Quote:
Originally Posted by RoadGame
I know some are defending Bettman for growing the business, etc. but I once attended a meeting at the invitation of a STH at which Bettman addressed a group of about 100 Flames fans and he was so incredibly sarcastic and disrespectful the entire time I couldn't believe it. It was a long time ago so this wasn't a verbatim quote exactly but one exchange went something like this:
STH asking a question respectfully - might have been about Oilers' draft streak or teams' role in paying for new arenas
GB cuts STH off mid-question, says "if you can tell me [fact related to question] I'll give you a cookie"
STH on the backfoot, guesses at the answer before trying to politely return to his question
GB cuts STH off again "no coooookie for yoooou... next question"
it went on an on like that. GB is a donkey.
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I'm willing to bet the question was not a smart one, and "not verbatim" is a bit of an understatement. One of the things I liked about Bettman was that he didn't suffer fools gladly. You knew when he thought a question was dumb, because it usually was.
I have some criticisms around CTE. That to me is far bigger of an issue than personality stuff, or what was and wasn't obtained in contract negotiations. I think there are legit concerns around US v Canadian teams as far as competition goes for players, but some of those are completely out of league control (not taxes -I think the cap could be adjusted to consider that factor).