Gary Bettman

Gary Bettman is easily one of the most hated figures in sports, and yet that image is one Bettman seems to embrace. Every time Bettman presents himself at an event, whether it be to award the Stanley Cup or kick off the NHL entry draft, he is received with a chorus of boos, and yet he keeps that famous evil grin on his face.

Anybody seen Andrew Ladd around lately?

You'd definitely notice him, though you might not recognize him thanks to facial injuries sustained from a puck during a recent game against the Ottawa Senators. For his next game, Ladd is reportedly planning to don a visor for the first time

It's learning from mistakes that separates some from those who end up in those clever Darwin Awards books. Ladd appears to have heeded the lesson: pucks hurt.

Imagine a playoff where any team could face any other team in the Stanley Cup Final. Wouldn’t it be incredible to see the Penguins vs. the Capitals…or Montreal vs.

From the blue spotlight on FOX to Gary Thorne on ESPN, that is when the National Hockey League was at its brightest.

VERSUS and NBC have been horrible for the average hockey fan. Some people don’t get VERSUS yet almost all of the important playoff games are played on that network.

The Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins matched up in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Friday.

The deal is in the books. 10 years and a reported $2 billion over that span will keep the NHL television rights firmly within the NBC family.

By all objective measure, the NHL contract was paramount to keeping the Versus network alive.

Last night, once again, the NHL showed its inability to properly govern the game by calling a good goal in the Blackhawks questionable win over the St. Louis Blues at the United Center in Chicago. 

At the 7:52 mark of the second period, with the Blackhawks down by two goals, Hawk winger Marian Hossa (as shown on the video) kicked the puck toward the net, only to have the puck hit the goal post and take a somewhat ominous spin along the goal line to the other side of the net. 

Disclaimer: This is an opinion piece

By now we have all seen the Matt Cooke hit on New York Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh.

The NHL responded by handing out a minimum 14-game suspension (10 regular season games followed by up to seven games in the first round of the playoffs) to Cooke for what is widely regarded as one of the ugliest hits in all of hockey—the head shot.

The drums of relocation have sounded in the Southwest for two years now, and there still does not seem to be any kind of end in sight.

The talk of the Phoenix Coyotes relocating to Winnipeg is nothing new, but Gary Bettman and the NHL seem hell-bent on pushing the square peg into the round hole.

While some fans are quick to debase this issue into a peeing contest, the fact remains that this is a complex problem with many different factors to consider.

With struggling markets in the U.S., why not look to expand the NHL to Europe? 

For several seasons, the NHL has played regular season games at locations such as Finland, Germany, Sweden and the Czech Republic and has enjoyed much success. A record six teams began there 2010-2011 season overseas.

The NHL is very popular in these particular countries. The league's website gets more traffic from those countries than almost anywhere else outside North America. Thirty-percent of the NHL's players come from outside North America.