Advice to Bettman: Stay away from TV cameras

There are always many questions surrounding Gary Bettman's annual appearance during Hockey Night In Canada's playoff coverage. For example, there was the time he kept trying to grab interviewer Ron MacLean's hand, which made you wonder if he was trying to get his attention or steal his watch.

But the one that mystifies most is: Why does he do it?

Why does the NHL commissioner, who has all the television skills of an end table, continue to do interviews that serve only to make him look petulant, defensive, condescending and more like a cornered animal than a league executive?

Wednesday night's second-intermission session with Ron MacLean was yet another example of Bettman doing himself no favours. Now, MacLean will never be confused with Edward R. Murrow or Peter Mansbridge or even Larry King. And he certainly didn't do himself any good by opening the segment by crooning ``Happy Birthday" to the NHL boss. (At times, HNIC looks more like the theatre of the absurd than a hockey broadcast.)

But once he stopped singing, MacLean did ask some relevant questions and Bettman, as usual, didn't handle them very well. Still, he didn't look too bad until he started challenging MacLean's entire line of questioning on the issues of finances and franchise values.

"What I'm amazed, now that we've run the gamut of this, we've had a great season, hockey has been terrific, these playoffs are great, we're seeing a wonderful game — and you just want to tick off franchise after franchise?" he said. "What inside of you compels you to want to go in that direction? Because I don't believe the viewers are really that interested in the franchise status."

MacLean said he was representing the players' interests, not mentioning that maybe he should be representing the fans' concerns, but stayed on topic. Bettman then asked him where he got his information, accusing him of ``making this up."

MacLean didn't exactly sound credible when he said he got most of his information from Forbes magazine and the Sports Business Journal, but he did ask some tough questions and certainly got a reaction from his subject.

But the subject may want to consider lying low for a while, or at least learning how to handle a TV interview.

BIG NUMBERS: Wednesday's game drew 2.96 million viewers to CBC, an impressive audience even in this age of big sports ratings. That's about a million more than CBC drew last year, though the new ratings system has consistently produced much larger numbers. In the U.S., Versus followed Monday's 5.89-million audience on NBC by drawing 3.6 million viewers Wednesday. That was the largest hockey audience on a cable channel in eight years. NBC's 5.1 million average over two games is the highest in 13 years. So answer this: Why aren't all the final games on NBC? It seems odd to disrupt a pretty good run by sending viewers to Versus and losing 1.5 million of them in the process.

Comments

[Brett S]

Having different games of a series on different networks in an absolute joke, especially when one of those networks is always guaranteed to bring in a smaller audience.

[Steve]

I thought MacLean looked the bigger fool in that segment, and agreed when Bettman said the viewers probably weren't interested -- I sure wasn't, nothing new was going to be broken in those five minutes. Bettman the lawyer is way smarter than MacLean the babysitter, and it was kind of fun to watch the latter foundering under some aggressive cross examination.

[Patrick Plunkett]

Perhaps i heard wrong, but during one of Bettmans responses did he refer to Canadian dollars and real dollars?

[Josh]

@Patrick: That's been misinterpreted widely. He was referring to the economic type of "real dollars", which is to say, adjusted for inflation.

I'm no Bettman fan, but he deserves a break on that one.

[Gabriel]

Hahaha

I laugh. Ooooh the laughter.

Because, TSN carries games in canada that CBC would otherwise provide to the masses(very, very similar to what you're arguing for, Chris). An interesting difference is, the vast majority of people in the US who watch NBC don't want to watch hockey(dissimilar from the CBC in that way), so maybe they should be excused for seeking a bigger market share. Here's a suggestion; take a look at NBC's Nielson ratings for the same time that the game was on on Versus. Maybe compare it to the other numbers you have.

But people croon and cry over that a cable channel (that isn't even ALLOWED to broadcast directly in Canada) isn't carrying hockey, or is, or, whatever.

Meanwhile, the game can be watched by Americans(for free!!!) at CBC.CA.

Neat.

[Kevin]

Chris, in response to your article in today's paper I'm a little put off. Wilner feels belittled by Gaston?? I dont think I've ever listened to a call-in segment on the Jays post game show where Wilner didn't talk down to everyone who was bored enough to debate with that brick wall. He should take some of his own advise to Gaston and realize that he is maybe the most condescending personalities on the Fan. I bleed the Jays, but find myself forced to turn off the post game wrap up simply because Wilner is so terrible.

I am normally one to defend any reporter with the stones to ask difficult questions, but in Wilner's case, it was nice to have the weekend off from his tired routine.