bettman Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

It sure looks like the Arizona Coyotes are going to play in a warehouse for the next few years
There’s little that can surprise anyone when it comes to the Arizona Coyotes anymore. They’re being kicked out of their building after this season. They were nearly kicked out in the middle of it. It’s apparently an abhorrent place to work. The owner might not have any actual money. And the team has...

IDIOT OF THE YEAR #4: Chicago Blackhawks, equal parts heinous and incompetent
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE YEAR festivities! Nos. 50 through 11 are available for your enjoyment here. And our top 10 thus far:...

It doesn’t sound like the NHL is going to the Olympics
There are few good ideas in the pandemic. The most you can muster is, “Well, I guess that’s the best they can do.” The urge to try and have anything normal is an understandable one, it’s just there are so very many limits to how to get to that safely, so we either can’t have them or just ignore the ...

Somehow this Coyotes story got dumber… and better
Maybe I should have waited a day. Because nothing with the Arizona Coyotes fails to get better, or funnier, or more abstract when you give it more time. As the layers get unpeeled, the aroma that wafts through the air really defies belief. It is both hilarity and bafflement, mixed in with old people...

Does the NHL vet its owners?
I wish I could write stuff like this as fiction. But unless you wrote it as Mel Brooks-ian farce, I don’t know how you’d make it believable. And I have to say that I really want to see the city of Glendale actually chain up the doors to Gila River Arena when Coyotes players attempt to show up for a ...

Who wants the Arizona Coyotes?
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but rumors have started that the Arizona Coyotes could be sold and moved to Houston. I know, it’s been a whole 12 minutes since the last one:...

Baseball’s labor battle: Here are the battleground issues
Whenever the players break. ...

Gary Bettman isn’t paid for this, and it shows
Maybe it’s only people of older generations, of which I’m a part, who still perceive the position of “commissioner” as some sort of custodian of a particular sport. Even though we know in our minds that all they’re just the hand of the owners, and exist to ensure maximized profits, our hearts still ...

Strip Jonathan Toews of his captaincy and set the NHL on fire
(TW: Sexual assault)...

In failing to properly protect John Doe’s identity, Chicago has allowed him to be victimized once more
A paltry $2 million fine for the franchise, less severe than the New Jersey Devils’ penalty for salary cap circumvention. Stan Bowman allowed to resign as general manager, rather than getting fired, with good odds that when hockey’s old boys network cranks up again, he’ll be a consultant or an assis...

Even on MLB’s biggest night, Rob Manfred can’t keep his thumb out of his ass
I understand at the dawn of every league’s championship that the commissioner has to do something of a state of the union. Roger Goodell, Gary Bettman, Adam Silver… they all have a press conference before Game 1 or the Super Bowl. Given the daily nature of baseball, Rob Manfred has to do it on the d...

The last thing we need is a Maple Leafs docuseries
The whole behind-the-scenes docuseries has been a bit played out. Hard Knocks started it, and it came to hockey almost a decade ago with the 24/7 series that tracked the two teams in that given year’s Winter Classic for the month leading up to the New Year’s Day game. Some of it was compelling stuff...

It took a game-tanking accusation for the NHL to finally realize it has an Evander Kane problem
At some point by now, you would think that the National Hockey League would have had Evander Kane sit down for a bit, either as discipline, or to help him get his life on track....


This is what the Blackhawks have always been
It’s probably a story that you’ve heard a million times by now if you have any sports leanings, but it needs emphasizing. In the spring of 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks were the center of Chicago. Not just Chicago sports, but Chicago. It was a meteoric and shocking rise, simply because three years be...

NHL refs are turning a blind eye to everything again
It used to be that I thought NHL refs, of the four major sports at least, did the best job. Which wasn’t an accolade so much as just not crashing the car in quite such a fireball. Baseball umps make up their own strike zone while daring anyone to argue with them about it. It used to be that NBA refs...

After 28 years, hockey finally corrects its Habs-Leafs mistake
The NHL has been through so many realignments that sometimes you wonder if it shouldn’t just do a random draw before every season (actually, that’s not a terrible idea). It’s when you get to the real aims of past realignments that things get more interesting. ...

NBA will respond to Zion injury in way NHL has yet to learn
David Griffin can expect to find himself writing a check to the NBA after the Pelicans executive blasted the league over the lack of calls for Zion Williamson in the paint, now that the star big man will be out indefinitely with a broken finger....

Rangers are right about NHL player safety, so it’s time to dump Parros and hire Marc Savard
As it always is, the NHL is in a mess of its own making. Rarely do you get a team decrying a league’s discipline system, at least not in hockey. Gary Bettman rarely tolerates stepping out of line like the Rangers did yesterday when the news broke that the Department of Player Safety doesn’t even wan...

Rob Manfred is a weasel, part 708
I know that commissioners of every sport stopped being stewards of their sport and merely stooges for the owners long ago. Probably about the time MLB fired Fay Vincent to install one of its own, Bud Selig, and his dinosaur hands, windsock morality, and peabrain....