In doing that they are disenchanting the true fanbase, who they assume will always be there.

Also, as another member of the tin foil flash mob that was lambasted online by the various media outlets, the defense of the whole idea and the statements that were made were well played.

That put words to so many feelings that I have, but cannot formulate. And I think you are right.

You're spot on, the NHL is a business. It's clear they are, as you said, trying to work a specific business plan, but it's nice to know that with hard work, some teams can thwart the will of Gary every now and then.

You ought to really think about jumping on a blog more frequently or starting up your own, very well written and interesting!

Cheers!
The Geek

Unfortunately, Bettman came from the NBA where it is a hell of a lot easier to market superstars; there's only 11 players on an NBA team, and they are actually on the court a lot more. Plus, 1 player in the NBA can affect the game more than 1 player can in the NHL on any given night. We live in a sports world where it's about the personalities, not about the teams; the individual over the collective, so to speak. There's probably a crack in there about it being more American, but as a polite Canadian I won't make it.

Great stuff. I hope we get to see more of this over the course of the summer. And get those tin-foil hats ready, because October is just around the corner.

This works out pretty well, because I'm working on a couple posts that could be considered companion pieces to this.

I hate hate HATE how the NHL is following the NBA's lead in catering to a few big names. The problem is that they're selling a few people on the ability to do superhuman things. Well, they can't do superhuman things, just things better than regular humans (or even their peers, who are all significantly better than regular humans). Try as science might, they can't make LeBron James actually fly. So, how do they make him "fly"? They do the next best thing, they let him take four steps and then say he dunked from the free-throw line. It's easy to look like you're that much better than your peers when you're held to a different standard.

Once that line is crossed, it's hard to consider the league a "sport" anymore, since they've done everything they can do predetermine outcomes. At that juncture, they've become sports entertainment. Somewhere between pure competition and WWE pageantry.