Let’s talk about Gary Bettman’s time as NHL commissioner

If there’s a sports figure anyone could bet on being polarizing, Gary Bettman is definitely one of them. 

Earlier this year, the NHL announced it is preparing for Bettman, who is 72, to retire from his position as commissioner in the next couple of years. Whether Bettman ends up leaving behind a legacy that will be praised or criticized is up for debate. 

While what Bettman has done for the NHL will be looked at through a positive lens, there isn’t much of an argument to say his legacy is memorable — for better or worse. 

Something I’d like to start off with is Bettman’s most infamous action during his tenure — the NHL lockouts. Not one, not two, but three different lockouts took place during Bettman’s time as the commissioner. 

A crazy fact is the first NHL lockout occurred during Bettman’s second season holding the position in 1994-95. An even crazier fact is Bettman let the second lockout cancel the entire 2004-05 season, leading to a draft lottery for the 2005 NHL entry draft. 

These were without a doubt Bettman’s most atrocious actions as NHL commissioner. Robbing players and fans of roughly two seasons worth of hockey is a bad choice on many fronts. 

With hockey being heavily associated with Canada, seeing Bettman take hockey away from the country is something I want to point out as well. 

When Bettman took over as the commissioner, Canada had eight teams. Alongside the Canucks, Flames, Oilers, Maple Leafs, Senators, and Canadiens, there were also the Quebec Nordiques and the previous iterations of the Winnipeg Jets. 

Over time though, the Nordiques would be relocated to Colorado and become the Avalanche, and the previous version of the Jets would become the Phoenix Coyotes. The Coyotes later moved to Arizona before relocating to Utah. Now they are known as just the Utah Hockey Club, but that’s a whole other story.

At the very least, the Winnipeg Jets came back into the NHL during the 2011-12 season, but that was after a failed attempt at expanding to Atlanta with the Thrashers. 

However, there are some positives to come out of Bettman’s time as commissioner, one of which was letting NHL players compete in the Winter Olympics since 1998. Well, that was until the NHL pulled out of these events for the 2018 and 2022 Olympic Games. 

Seeing some of the world’s best players represent their countries with national pride on the line has led to some fun clashes throughout the years. Obviously, as a Canadian, who could forget about Sidney Crosby’s golden goal from the 2010 Winter Olympics, in Vancouver no less. I still remember waking up around 4:00 am to watch the 2014 gold medal game between Canada and Sweden live. 

Going back to Bettman expanding the league, when he took over, there were 24 teams in the NHL. Since then, that number has risen to 32, with the Seattle Kraken as one of the most recent to join the league. 

While the road to increasing the size of the league hasn’t been the smoothest, with a handful of relocations taking place as well, I can’t deny having more teams has helped the league. 

Overall, I’d say Bettman has hurt the NHL, more often than not from what I’ve seen as a hockey fan. However, I can’t deny he’s also helped the league make some progress in growing the game of hockey. I can only hope the next commissioner can and will do better than what Bettman has done.