A brash, diminutive American lawyer tasked with overseeing a professional sports league that has its roots grown deep in Canadian soil, Gary Bettman was never going to be the average NHL fan's cup of tea. And despite the fact that Bettman has overseen explosive growth for the league during his 23-year reign at the top of the NHL, his standing amongst the legions of faithful ticket-buyers remains about as lofty as his stature.
And with the release of formerly sealed emails between the commissioner, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, and other high-ranking league officials this week it's likely that fans - and players - will view Bettman, Daly, and the rest of the NHL's decision-makers in an ever-graying light.
From an email exchange between Bettman, Daly and then-director of player safety, Brendan Shanahan (Shanahan, now the president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, had emailed a newspaper story to Bettman and Daly regarding the recent deaths of NHL enforcers Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien, and Wade Belak):
Bettman: "Do you remember what happened when we tried to eliminate the staged fights? The 'fighters' objected and so did the pa [NHLPA]. Eliminating fighting would mean eliminating the jobs of the 'fighters', meaning that these guys would not have NHL careers. An interesting question is whether being an NHL fighter does this to you (I don't believe so) or whether a certain type of person (who wouldn't otherwise be skilled enough to be an NHL player) gravitates to this job (I believe more likely)."
Daly: "I tend to think its a little bit of both. Fighting raises the incidence of head injuries/concussions, which raises the incidence of depression onset, which raises the incidence of personal tragedies."
Bettman: "I believe the fighting and possible concussions could aggravate a condition. But if you think about the tragedies there were probably certain predispositions. Again, though, the bigger issue is whether the [NHLPA] would consent to in effect eliminate a certain type of 'role' and player. And, if they don't, we might try to do it anyway and take the 'fight' (pun intended)."
Shanahan replied by suggesting that the NHLPA would fight any move to ban the role of designated fighters, questioning the changing nature of the position and the way that fighters, long players who sought to increase their skill and standing on the team, had instead settled into their position as pugilists and, to his mind, developed coping mechanisms - like drugs - as a result.
Of course, considering the fact that the link between head trauma and hockey has been denied up and down, left and right by Bettman and Co., he and Daly's seeming admission above that concussions could have long-term negative effects on players, even by aggravating a pre-existing condition, is eye-opening.
Really though, what's perhaps most interesting about the exchange here is the culpability of the players and the NHLPA - Bettman and Co. knew that eliminating fighting in order to preserve the sport's appeal and overall standing with the general public would result in a backlash from the players and their reps, who wouldn't want to hear that the jobs that had gone to guys like Boogaard and Rypien would suddenly vanish.
That's a troubling issue. The NHLPA comes across as uninformed and focused less on protecting its players' health, more on protecting their wallets, which is something that can't simply be explained away by a lack of information from the league.
Still, the NHL, much like the NFL, finds itself at the forefront of the conversation on concussions and CTE. Bettman continues to deny, deny, deny, just as NFL owners Jerry Jones and Jim Irsay have done in recent days.
Eventually though, Bettman, Jones, Irsay and the rest of the billionaires running these leagues will be forced to face up to the facts - the suicides, the health issues, the findings of Boston University researchers that CTE was present in the brains of 96 former NFL players.
Bettman though, ever the abrasively proud New Yorker, sounds unconcerned with the emails being made public.
"I think in terms of us doing our business on an ongoing basis and the fact that we have the league to run, I'd prefer these things not be public," Bettman said. "They'll be a distraction at best, but I don't think they impact the rest of the case."
And NHL senior vice-president of communications Gary Meagher, for one, doesn't believe the NHL and the NFL have all that much in common when it comes to concussions and measures taken - or not taken - to prevent them.
"I could sum up in one line... NFL is in the business of selling that they are making the game of football safer at all levels -- it is smoke and mirrors but they are masters of smoke and mirrors," Meagher said. "The nhl has never been in the business of trying to make the game safer at all levels and we have never tried to sell the fact that this is who we are... The question is: should we be in that business and if we were, what could we possibly achieve without throwing millions of dollars at education."
