As a fan, I wouldn’t say that 2 or 3 lockouts and a cancelled season is anything to be proud of. It’s only due to the insane love of the game that hockey fans have that the league survived, nothing that Gary did. Are the owners happy? Yes. Are the majority of the fans? Not really, but we put up with it, again due to the love of the game. As for scandals, there have been too many to mention under his leadership, it’s astounding how he just brushes them off, knowing that the next one will soon make everyone stop talking about the current one. And don’t kid yourself, everything from refs to board ads has his rubber stamp on it. Great commission for the owners, crappy for the fans. Been that way his whole tenure.
Every major league has had lockouts, it's the cost of doing business in modern sports. The NHL had the downside of a particularly acrimonious relationship with it's players from the 80s and 90s due to how corrupt and poorly run the league was prior to Bettman being hired.
Yes, that’s very nice and all for them but the product itself has suffered for the reasons you’ve mentioned and in turn the fans suffer. The parity is forced and a parody as well. Star players get the short end of the stick so pluggers can look good and player safety is an absolute joke. There’s a reason the league, despite “massive success” is still viewed as a tertiary league in most markets, and it’s because the product is inconsistent garbage with little to recommend to outside of “die hards”.
Of course parity is forced, that was the point of the CBA. As for a being a parody and having suffering fans, would you prefer to move back to the NBA model of the big market teams and the small market teams that will never be able to compete? Would you prefer the Oilers go back to being a feeder team to Toronto and New York, and losing every year in the first round of the playoffs to a team with double your favorite team's payroll?
The league will always be a tertiary league for the simple reason that it's a cold weather sport that expensive to participate in. A significant portion of the people living on this continent will never put on skates, own a hockey stick, see a hockey rink, or even see snow in the winter. It's why things like Football, Basketball and Soccer will always have a huge built-in followings in comparison to hockey, they simply have a much lower barriers to participate. That's not really something anyone who is running the league can control.
Star players always got the short end of the stick in the NHL too. Just now the extra attention they get from opponents is a bit of clutch and grab and a bit inconsistent reffing, prior to Bettman the star players had to face violent assaults and routine attempts to injure.
