Gary Bettman Visiting Cornell

[evilnaturedrobot]

[quote Old Red][quote evilnaturedrobot]The clutching and grabbing that was curtailed post-lockout happened under Gary's watch.  Not to mention that many of us have never gotten over the fact that he's David Stern's man, and has never been a 'hockey guy.'[/quote]

Gary Bettman may be responsible for many things, but not "clutching and grabbing" in hockey, college, minor league or major league.  Go get a tape of any Islanders playoff game during the five Cup run or after.  Start with the 7th game of the 1985 Caps series, three overtimes of the Islanders hauling them down in the slot:  it looked like the Islanders had more Caps jersey fabric in their grasp than the Caps had on the backs.[/quote]

Is he respobcible for it.  Of course not.  Was it already happening before he got involved? yes.  Did he sit back and do nothing about it for nine years as scoring numbers continued to fall?  absolutely.  It took the work stoppage for the league to finally do something about the deminishing spectacle that they had ignored for years.