[Resolute 14]

If it helps, my level of annoyance towards you isn't petty, but rather was formed from reading a large body of your work and finding it... lacking. Case in point, that exact reply. It is funny how your comments always imply that Bettman basically runs the league like a dictator, but when I challenge that assertion, you begin to hum and haw about how "it isn't obvious" and we aren't privy to what is actually going on.

Now, sport is an emotional thing. We're all passionate about the game and our team, and that emotional attachment will show in most cases. But seriously dude, sometimes you do have to detach that emotion, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the business side of things.

As an emotional sports fan, I would have killed to see Balsillie take the team to Hamilton against Toronto's will, simply because it would have been so damned entertaining. But logically, I understand why the league fought against it and I understand why the league is still working to find a buyer in Phoenix. I don't find value in parroting the same emotional argument over and over again. I like to look at what is being said, done and proposed and try to analyze it. It makes for a better debate.

Too much of this debate is dominated by an opinion that can be summarily dismissed as the blatherings of butthurt Canadians still pissed off at how Bettman personally "stole" their teams. It's not logical, and parroted repeatedly, is irritating. Everything you post in this thread has a common theme: You have locked yourself into an opinion that everything Bettman does is wrong, and everything that has happened in Phoenix is Bettman's doing. As such, you take any argument and twist it to suit that conclusion. You and I clash because I don't look at this with such preconceptions. I see what the landscape is and try to judge each new twist on its merits. That's why I believe now that the Coyotes are done after this season where I didn't this time last year. Because the situation changes, and that changes the predicted outcome.