Quote:
Originally Posted by GirlySports
It was like that from the start. Bettman threw away a money making summer tournament in 1996 to INTERRUPT the season to go to Nagano, Japan FOR FREE! And we can't say it was the owners, the owners never wanted to go, the players were excited. It was Bettman and that should be part of his failed legacy.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/16/sp...?pagewanted=1l |
Many of the owners very much wanted to go. Among the marching orders Bettman was given by the owners himself when he was hired, settling the Olympic question was high on the list.
You also forget that this is the early 90s when the deals were first reached, and a league that had operated for 75 years on a strong-owner-weak-president model. If the owners didn't want to go to the Olympics in 1998, there is zero Bettman could have done to force it upon them.