[killer_carlson]

Bettman doesn't understand Albertans. If he did - or his advisors did - he'd realize that rejecting the "expertise" of Easterners is fundamental to the Alberta identity.

He did this in Edmonton around the time Katz was pulling his Seattle meetings stunt. It backfired in Edmonton and isn't going well in Calgary.

That being said, Nenshi blew this. He could have tilted the scales heavily in the City's favour by attending the meeting (even if he posted the exact same tweet after the meeting). Nenshi is elected to be the City's representative. The majority of the City wants to have discussions on the arena. How those discussions end up is still undecided, but people want the discussions.

Instead of being the City's representative, Nenshi presents as a petulant know it all who is going to tell Calgarians what is important to them (aka, a Harper/Redford/Prentice/Notley on-high style of leadership). That doesn't work here.