Bettman: "The league is healthy". Reality: "Not so much".

"The dark side of the Commissioner's Office is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural."

We're not going to delve into the mind-numbing details and theories behind expansion and contraction...again. But a new column by The Globe & Mail's Eric Duhatschek takes a close look at the current health of the league as told from those outside the commissioner's office.

"The Tampa Bay Lightning's new owners reportedly needed help from previous owner, Bill Davidson, to complete their purchase.

The Florida Panthers are papering the house with ticket promotions and giveaways: present a Florida driver's licence, get a free ticket.

The New Jersey Devils moved to a new facility in Newark two years ago, but it has not been a cure-all for their economic struggles either. At the moment, as one of 17 teams experiencing attendance downturns in the first quarter of the season, the club is fighting the city and contractors over who should pay utility bills - and it's hard to make ice without water and electricity.

Against this mounting evidence, amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, commissioner Gary Bettman recently reported a sunny forecast for the gate-driven National Hockey League, buffeted by increased attendance in October and brisk ticket sales in many markets.

Looking forward, the picture isn't so cheery."

A most interesting read, and for us locals it's stunning and rather positive in that the Panthers are not the focus of the piece. Lots of insight on the situation in Phoenix...kinda grim.

Fox Sports Florida Sucks It

I'm watching a hockey game that's been continuously advertised as being broadcast in high definition, but the channel it would normally be on (401 on Comcast West Palm Beach) is showing some basketball team from Overtown Miami. So here I sit, digesting the Panthers from a normal-definition standpoint.

Want more proof? Here. And the nine-year-old's rebuttal? Here. Who wins? The basketball thing. Cuz we don't matter. Note to Gary Bettman: After all has been said and done about high-def broadcasts of hockey games, you've lost. Forget the fans...you know...those few of us who still bother to pay attention outside of Detroit and Toronto. We buy the products, go to the games, preach the gospel, and continually get shat upon. And screw you too, Florida Panthers, for not being on top of this. A curse upon you all.

It's obviously not enough that I can get an upstanding citizen or two to watch a hockey game based on their hearing about how awesome it is in HD. These citizens have given up.

What do you want me to do, Fox? It's difficult enough trying to draw folks into a sport with the type of stigma which the NHL has surrounding it. However, you advertise an HD broadcast and decide "Nah...".

WTF?????

Wanna watch? Hope your imagination is sharp...

If only I had a decent pirated copy of PhotoShop...

If you're a Panthers - or Bolts - fan, you find yourself in the same sinking ship as I. Where to find tonight's divisional matchup, featuring the home debut of the Lightning's newest coach-of-the-week, and the premier of Steven Stamkos on the number-one line? WAXY 790 AM! No disrespect to the capable hands of our radio boyz, but THIS IS A GAME THAT MUST BE TELEVISED.

An absolute travesty that we are forced to watch the Habs at Raleigh. This is supposed to bring new blood to the sport? What about us, eh Gary? You remember, Florida fans: the folks who have sat through your lockouts, rule changes, expansions, and relocations, all the while begging the media to kick us while hanging on for our dear franchises' lives? I speak for Tampa Bay, Sunrise, Orlando...heck, Opa Locka. Why oh why must this ridiculous "exclusivity" clause be foisted upon us? Puck fans in the Sunshine State finally have a game that WE ALL care about and it's ripped away in the name of "promoting" the league in...where? Who is going to be drawn to Montreal-Carolina who isn't an established hockey fan? Looking for stragglers too anebriated after the fourth re-run of White-Tailed Deer Gone Wild to hit the remote? I mean pah-leese. A joke, and a cruel one at that. This is punishment for something. Some days it's not worth being a supporter of this backward, uncaring, damn-the-torpedoes league. Why even waste my time writing this? History has proven the NHL will do anything in it's power to do The Wrong Thing.

Is it too late for me to be a poker fan?

"The Bettmans" Premiers

Proving the limited reach of his league on Versus, a mainstream reporter asks NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to describe the Florida Panthers' logo.

The wait is over: "The Bettmans" makes its' series debut, thanks to the boys at the LCS Hockey Show (go to the forty-eight minute mark). And prior to that, our friend Sean Leahy of Going Five Hole stops by with his thoughts on the Penguins and Red Wings. Good Stuff.

