Bettman holds All-Star 'State of NHL' address

Jan 26, 2008 - 9:11 PM By Scott Erskine PA SportsTicker Hockey Editor

ATLANTA (Ticker) - Court was in session at Philips Arena on Saturday, and commissioner Gary Bettman handed out verdicts on several rumored topics.

In addition to announcing the 2008-09 season will start with two games apiece in Sweden and the Czech Republic, Bettman stated there was nothing new to report on the sale of the Tampa Bay Lightning and that the sale of the Minnesota Wild was undergoing the standard franchise review and approval process. But he did indicate some concern regarding the NHL's fan base.

"Of course, I would like our league to improve on our 92 percent of capacity for attendance league-wide," he said. "As we work toward that objective every minute of every day, I would love to increase TV viewership in the United States even more than it's been increasing. But we're finding new, additional ways to touch our fans, using digital media and the like. We view it as our No. 1 priority to find the best ways to connect with our fans."

While looking for better results in that regard, Bettman is pleased with the progress of the game three seasons after the disastrous lockout.

"We've come a long way since the loss of 2004-05," he said. "Franchises are much more stable from a business standpoint. ... The partnership between the league and the Players' Association is showing the most constructive signs that I can recall. This now enables us to move forward on ambitious, cooperative initiatives such as the Winter Classic and overseas games, and I think that's good for everybody - most importantly, our fans."

Even though the outdoor game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres at Ralph Wilson Stadium on New Year's Day was deemed a success, Bettman has no immediate plans to put forth a similar contest.

"While it was a great event, I think there are things we can do even better," he said. "I also think I don't want to tempt fate as much as we did in terms of the amount of time we left ourselves to build the rink.

"It's not something we want to overdo. If we're going to do it in the future, we want it to remain special. Lots and lots of clubs and places and stadiums have approached us, and we have not yet made any decisions. That's probably something we'll do over the next couple of months, taking into account a whole variety of factors."

The commissioner did not, however, completely rule out another outdoor event in the future.

"My anticipation is, we will do another one," Bettman said. "I can't tell you where or when, but I assure you we're not going to do too many. We want to keep them special because it was a very special day."

Another hot topic on everyone's mind was the rumored extending of the regular season from 82 to 84 games. While many of the All-Stars were in favor of instituting such a plan, Bettman does not believe an agreement is anywhere near the finalization stage.

"The issue is way too embryonic for it to be considered by the Board (of Governors) yet," he said. "The Players' Association has suggested that the players might be interested in providing two more regular-season games, which would give us a little bit more scheduling flexibility, in return for reducing the number of exhibition games.

"It's a proposal that we found interesting but has a lot of moving pieces to it - the number of preseason games that have been committed to for next season, what the right number of preseason games would be, how long training camp would be, which we just shortened in collective bargaining by a week already. So we have lots and lots of issues to talk about. ... It's not ready for prime-time consideration. But it's something that we will continue to talk to the Players' Association about."

The possibility of following the NBA's lead by holding the All-Star Game at a non-NHL site such as Las Vegas was bandied about but quickly squashed by Bettman.

"For us, I'm not sure that doing a neutral-site All-Star Game at this point makes any sense because lots and lots of our teams want the All-Star Game," he said. "We could probably award it for the next six years to NHL teams that are anxious to have it.

"I think from our standpoint, we would only go to a neutral site if, for whatever reasons, clubs decided that it was too much of an imposition to have the All-Star Game and, therefore, we needed to explore other options. That's not something that we're thinking about doing right now."