REALLY, GARY? LONDON? ARE YOU SURE?

by T, The Angry T

Did you know that the NHL hockey season has begun? I didn’t and I am from Detroit, one of the few cities in America that still has a mild interest in this sport. Sure, I had heard about the series of games that took place in London, but like a normal human who took one marketing class in college, I figured there was no way that the NHL would begin a very important season for their league in a country that doesn’t have a hockey team. Boy was I wrong.

I like watching hockey, don’t get me wrong, I am not simply a hockey hater, or I wasn’t, I should say, until the sport decided to become even more strategically inept than it had previously been. London? London? Really Gary? The worst part is that you believe it was actually a success, when virtually no one in America, you base of operations, even knew what was taking place. Success in this situation shouldn’t be defined by a sold out arena, but rather TV and local media coverage, which you did not get.

First, your sport is struggling to garner ratings, fans, attention, relevancy in the United States. The vasy majority of your teams and money come from the United States. Your goal should be to make the game interesting and intriguing enough to grab my attention, the sports fan, on a nightly basis. So, what do you do? You begin your season, with great fanfare, pomp and circumstance on a different continent, in a city that doesn’t have a team in your league, in a country that doesn’t care about hockey. For god’s sake you could have played the game in any other European country and probably found a significant hockey market. So if you have to make the mistake of playing your season opener in Europe, at least do it in a country that has a reputable professional league like Sweden, Norway, Russia, Germany, etc.

What does Gary Bettman have to do get fired? He has alienated the majority of his former fans. He has turned this game into a joke. He has scheduled a season opener in fricking London. I just can’t get over that decision. Who the hell is green lighting all his ideas? I can just see a board room full of stuff animals and Gary giving a pitch on how the NHL can grow its international market if they play two games in London to begin the season. I am certain that David Stern had picked Gary to run the NHL into the ground and eliminate his competition.

So tonight, we are treated to one game on TV, on the versus network. I understand that this league is not in the ideal position but for sh*t’s sake they did it to themselves and they deserve whatever bad fortune befalls them. I am certain that they played that game in London simply because the NFL was doing it. One day in the near future David Stern is going to announce that the NBA is ceasing operations. Just to be cool, Gary Bettman will follow suit, only to receive a call from Stern where he says, “Got Ya Bitch,” and the NBA will announce it was all a big joke. The NHL will be unable to resume operation because Gary will have already sold all of the computers and office equipment and we will be finished with the abomination of a league once and for all.

Go Wings.