SAN JOSE - Gary Bettman turned to face a gigantic TV screen inside a trendy restaurant on the Friday afternoon of All-Star weekend, and stared. Alone on stage, he watched the future and the past collide.
Playing was a presentation of the NHL's player and puck tracking system, the league's much-anticipated dive into the microchip technology realm. Tracking, which is being promoted heavily this month as the league's next big endeavor, will debut next season. Welcome to the future.
To demonstrate how far the NHL has come on the tech file, a clip of the famous Fox Sports glow puck ran as part of the video's intro. As if that nostalgic kick wasn't enough, a young Bettman flashed on the screen for a soundbite about the late-1990s broadcast experiment. A blast from the past.
In his 40s then, Bettman had the look of a pro sports executive who had the world in front of him. Contemporary Bettman's lost some hair, played a starring role in the second and third lockouts of his quarter-century tenure, and endured endless booing from fans everywhere. The pros far outweigh the cons, mind you. Now 66, he has a resume as diverse as it is long and, despite the eyebrow-raising timing, is a well-deserving Hockey Hall of Fame inductee.
With the game in tremendous shape and his birth certificate hinting it might be time to consider the idea of retiring sooner than later, the question was asked: Will you be slowing down in the near future, Mr. Commissioner?
“I haven’t given it any thought,” Bettman said at the tail end of a Q&A with reporters following the tracking presentation, joined on stage by his longtime right-hand man Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner.
"Anybody who knows me knows I don’t operate on timeframes like that. I love what I do. I feel energized every day. The owners seem to be pleased with the way the organization functions, and I suppose if any of that changes I might have to re-evaluate. But you’re going to have to put up with me for a bunch more.”
Whether he ends up working two, five, 10, or 15 more years, Bettman’s most certainly in the legacy-building phase of his career. He may at times be self-deprecating (Exhibit A: His Hall of Fame speech) and generally tries to avoid the spotlight whenever possible, yet there's unfinished business to attend to.
Specifically, there's one task that would elevate his legacy to bulletproof status among most hockey fans, media, and colleagues. The task: Avoiding another lockout.
Oddly enough, given the history of testy labor relations between the NHL's contingent of franchise owners and the NHL Players’ Association, it’s entirely plausible. If the vibe in Silicon Valley this weekend is any indication, it’s looking more likely than not that, for the first time in the Bettman era, we'll have labor peace.
While the current agreement doesn't expire until after the 2021-22 season, it can be terminated by either side this September, putting deadline pressure on the relationship. Usually, that means lockout - or, at this stage in the process, the icky feeling of a looming lockout. Not this time, apparently.
“We’re not looking for a fight,” is how Bettman framed the "cordial" ongoing collective bargaining. A few weeks earlier, during a visit to Seattle, he said something similar. “We’re exploring the possibility of whether we can bridge gaps early," Daly said, piggybacking on Bettman's message. "Earlier the better."
The NHLPA hasn’t exactly barked back with anything to discredit the league's message. "We’re able to have these discussions now without that tension," said Mathieu Schneider, special assistant to NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, "without any walls being build up." That doesn't mean walls won't be erected in the coming months, of course. However, it's an encouraging sign and a pleasant development for the hockey world.
The long and short of CBA talks moving forward: the ball appears to be in the players' court because the status quo is working just fine for the owners, who are turning record profits. Therefore, the union's plan of attack will set the tone. It's up to Fehr and the membership to determine if hot-button issues like escrow, hockey-related revenue, and Olympic participation are hills to die on (to steal a Daly phrase from the last lockout), medium-sized bones of contention, or mere annoyances.
Bettman, who assumed his position in 1993 after 12 years helping run the NBA, loves to brag about how the sport of hockey, and by extension the NHL, has never been better, more entertaining, more profitable. To be fair, he's not wrong. Skill is probably at an all-time high, goal-scoring is on the uptick, the sport is growing exponentially at the grassroots level in markets deemed "non-traditional" a decade or two ago, and franchise fees are skyrocketing.
When Bettman came on board, the 24-team league was worth roughly $400 million. Twenty-five years and eight teams (including Seattle) later, it's a $5-billion business. And though, as Schneider notes, "there's no question that the players have given back billions of dollars over the course of the past two negotiations," they still get a nice slice of the pie. Salaries are up, too.
The NHL also has a seemingly endless list of grow-the-game projects on the go, including: preseason and regular season games overseas, in both Europe and Asia; an environmental sustainability initiative called NHL Green, which is highlighted this week by the eco-friendly All-Star jerseys; a dedicated esports push, headlined by the NHL Gaming World Championship; a sports betting partnership with MGM Resorts; and real-time data collection and analysis a la the aforementioned player and puck tracking system.
To varying degrees, all of those areas of exploration will be attached to Bettman's legacy when he loses his fire for the gig and decides to step aside. He may not be the lead on every project, but the buck stops at the commissioner. It's the same dynamic for issues that have haunted the NHL. Bettman's the face of several franchise relocations, the withdrawal of NHL talent from the 2018 Olympics, the denial of CTE's link to hockey in the wake of a concussion settlement with former players, the lockouts of 1994-95, 2004-05, and 2012-13, and more.
Bettman's not terribly old by industry standards, with old boss David Stern, the former NBA commissioner, retiring at 71, and ex-MLB commissioner Bud Selig calling it quits at 80. But he won't be a spring chicken come 2022. If all goes according to script between now and September, and Bettman stays on long term, the union will be sitting across from a 69-year-old commissioner to negotiate a new CBA. Based on track record, there's no telling what the dynamic between the two sides might be then.
“We wouldn’t be where we are today if we didn’t have a system that corrected some of the ills in the past," Bettman said of previous lockouts. "We have stability, we have competitive balance and the game is able to grow. That’s good for everyone involved with the game.”
That's why this next stretch of talks could be Bettman's CBA swan song, the icing on the cake of a highly controversial yet highly successful run as the most powerful suit in hockey. He'll get booed no matter what - it's a time-tested tradition, after all - but the respect level might be raised and the narrative might change.
It could be a legacy sealer like no other, a way to go out on a high note, even if the retirement papers aren't filed immediately.
John Matisz is theScore's National Hockey Writer. You can find him on Twitter @matiszjohn.
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