BTW: if LCS decides in a few years to reboot their new franchise, would it be done with "Bettman Begins"?

I Remember the Rats...

...and what fun they were for South Florida. So much so that I instituted a rule to ban them. David Stern - "Dad" - would have done the same.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has given Florida hockey fans the dreaded "vote of confidence", regarding the Panthers remaining in Sunrise.

Bettman admits the Panthers "have gone through a little bit of a dry spell," but likes the way GM Jacques Martin is building the team.

"Dry spell". Eight years out of the postseason and we're in a "dry spell". What term is used if we hit a decade? Casual Friday?

It's simply heartwarming and delightful that his highness - whom I hold no bitterness toward from a lil fiasco in Hartford a few years back - has spoken and supposedly closed the book on the Cats moving. That's nice. I'll sleep much more soundly tonight knowing The Commish has ruled.

And he certainly knows his history, for 1996 was mentioned. Note to Herr Bettman: 1996 is the ONLY history this club has had.

NHL's Latest Neutral-Site Outdoor Game Set to Go

Edmonton's newly-reacquired forward Ryan Smyth, looking fit as always, takes to the ice in anticipation of bringing the league - for one game, anyway - back to its' roots: Gary Bettman's backyard. Valet parking available for a small fee; shuttle buses run on the quarter hour from Super Wal-Mart. Calgary's Todd Bertuzzi (right, in Flames gear) sneers at a fan.

Crawford Hangs Berto

Hey kids! It's been, heck, months since we've pretended to be western Canadian and obsessed over the Bertuzzi/Moore case!

From the most recent rumblings of our northern neighbo(u)rs - translation: Bristol, CT - , former Vancouver head coach Marc Crawford is crying ignorancy as to his supposed role in "ordering" veteran forward and current Iron Mike droid Todd Bertuzzi to dismember Colorado's Steve Moore way back in like 1875.

Apparently, Crawford is under the impression that as a coach, his directives to players are only suggestions, to be subscribed to when the player feels them neccessary.

Bertuzzi's a dinosaur, sans charm. Tell him to suck on a Milk Bone and he'll ask "fish or lamb and rice"?

I find it impossible to believe Craw's lame-o story defense. Not that he's entirely at fault by any means, but Jeez. BTW: he's still unemployed. That means even Atlanta passed on the former Stanley Cup winner. Atlanta.

Yes, we continue to wait for this thing to get to court...ANY court...and be done with it.

No lack of compassion for Steve Moore, here, so please don't misunderstand. It's only that this entire debacle has dragged on for Way. Too. Long. Let's get it settled, so hockey fans can go to sleep at night without having to shivver in bed knowing this media-charged 800 lb. gorilla sits over their collective faces. We've got enough snooze to lose with Gary Bettman still in charge.

Does Spilled Beer Quell the Spectre of Bettman?

Sadly, no.

Alas, those many years ago at the soon-to-fall Miami Arena I indeed bumped into the Field Marshall himself on a stairway leading to my seats during the first-ever homegame for the expansion Florida Panthers, attempting to fend off a scrappy band of recent Stanley Cup champions in the guise of the mighty Penguins from Pittsburgh.

Unfortunately, the Baby Cats fell to the Pens, but I departed the building that evening feeling pretty shallow for having dumped the hefty sum of $16 (four beers...in 1993!) on Herr Bettman's well-pressed Fifth Avenue suit during the commish's Great Sunbelt Experiment, South Florida, Day One. I hope ESPN had a hairdryer on staff...this was well before The Mullett's arrival.

Of course, April of 1997 hit several years down the road and I never looked back. The Whale hightailed it out of Hartford under his watch - some would say due to his watch - and suddenly I felt severely shortchanged on that original $16.

In any case, that's my GB story. For those not following the human drama that is "Gary Bettman - Portraits in Heroism", you're missing out.

Greg Wyshynski - the Puck Daddy himself - commisioned what has morphed into a truly epic contest, featuring everyone's favorite reality-splicer: PhotoShop.

Head over to the gallery of what can only be described as - and I'm paraphrasing that cinematic colossus The Cannonball Run - the hockey equivilent of the Bay of Pigs.

The idea? Anything goes. And it does. Absolute gold.