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no one will watch because of the fighting. Childish and booooooring.

Fighting comprises 1% of the game. I'll take it any day over the trash talking and thuggery of the NBA.

Exactly. Fighting is a small but necessary part of hockey. Most hockey fans understand this. Your initial comment that Bettman is an idiot is true. Last weekend NBC chose to air the TPC golf tournament, and the Caps/Pens game 5 was nowhere to be found. I can't believe we have a NY Lawyer running this league who isn't smart enough to sign a contract the allows the network carrying his games to do this, WITHOUT the possibility of taking the game to another network ahead of time, even back to Versus.

I'd love to see it, but what is Disney's incentive to sign back up for the NHL on ESPN? They cater to the hip-hop generation, and the NBA isn't going to be kicked out of prime time during the NBA playoffs for the NHL playoffs. I don't trust that Bettman is smart enough to expand TV viewership opportunities and television exposure.

Here's another example of Bettman's TV exposure idiocy. I'm in Omaha, 550+ miles and 8 hours away from Denver. A couple of years ago I went to order the Center Ice package so that I could get the Avs games after their owner backed out of Fox Sports RM and formed his own "Altitude" network. Guess what? Omaha is considered home team area for the Avs, so their games were blacked out on Center Ice subscriptions in Omaha. I'm closer to the NHL cities of St. Paul, St. Louis, and Chicago, not that those teams games should have been blacked out either. The only way to get the Avs games would have been to get a dish, which I didn't want to do. Oh, and neither of the 2 local cable companies carried Altitude.

I'd love to see Bettman replaced with a hockey guy - someone like Scotty Bowman or Sweet-Lou Lamoriello or Ken Holland (Detroit GM).

I'll take it any day over the trash talking and thuggery of the NBA

Hockey is just like basketball, except that men play hockey. :-)

I'll take it any day over the trash talking and thuggery of the NBA.
I agree with your description of the NBA, although trash talking has been part of sports since forever.
Ever read stories (or see documentaries) about MLB back in the days of Ruth, Ty Cobb, etc? Great stuff.