Chris18 wrote:
I don't understand how the hell the league thinks things like trying to ignore Westhead during the press conference and keeping the names off the Zoom list will help. Unless Bettman is committed to being the lightning rod who will now take the brunt of the "fire _____" so that the Blackhawks can try to fade back into "Kaner had a hatty last night!" and just play hockey. The NHL highlighted Kane's hat trick on their site and social media pages and commenters were pissed that he'd be praised now, of all times. I get that the league is here to promote hockey and its stars, but it seemed like a good time to just let that one lie unpromoted. At least to me. Bettman has taken the written bullets for the owners before, which is one of the reasons they love him. I don't expect the owners to fire him, even if he winds up being caught on video being told about this back in 2010/11. He stands there taking it all, or deftly dodges the questions, which reporters only seem to notice a few hours later when their story is due and they see there's nothing of real interest to quote. No real answers, despite 100 questions being asked of him. So expect him to stay until he feels he has to retire for personal reasons. And at $8 million/year, I don't see him doing that any time soon.
Bettman is pure white hubris poured into a suit. He's not dumb, but he's such a megalomaniac that he doesn't care how bad avoiding questions from the lead investigative reporter will make him look. He's going to go out of his way to spite anyone he feels has made the league (but really, it's more about him personally) look bad.
And really, why should he? He's taken hockey away from the fans in parts of what, five, six seasons? And in 2005 he took it ALL away. He's suffered zero repercussions from this. He's in the goddamned fucking Hall of Fame for fuck's sake. And he went in THE SAME YEAR AS WILLIE O'REE to boot.
I will say that given his clumsy and tone-deaf presser that he is very likely an utterly incompetent lawyer though. He should count his blessings that he is in a job where actually being good at your job doesn't matter.