Time to go Gary.

If you scroll through the posts I've done on this blog, you'll find that I'm a fan of just about anything were two teams compete and a winner is crowned. Hell, I even watch NASCAR, Golf and Tennis out of the corner of my eye, enough to know what's going on. So, I'm not one of these people who says a sport has to draw huge ratings to be good, just the opposite in fact. I often think the sports that people overlook are more enjoyable to watch. WNBA, for example is a much more pure version of basketball they you will see in the NBA.

Likewise, I think Hockey is a great sport to watch, if you can find it. Gary Bettman took over as Commissioner of the NHL in 1993, and within his first year he had the thrill of the Rangers winning the cup. Since then there have been other thrilling things happen on the ice, but fewer and fewer people have seen them. Four teams have gone bankrupt, and countless fans have lost their teams to warm weather cites in America. Two labor stoppages have driven casual fans away from the game leaving only the true, hard core fans to watch in person and on TV. But, this year, the Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche failed to sell out their home opener, which is unacceptable.

Gary Bettman has to go, and someone needs to come in and totally restructure the NHL. The League should be split into two levels, a top flight group of 16 who will play for the Stanley Cup, and a second tier group of 14 who play for, oh lets call it the Gretzky Cup. With 16 teams to focus on, the level of interest will be higher for the "Average Fan" and they might start watching Hockey again. For teams in the second tier, they will still have local TV deals and hopefully begin to cultivate an audience that they can take with them, should they win the Gretzky Cup and get to play in the Top Flight division the next year.