Topics Covered By Gary Bettman At His Annual Media Conference At The ASG
from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,
Gary Bettman went hard on Canada and easy on Rocky Wirtz.
The NHL commissioner’s annual All-Star Weekend address was equal parts celebration (Look at all the young talent!), strategic challenge (Loosen your gathering restrictions, Canada!), and damage control.
While planes carrying some of the NHL’s brightest stars, most important investors, and chief decision-makers descended in Las Vegas earlier this week, Chicago Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz was giving them all something to gab about.
If you’re reading this, surely you’re one of the millions who viewed Wirtz’s embarrassing, jaw-dropping Succession-like clip from his club’s townhall.
The one in which he goes full Logan Roy, telling his own son, Danny, to hush while he berates a pair of reporters for daring to ask what the team is doing to prevent another Kyle Beach tragedy.
That Wirtz -- who also serves on the league’s executive board and wields great power -- since issued an apology to those reporters seems to suffice Bettman just fine.
No, there will be no reprimanding of the Blackhawks patriarch for what Bettman termed “an outburst.”
In fact, Bettman aggressively downplayed the tone-deaf rant, which had none other than Wayne Gretzky questioning whether parents of 18-year-old draftees should feel comfortable sending their sons under his watch.
continued (more topics covered)......
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