Unlike most of my maple leaf bedecked brethren, I've never considered Gary Bettman as evil incarnate.  Until now.  Oh, sure, I've taken a potshot or two.   Hey, when you're a blogger hard up for an offseason post, you could do worse than unleashing the go-to quiver of Bettman arrows...the non-existent T.V. deal, the Napoleon complex, his inability to save the owners from themselves, the lockout, the voice dripping with condescension, the bad haircut and/or New Yawk twang, the inevitable feeling you get whenever he speaks about hockey that he's just waiting for David Stern to die so he can take over the NBA... 

Yep, during the dog days of August, Gary Bettman just hangs there like a short, smarmy pinata, begging you to swing away.  But actively dislike the man?  Not really.  Not until last night.  Last night, I came to despise the man with the eternal hellfire of a thousand suns.

Follow me after the jump, where I will expound on the many ways Ron MacLean's biannual Kock Block The Kommissar has angered me enough to kick puppies and drown kittens.

 
It takes a little bit to get past the discussion on head shots, the nefarious manipulations of the salary cap and the mesmerizing way Gary keeps staring vacantly into the dark upper corners of the studio, but eventually you get to the bits that vex me so, beginning at the 4:06 mark, when Ron utters the word "Hamilton" for the first time...

4:55 -- "Take it out of sports.  If you own a Tim Hortons or a McDonald's and you buy it in a particular location, you don't own the right to move it to a different location." 

You do if that particular Tim Hortons or McDonald's was relocated from somewhere else to begin with, thereby setting the precedent...but that's beside the point.  When was the last time you heard of McDonald's setting up a franchise in a market where no one had ever heard the word "hamburger", let alone "Big Mac" and then insisted that the franchise was viable and couldn't be moved, even as the owner was drowning in red ink and left over special sauce?  Would your fellow Cornell keg mates consider that a sound business model?  So why do you?

6:28 -- "The club [Phoenix Coyotes] was never in jeopardy, and any suggestion it was is silly."  

Fret not, good citizens of Phoenix/Glendale (i.e.: the poor bastards who paid for most of the arena) and unsecured creditors!  Your fears of never seeing a dime from the team are just plain silly.  I'm sure this will come as great comfort as you lay off staff and watch your livelihoods swirl down the shitter because of some credit arrangement you made with the guy the League insisted was the controlling interest, but...um...really wasn't.  Please return to your foreclosed homes and former places of business.

8:55 -- MacLean: "Here you have that free financing, let's be honest...20 years, 20 billion dollars have been spent by taxpayers in North America to build 60 arenas and stadiums, is that correct?"  Bettman: "I don't know what the number is...". 

I'll leave you to ponder that one on your own.

9:44 -- "Meanwhile Rod Bryden had to build his own exit ramp...Canada has a history of not spending taxpayer money on infrastructure improvements.  It's probably the reason Winnipeg and Quebec moved.  It's because there was [sic] no prospects of building a new building..." 

Annnnd now we reach puppy kicking territory.  Fuck you Gary.  You know what really are "infrastructure improvements"?  Sewers that don't back up and pump raw human waste into the rivers that provide our drinking water.  Parks and playgrounds so our kids don't grow up into fat fucking slobs who drop dead at 40 of massive coronaries while inhaling a bucket full of lard disguised as chicken.  A sufficient number of qualified teachers so those same kids can recognize what an asshat statement that was.  Or how about fixing hospitals and schools so that they're no longer so decrepit that you fear for the occupants' safety every time they step into one?  How about bridges that don't fall down?  How about fixing the nuclear reactors that produce the medical isotopes that keep people alive?  How about those, Gary? 

Do you know what isn't an "infrastructure improvement"?  Conning taxpayers into building a giant monument to a billionaire's penis envy and then handing over all of the revenue of said monument so he can hire a bunch of millionaires to play for him, while charging the few unwashed plebians willing to spend half their monthly income taking their family of four to a game eleven bucks a beer, only to complain that their now 15 year old arena is "hopelessly obsolete" and that, unless they get a new one, the team will fold.  In other words, Gary, to imply that losing Quebec and Winnipeg because the locals were unwilling to sacrifice what really matters for the privilege of having an NHL team bestowed upon them from above reveals you to be the craven, carpet bagging bullshit spewing lawyer we've always suspected you to be. 

And finally...10:20 -- "It's not really 212 million...it's a much lesser number by the time you do all the setoffs (Ed.: I can only assume he meant "offsets") and credits, but that's not the point..." 

Gee, Gary.  Your positively Enron-esque mathematical obfuscation wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you seem to have managed to strong-arm your preferred heir to the Coyotes fiefdom, a certain Mister Reinsdorf, into offering a much lower dollar figure than what the Crackberry King currently has on the table, would it?  Nah...couldn't be.  Because, in such a situation, sticking to the talking points your PR flacks handed you a month ago wouldn't make any sense at all, now would it?

As a final aside, by the by, I searched high and low for some salient commentary from the MSM on what I thought, was a pretty good angle, if not a fairly juicy story.  I peered into the dark souls and mouldy corners of the Ottawa Sun, the Ottawa Citizen, TSN, CTV, and even Mother Corps herself.  And found there...nothing. 

I can't be the only one.  Can I?   

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