Results tagged “garybettman”

With much-maligned NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in the crowd, the Toronto Maple Leafs dropped the puck on the 2007-08 season at the Air Canada Centre last night. He was probably unable to catch a glimpse of a homemade sign halfway across the arena that read: “Bettman: ruining the NHL since 1993.”

Following the success of gay cowboy epic Brokeback Mountain, it was inevitable that there would be more films about other traditionally uber-hetero occupations considered from a queer POV, and Hollywood desks must have been groaning under stacks of scripts about gay race car drivers, Navy SEALs, and oil patch roughnecks.

Speaking last week to the New York Times, Maple Leaf Tie Domi hinted at toppling the current NHLPA and league administration. The Quizno's spokesman doesn't like the way Player's boss Bob Goodenow or NHL commish Gary Bettman have handled the current lock-out situation. But unlike the average TSN talking head, Domers went so far as to suggest that the two administrators be replaced. (This is a better alternative to replacing players, although Mr. Domi could have been replaced three seasons ago.) Here is what the large-headed tough guy said:

"Target="new">Vince Carter’s resurgence and this weekends’ NBA All-star game.

One of the true misfortunes of living in our great city is our reliance on the National Hockey League as our sporting lifeline. Day-in, day-out we Torontonians are faced with countless hours of lockout coverage with every union meeting given more press than a Presidential Address.

There was a fair share of drama in the sporting world yesterday:

Even with the Union offering a 24 per cent rollback, current salaries would account for 56.6 per cent of league’s revenue generated this past season. What the NHL proposed yesterday was a capped 54 percent of revenues directed to player salaries, thus providing cost certainty to its owners. This means that the 2004-05 maximum team salary would be $38.6 million (the world deals in USD, and so do we). This figure is somewhat twenty million dollars less than the Maple Leafs paid the high flying Robert Reichel, Trevor Kidd and other such losers in 03-04.

It could be just hours or minutes before we find out that the National Hockey League’s thirty participants will be officially boarding up their doors for the 2004-2005 season. Without suspense due to NHL Vice President Bill Daly’s leaked memo to the league owners on Monday afternoon, Gary Bettman is set to tell the player’s union that last Thursday's proposal is NOT what they had in mind.