Ballsy Bettman, as stupid as everyone says?

I was reading the news paper today at work, and in the sports section,they were saying that the NHL had some of the best ratings in over 10 years for the Winter Classic. It even beat the broadcast of Gretzkys last game back in '99. In my opinion that speaks volumes. Especially being that it was played on the same day as all of the college football bowls. I'm willing to bet the ratings for the Winter Classic game would have been even higher if they were to broadcast it on a different day.

However I am glad that Bettman decided to put the game on New Years Day. I believe that was a ballsy move on his behalf. Instead of catering to the other bigger and more popular events , he probably said to himself, 'You know what, I'm going to put this on a HUGE college football game day and i bet we still would get great ratings', and sure enough they did.

Supposidly, there are a lot of people that thought it was stupid that the NHL refused to let the mother of sports channels,ESPN, broadcast the games exclusively on ESPN2. They inevidably got the channel, Versus, to broadcast it. There were people that said Bettman was an idiot and that ESPN would never want to put NHL games on there stations. I don't know if anyone knows this or not, but ESPN is talking with the league now and they're trying to get the NHL back on there network!

Not to mention after the lockout seasons, they introduced the shootout. I know some people still don't like the idea of a skill competition to determine the winner of a game. But lets face it, ending a competitive game such as hockey in a tie was not fun to watch. In my opinion, there is nothing more unappealing than a game ending in a tie. Put it this way, you pay all that money to get the tickets, park probably a mile away from the arena, get a beer or two and you don't even get to see a set winner at the end of the game!

Now I know many of you may HATE Bettman with a passion. But you have to admit, he made some good decisions as of lately. And slowly but surely he seems to be attracting new fans to the sport. Surely, even he can not please every person.But look at the facts. The NHL is doing a lot better than it was a few years ago. I think it's a pretty gutsy move to try and tweak the league around to make it better but any change for the better is good. So the next time someone starts to run their mouth about how bad Bettman is at doing his job, think about how the league has improved over the past few years, and just imagine how much better it could get.