Gary Bettman Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Life after greatness: What happens when a sport loses its GOAT?
There’s no denying that GOATs are great for a sport when they’re still active. Michael Jordan, Tony Hawk, and other best-to-ever-do-its pushed their sports to popularity not seen since, but led to fans coming down off a trip so perfect that they were left fiending for the next fix of greatness perso...
What does the NHL have to gain by readmitting Joel Quenneville to the league?
It wasn’t hard to imagine the NHL getting back to this point. There are a couple teams in big markets — i.e. New York and Toronto — that have fallen under the dreaded canopy of “need to learn how to win in the playoffs.” There’s a feeling out there that these teams’ stars lack some sort of killer in...
Where are the Arizona Coyotes going?
The only thing more exciting to hockey fans than a player in free agency is an entire franchise going into free agency, which it now feels like the Arizona Coyotes have just done. And they certainly don’t mind treading all over the feelings of whatever Coyotes fans are left. It’s a cruel world, but ...
Tempe voters put an end to the Arizona/Glendale/Phoenix Coyotes sideshow
It was a bad idea from the start. When Gary Bettman enacted his Great Southern Strategy for the NHL, the original Winnipeg Jets, and the Phoenix area never quite fit into it. Phoenix wasn’t a captive market like Tampa or Nashville were, with the hockey teams being the only games in town during the w...
The Chicago Blackhawks, the worst team you know, got all the luck
Tanking isn’t a plan, at least in leagues with a lottery. It’s a wager. A GM or front office or owner isn’t putting up money, other than the lack of tickets and merch they’ll sell while their team is shit. They’re putting up a season or many of complete haplessness with rosters devoid of useful play...
In the battle of COVID vs. sports, evil vs. entertainment, sports won
Now that COVID is officially over, and everyone can throw their masks in the trash, (Is that how this works?), it feels like a good time to declare that sports beat COVID. If you’re wondering who was keeping score, I was, and sports handily outlasted the virus — that killed very few, if any, athlete...
Brian Burke is the biggest fraud in the NHL
Before we pivot later today to the NHL Playoffs, we can kick a little more dirt on the regular season, and specifically, the Pittsburgh Penguins. After missing the playoffs for the first time since before the Obama administration, the Penguins fired GM Ron Hextall — rumored to be an inside agent sen...
The NHL’s Pride jersey problem slips into the comedic
The NHL got more Pride Night bullshit last night courtesy of the Staal brothers on the Panthers, Eric and Marc. I’d try and provide some commentary, but sometimes, you just can’t beat reality:...
If only the NHL had a leader
It is yelling at the rain to lament that commissioners in any league aren’t stewards of the sport anymore. Look at Roger Goodell’s face and wonder if you’d trust that man to steer a fucking tricycle. But there comes a point where the commissioner is the only one who can steer a league out of a skid ...
Let’s find a way the Boston Bruins might lose in the playoffs, if there is one
While Gary Bettman might not think there’s anything wrong with the current playoff system (he’s wrong!), it is pretty clear that this set-up has robbed March and the first half of April of most of its drama. We’re basically down to seeing whether a wheezing Penguins team (whoops!) can keep their lun...
The NBA is trying to jam the Elam Ending into a square hole
The Elam Ending has become NBA corporate jargon to throw out there as a salve for everything. All-Star Game lost its appeal? Elam Ending fixes that. Low ratings? ELAM ENDING! Superstars sitting out games? E-LAM END-ING!!! The latest rumored implementation of “Playing to a number” comes as a fix for ...
Of course the NHL makes teams wear St. Patrick’s Day jerseys
In the NHL’s current procession into the gutter, the New York Islanders were the latest to announce that they wouldn’t be using rainbow jerseys or stick tape for their Pride Night. While odious on the surface, digging a little deeper it gets…slightly less odious. The Islanders have never done so, th...
The NHL isn’t for you
Once the NHL let one through the door, it stood to reason that another would follow. After the Flyers’ Ivan Provorov refused to wear their Pride Night jerseys in warmups, and their coach John Tortorella refused to admonish him in any way (nor did the official partner of the NHL in these matters, the...
L.A. Kings, Pacific Division prove why overtime and the shootout are a plague upon society
The idea that the NHL regular season is just an 82-game preseason is maybe the last vestige of a time when 16 of the then-21 teams made the playoffs. These days, when exactly half the teams are culled, some genuinely decent teams don’t make it. Teams like the Knights last year can rack up over 90 po...
What does You Can Play actually do?
The thing that organizations like the Philadelphia Flyers, or the NHL, or the You Can Play Project, is that the stories they hope will just go away never do in the timeframe they’re counting on. They continue to fester, and everyone’s inaction on it only prolongs this. The Flyers and their coach, Jo...
![Ivan Provorov, John Tortorella once again show that hockey can’t move forward [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/e5c7510945e9755bf115def070b35df0.jpg)
Ivan Provorov, John Tortorella once again show that hockey can’t move forward [Updated]
This is becoming, sadly and infuriatingly, a familiar story in sports. The NHL wants you to believe that “hockey is for everyone,” except that it never seems to filter down to anyone in the game below the tagline....
A compilation of the most notorious con artists in sports
George Santos, Anthony Devolder, or whatever identity he’s assumed by the time this is published, pulled off one of the most daring cons in U.S. history during the midterm election cycle. In an era of con artists exploring extreme lengths to swindle their way into office, Santos faking a resume, spe...
Bruins get a finger in the wind and then jammed in their own eye
As far as public statements go, this one rings pretty hollow:...
Mullett Arena is somehow dumber than you’d imagine something called Mullett Arena could be
I’m one of many hockey observers that Coyotes fans, whoever they may be, claim to have an agenda at all times against the Yotes. And on some level, it’s fair, because it is hypocritical to talk often at length about the place teams have for fans in their lives and the public trust that they really a...
We found something sports-related that Mike Trout can’t do
Mike Trout being the worst commissioner in sports is not the development I expected from 2022. On the field, the Los Angeles Angels star is finally attaining similar levels of individual and team success. The Angels are competing for the American League Wild Card, their pitching is much-improved and...